Poultry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1030, 27 November 1891, Page 28

Poultry.

EGGS BY WEIGHT. Until the time arrives, says Mr P. H. Jacobs in the Philadelphia Free Press, when eggs are sold by weigh, both the poultry-men and the consumers will be cheated. The consumer who buys his eggs by the dozen never pays the same price. " He has the advantage to-day, and loses it to-morrow. When the prices paid are based on weight the sales can be as easily made as with potatoes, which are now sold by weight when sales are made wholesale, though retail purchasers often pay dearly for allowing deliveries based upon bushel measures that have slippery bottoms, or in which the articles are ‘ artistically arranged,’ with a view of filling the measure with the fewest potatoes. But the poultryman is more interested in selling his eggs by weight than is the consumer. It takes more food to produce a large egg than a small one ; hence the large egg costs more, and should sell for more, but our old and time-honoured custom makes no difference between a dozen large eggs and a dozen small ones. The present custom leads to sending eggs to market without regard to uniformity, the eggs of the bantam and the guinea fowl assisting in filling out the quota of one dozen. When eggs are sold by weight the large ones will be selected, all eggs will be assorted, and the quotations be given for large, medium, and small, per pound, and all will be sent to market in a more attractive condition than now.

It is an injustice to the hen to sell eggs by the dozen. Some hens will produce eggs that weigh eight to the pound, while other hens will equal or exceed ten to the pound. The hen that lays 140 eggs a vear, the eggs weighing ten eggs to the pound, is placed high up on the list as a most excellent producer of eggs, and will be selected as a producer in preference to the hen that lays only 120 eggs, weighing eight to the pound. Yet the. hen laying the smaller number of eggs will have produced a heavier weight of eggs than the apparently more prolific hen, but she gets no credit for it, because her eggs are sold by the dozen instead of by weight. . If eggs were sold by weight, the hen laying the larger eggs would be more profitable han the ether. The breeds would be more in demand if eggs were sold by weight: The Black Spanish, the Houdan, and the Minorca breeds, that are excellent layers of lar"e eggs, would he wanted. Quite a revolution would result in the breeding of hens for egg production, just as weighing the milk advanced the claims of some breeds of cattle. When it is stated that eggs have been exhibited that weighed six to the pound, it is plain that a hen that lays 120 such eggs performs an enormous work compared with the majority of hens on the farm. All hens that lay small eggs would be culled out of tlie flocks, thus gradually increasing the size of the eggs, and bringing them to a greater degree of uniformity. There may be some hens in a flock that lay more eggs than others, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish such hens, but it is not so difficult to pick out the hens that lay large eggs. It would also lead ty the breeding of better males, as only the large eggs would be used for hatching the chicks, with a view to improvement, and this improvement will be extended to the jnales, just as bulls from well-known

flutter-pi 'oducers are used as sires instead of those fi'om ordinary cows. The cost will be equalised, and a more complete record of the expenses can be kept. The farmer will then undertake to learn how many pounds of food is required to produce one pound of eggs, and he will pay his attention to those hens that produce the' greatest weight at the least cost. As long as eggs are sold by the dozen the fanoa.er and poultryman will not be able to arrive at any facts in regard to the real cost of the eggs, and it is safe to assert that the amount of profit cannot be estimated, for calculations for to-day will not apply to-morrow>