The great majority of people make no selection of hens from which to hatch their stock.  The eggs of the whole flock are kept together and when eggs are desired for hatching they are selected from a general basket.  It has been assumed, and is shown by trap-nest records, that eggs thus selected in the spring of the year are from the poorer, rather than from the better layers.  This is because hens that have not been laying during the winter will lay very heavily during the spring season.  Many breeders have attempted to pick out the good layers by the appearance of the hens.  Before the advent of the trap-nest the “egg type” of hen was believed to be a positive indication of a good layer.  The “egg type” hen had slender neck, small head, long, deep body of a wedge shape.  Various “systems” founded on these or other “signs” have been sold for fancy prices to people who were easily separated from their money.  Trap-nest records show such systems to be on a par with the lunar guidance in agricultural operations.

I might remark here that the determination of sex by the shape of the egg or similar methods, is in a like category.  Science finds no proof of such theories.

A few methods of selecting the layers have been suggested which, while far from absolute, are of some significance and are well worth noting.  The hen that sits upon the roost while other hens are out foraging, is probably a drone.  The excessively fat or the excessively lean hens are not likely to be layers.  It would naturally be supposed that the active laying hen would be the last one to go to roost at night.  At the Kansas Experiment Station, the writer made observations upon the order in which the hens went to roost, and the above assumption was found in the majority of cases to be correct.

A still better scheme of selecting layers is the practice of picking out the thrifty, quickly maturing pullets when they first begin to lay in the fall season.  At the Maine Experiment Station, such a selection gave a flock of layers which averaged about one hundred and eighty eggs, when the remainder of the flock yielded only one hundred and forty.

Trap-nests devised to catch the hen that lays the egg are numerous in the market.  A trap-nest to be successful, must not only catch the hen that lays, but must prevent the entrance of the other hens.

The more trap-nests that are provided, the less often they will require attention, but the more often the nests are attended the better for the comfort of the hens.

The use of trap-nests is expensive and cannot be recommended for the poultryman who must make every hour of time put on his chickens yield him an immediate income.  Fanciers and Experiment Stations can well afford to use trap-nests and must, indeed, use them both for breeding for egg production, and also for determining the hen that laid the egg when full pedigrees are desired in other breeding work.

A scheme that has sometimes been used in the place of trap-nests, is a system of small compartments, in each of which one hen is kept.  Such a scheme does not seem feasible on a large scale, but for breeders wishing to keep the records of a small number of hens, it is all right.  Because of its cost, this system is wholly out of the question, except for a man following breeding as a hobby and who cannot devote himself during the day to the care of trap-nests.