Individuality of Pullets in Balancing the Ration

FOR the past seven years the experimental pullet flock at the Massachusetts State College has been hopper fed (free choice) both grain and mash. The flock each fall has numbered approximately 750 birds divided into three pens of 250 pullets each. Each year the hatching season (weekly hatches) ranged from the last of March to the middle of May, a period of eight weeks, and the birds were segregated according to age—house no. 1 containing the oldest; house no. 2 the intermediate, and house no. 3 the youngest. During the breeding season a number of pullets were removed from the houses and returned at the close. The offspring from eight breeding projects was quite equally distributed in the three pens. Incidentally, the production-bred group in 1931–32, averaged 238 eggs and the mortality was 18 percent. Separate open hoppers containing mash, whole corn, and whole oats, respectively, were constantly before . . .