Bulletin No. 248 - Results of Seven Years of Egg-Laying Contests

The Utah Intermountain Egg-Laying Contests were begun on November 1, 1924, and continued until October 23, 1931. Up until this time the interest in poultry-breeding for egg production in this intermountain section was extremely limited; furthermore, there were few flocks on which trap nest and pedigree breeding records were kept. The primary object in conducting these contests was to stimulate an interest in the breeding of better poultry. An egg-laying contest makes it possible for the poultry raiser, trying to get started in poultry-breedng work on a limited scale, to obtain accurate individual egg records of some of his pullets and to check their producing ability with pullets from other flocks when kept under the same conditions of feeding, housing, and management. By this means a poultry breeder should be able to easily determine whether to continue using his present flock or to dispose of them and select better birds for his breeding pens