Rex Addison's Genealogy Page

This is a picture of Larou gathering eggs in his chicken house. He patented his method of recording the number of eggs each chicken laid. There were two rows of cages, about five to six feet off the ground, the hens went into a night. Every day he would walk between the rows of cages and when a chicken stopped laying eggs he removed that chicken, dressed it, and sold the hen to neighbors who cooked and ate them. He put up a board running on the lower front edge of the cages. He put a chart on the the board, in front of each cage that had an open calendar on it. He made a harness he hung over his shoulders with a basket hanging in the middle in front of him , This harness hung on roller that rolled on the top edge of the board in front of the cages. As he walked in front of the cages he rolled his basket, reached and picked up the eggs from each side and put them in his basket. As he reached for the egg he bumped the handle with his elbow which made a mark on the the calendar. By watching the chart he could tell when the hen quit laying eggs. You can see his patent here.