POULTRY EXPERIMENTS. ' ^7 



COST OE PULLETS RAISED FOR LAYERS. 



Last season 2,000 pullets were raised for layers and the 

 following materials were used in producing each one : 



28 pounds of grain, meal and scrap, costing. ... 44.5 cents. 



Ya, " cracked bone 1.5 



Yz " oyster shell 25 



234 " Mica Crystal Grit i .25 



y^ " charcoal .5 



i^ pints of oil ' 2.5 



2 eggs ..." 4.0 



54.5 cents. 



Before they were moved into winter quarters, many of them 

 were laying in the brooder houses, and the eggs from them at 

 that time had sold for a hundred dollars. 



Feeding the Hens. 



For many years warm mashes made from mixtures of diflfer- 

 ent meals, sometimes with the addition of cooked vegetables, 

 were given to the hens every morning during the winter season 

 and in warm weather mashes of similar composition but mixed 

 with cold water were fed. The hens seemed to like mashes 

 made in this way better than anything except corn, and if fed 

 anywhere near enough to satisfy their appetites, they would load 

 themselves with food and then sit down in idleness during the 

 early part of the day. They were not willing to scratch in the 

 floor litter for the wheat, oats and cracked corn that had been 

 buried there for them. 



The losses of hens from what appeared to be the system of 

 feeding, caused the change of the time of feeding the mash, from 

 morning until near night, and giving the cracked corn, wheat 

 and oats, in the litter, in the morning and near noon. 



These changes resulted in the better health and productiveness 

 of the birds, but the crowding for the mash at feeding time and 

 the hurried filling of their crops to repletion even near bed time, 

 did not argue for the best. 



Several dififerent plans of feeding were compared by testing 

 them for a year and finally the moist mash was abandoned 

 altogether. The present system of feeding has been practiced 



