No. 7. DErARTMENT OF AGRlCULTUin:. 2(J9 



The importance of green grass for growing ehix every day from 

 the first feed is not properly appreciated. The food for the grow- 

 ing chicle must be highly digestible and contain but little crude 

 fiber and must furnish the elements required for growth. For this 

 reason we use chieliy cracked or pealed corn, beef scrap and a little 

 coarse wheat bran with plenty of green grass and some raw potato. 

 That fool idea of our grandmother that chix can be artilicially 

 reared successfully only in small Hocks must be abandoned if we 

 get the cost of renewing the flocks down to minimum. For several 

 years we have had excellent success with two hundred under one 

 hover, and this season are trying four hundred and fifty more under 

 c^ne hover in an eight by ten portable house. We use all portable 

 brooder houses that the chicks may each year be reared on clean 



land. 



We deem it liighly advisable to have the chix reared on about 

 the same foodstuffs which they will receive when nmture. We are 

 sure that better results can be received. Of course we vary the 

 proportions to suit the varying needs of the birds at various stages. 

 After years of close study of the science and practice of feeding and 

 the science of animal nutrition and its application to poultry feed- 

 ing we are at last able to get the whole thing into very simi)le 

 form, and yet embody all that science has found out, using an 

 economical ration and getting results. There are three things thaf 

 are absolutely necessary to the economic production of eggs on tlie 

 farm, especially in a large way: Namely, open air colony houses 

 on free range and a feed conij^sed of corn, beef scrap and oysfer 

 shells. These factors must all be used in combination. We can- 

 not expect results by ignoring one or more of them. 



The Kansas Experiment Station found the above combiuatiun 

 to produce eggs most economically and it is in ])erfect accord with 

 our experience. At present we are using a little coarse wheat bran 

 mixed with the dried beef scrap. I am not at all convinced that 

 £! variety of expensive foodstuffs is necessary with the fowls on free 

 range. In fact ray experience is to the contrary. Neither am 1 

 persuaded that laying hens need very much exercise under the above 

 conditions. Probably I am like Josh Billings in that, ''I know a 

 whole lot that isn't so." 



Some years ago when Prof. Brooks, of Massachusetts Station, 

 made the statement that for best results in feeding for eggs we 

 must eliminate a large part of the crude fiber from the foodstufis, 

 many would-be poultry experts were not inclined to accept the 

 Professor's statement, which were based upon a lot of original iuves 

 tigation and experiment. I am fully convinced that Prof. Brooks 

 was right. The results at the Kansas Station are further proof to 

 the point. In a ration of corn and beef scrap and the grass aud 

 clover from the range, we have a ration with near the minimum 

 of crude fiber, speaking from the practical standpoint: Eeducing 

 the crude fiber means a more highly digestible ration. 



In every egg produced we have coming together two of the most 

 exhaustive processes in nature — the secretive and the reproductive. 

 It is one of the highest laws of nature that any animal will sacrifice 

 her vigor or even her life if need be to produce a i)erfect offspring. 

 This law is necessary to the perpetuation of species under the ad- 

 verse conditions sometimes prevailing in the United States. It is 



