1907.] POULTRY DISEASES. 39 



Other plants, and it is finally spread over the whole country. 

 Those things sometimes happen, but not often. 



Mr. Graham has said that perhaps you would be interested 

 in the way I feed my birds. My feeding methods are not fixed. 

 I have fed about every ration that ever was proposed, and for 

 the last two years I have not had time to pay any attention to 

 feeding to amount to anything. I have simply followed prac- 

 tically the time-honored custom that was adopted by most all 

 practical poultry men, that of keeping food before the fowls 

 all the time. I do not feed anything but dry grain, usually 

 wheat when it is cheap enough, and hulled corn. When I do 

 not feed wheat I use either oats or barley. They always get 

 corn, and they get pretty close to fifty per cent. corn. In 

 addition to that they get beef scrap, and they also have grits, 

 oyster shells and charcoal. The charcoal, to my mind, is a 

 very necessary item. You can abuse hens almost indefinitely as 

 to food, you can throw them almost any old thing, but if you 

 feed them charcoal they will not get much bowel trouble. That 

 is one of the things to look out for. If you are not careful, 

 you are liable to get it anywhere, no matter whether you are 

 running a fresh air plant or not. The proportions of grain 

 are not fixed. I simply go around and fill up my feed hoppers 

 when I have time, once or twice a week, according as the fowls 

 use it, and they are given cold water once a day. Under that 

 treatment my fowls give me a good yield, and the eggs hatch 

 well, and the hens are fat. I do not believe that any hen will 

 make good eggs, or lay good fertile eggs, unless she is reason- 

 ably comfortable and fat. I do not believe in these lean, old, 

 lanky range hens to make eggs, or to make strong chickens. 

 Now we do not get any phenomenal hatches. We do not hatch 

 at my place ninety-five per cent, or one hundred per cent., but 

 we do figure on getting about fifty chicks from every hundred 

 eggs put into the machine, and for home-grown stufi: we 

 figure on not over five per cent, of mortality, and frequently not 

 over two per cent. This last season the mortality for home- 

 grown chicks was less than two per cent. 



Eggs from outside will give you trouble, and right there I 

 want to say a word about handling your eggs for hatching. 

 There is where a whole lot of trouble comes in. The stock 

 may be all right. It should be all right. Some people, how- 

 ever, put their eggs for hatching alongside of the kitchen 



