1907.] TWENTY years' EXPERIENCE AS A POULTRYMAN, 53 



understand, of getting pullets as layers. That is what the 

 poultry business is conducted for in our section entirely, — with 

 the idea of making eggs. Of course, we dispose of our sur- 

 plus cockerels, but that is the main point. Now these chickens, 

 as I say, are placed in these little coops, that I have just men- 

 tioned, with the hen, and inside of each little coop I take a 

 cracker box, which is about a foot by eighteen inches, 1 

 should say, in dimension, and place the hen inside of the little 

 box, which is in turn placed in the coop, so that she is confined 

 in this little box for a space of two weeks. We then just cover 

 the floor with either oat chaff or hayseed litter, and feed the- 

 chicks once a day. A dry food very seldom, but to obtain the 

 proportion, I use a mixture of my own concoction, — plenty of 

 cracked corn, finely cracked, dried bone, bran, grits, and char- 

 coal, — coarse bran. No beef scrap in that. At the end of two 

 weeks we usually let the hen out. I will say right here in re- 

 gard to the hen, that I have had them lay in three weeks, and 

 even in these little boxes. I simply confine the hen in there 

 for the reason that the chicks are inside part of the time, es- 

 pecially if it is cold, whereas if she was let out, she would be 

 unfit to mother the chicks, and in the box she cannot scratch, 

 but the chicks do the scratching themselves. They are not 

 in the coop, but they run in and out. After two weeks the hen 

 is let out. I gradually begin by feeding the chickens in the 

 morning a cooked mash. In fact, I will say right here that I 

 always feed my hens mash in the morning, and dry grain, 

 dry whole grain. Now this mash, I do not know as it is partic- 

 ularly interesting to you what it is composed of, but I am a 

 good deal of the opinion of Dr. Wood. I do not think that 

 the food is so important as the surroundings. I do not think 

 it is so necessary to be confined to any strict proportion of food 

 as it is to hatch out good healthy chicks, and to keep them 

 from getting chilled, and to give them plenty of fresh air, ex- 

 ercise, and water. My mash, however, is composed of about 

 one-half bran and oat feed, usually. That is, of course, in the 

 winter-time, and I use cut clover, or something of the kind for 

 greens, and about one-fifth to one-sixth scraps. That is a 

 pretty heavy scrap, I suppose. That is in the winter-time, but 

 in the summer I put in about half as much as that, from one- 

 eighth to one-tenth, and a small proportion of corn meal, and 

 for grain, I feed corn, oats, wheat, and barley in the proportion 



