54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of one part to three parts corn. One part oats, wheat and bar- 

 ley. That is about the ration for laying hens. And the chicks, 

 as I say, had this in the morning at the first start. And then 

 in perhaps another week, we feed a scalded food at noon, 

 which is about the same proportion as the mash, only it is not 

 cooked, and cracked corn at night, and that is the ration that 

 they get right straight through the season. 



We hatched a little better than 3,000 chickens this season 

 and raised, I think — I cannot give you the exact figures, but 

 in the neighborhood of 2,600. Now there is quite a little 

 diflFerence between 2,600 and 3,000, but only a very small 

 proportion of these chickens died from any disease. They 

 were situated quite a little ways from my house, and the 

 hawks got some of them. The rats got quite a number of 

 them. In various ways they dwindled down, but the propor- 

 tion of mortality from actual disease was quite small, I think. 

 I can say, although it is quite a large statement to make, per- 

 haps, that I have not seen one case of roup or even cold in all 

 those 2,600 chickens that we raised this season. Now my idea 

 of roup is this : that it is caused by crowding and overheating 

 almost entirely, unless you breed it in from your old stock. In 

 order to avoid this our coops are arranged in rows, in an open 

 field. After the chicks get to be six or eight weeks old, we 

 place a trough between every two alternate rows, and perhaps 

 four or five troughs in this row, and then one morning we be- 

 gin at this corner and feed down to these, and then go down 

 that row and up this, and perhaps the following morning we 

 will just reverse it. In fact, we change around in the feeding 

 just as much as we can, for we do not want the chickens to 

 get the idea that they are to be fed in any one place. If they do, 

 or if they expect it. they are going to be up at that particular 

 corner or place waiting for you. They will soon get in the 

 habit of forgetting to go back again. Those coops will be filled 

 to overflowing, and you will soon have a good case of roup on 

 hand, but by pursuing the other method, and by skipping 

 around in feeding we discourage them from leaving their im- 

 mediate localities. They soon find out that in these troughs 

 they are bound to get food, and they are not sure to find it if 

 they go anywhere else in the lot, and for that reason they stay 

 there. You will also see that in having a hundred or one hun- 

 dred and twenty-five coops on about three or four acres of 



