610 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Hulled oats must be accompanied with plenty of clover and other coarse 

 food. 



Wheat. At 80 cents per bushel the past season wheat was our cheap- 

 est feed. Don't think to economize by buying poor wheat or screenings. 

 If you buy, buy the best quality obtainable. 



Kaffir Corn and Sorghum. These are two of the very best of grains, 

 as nearly a balanced ration for the fowls as you can get; but don't depend 

 on these or any other one grain. You must keep up the hen's appetite 

 with variety. Skip from one grain to another freqeuntly. Keep her 

 happy and busy. It pays. 



Bran. We esteem branjas the one essential ground food. We use it 

 dry, in large flat boxes about the yards, where the girds run and 

 can jump in and pick a lot of it. We also use it as a basis of all our 

 soft feeds, a carrier for our meat-meal. etc. We always use salt on our 

 soft feeds. Bran is rich in protein; it is a good regulator; it seems to 

 neutralize poisons. 



Clover. .1 take great care in harvesting my clover for poultry, both 

 the first and second crop. It should be cut in good time, cured nicely 

 without dew or rain on it, and may be stored in gunny sacks or other- 

 wise until it is needed. We run it through the cutter and then wet or 

 steam it over night, then add bran, meat, bone, salt, etc. Do not skimp 

 the clover. Better waste some rather than that the hens should not have 

 enough. 



Alfalfa is the only forage plant that approaches clover as "hen hay." 



Meat. The egg is rich in albumen. You must feed it into your hens 

 or the eggs will be few in number and the whites will be thin and watery. 

 Granulated beef-scrap and the meat meal and dried blood are obtainable 

 on the market. If you have an abundance of butcher-shop bones, and 

 can obtain cheap meat to boil, thickening the soup with bran and vege- 

 tables, you are to be congratulated, provided you do this work regularly. 



Grit. This is the most essential grain feed. Without it your own 

 is of little good and your hens soon die of disease. 



Use mica grit, pearl grit, gravel grit, cinder grit, any old grit, and, 

 still better, all of them. Waste some grit to be sure you get enough 

 grit. 



Shell. One tenth of the shell is lime. Your egg shells must be heavy 

 if you M^ould hold a choice market. You can well afford to buy oyster 

 shell at 75 cents per hundred pounds if you sell it at sixteen cents per 

 pound, and that is what you do in the egg business. 



Bone. Every one admits that the growing animal requires bone-build- 

 ing material to give him strength of limb. Many, however, imagine that 

 the hen old enough to lay eggs no longer needs this kind of supply. The 

 hen, however, is the best judge, and the eagerness with which the lay- 

 ing hen will turn even from grain to pick up fresh cut bone or even 

 dry bones, is the best evidence that she needs it in her business. Do 

 not deny her this. 



