New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 495 



not opportunity to hatch the chicks earlier in the spring so 

 that the pullets were hardly matured enough to lay well during the 

 first part of the feeding trial. 



Pens No. 1 and No. 3 were given for the morning feed each day a 

 mixture of ground grain moistened. Of this mixe(i grain which 

 was moistened with hot water and fed warm during cold weather, 

 and moistened with ordinary water during hot weather,'^all was 

 offered that was readily eaten. Later in the day some kind of whole 

 grain or cracked corn was fed, scattered in clean straw to induce 

 exercise. 



Pens 2 and 4 were fed whole grain of different kinds — the corn 

 being cracked. This was scattered in the straw on tight floors and 

 ^ none was left uneaten. 



The fowls in all the pens were fed twice each week all the cut 

 bones they would eat. Skim milk was fed to all during part of the 

 trial. Green alfalfa or corn silage or soaked, chopped hay was fed 

 at noon, the moistened chopped hay being fed warm to pens 1 and 

 3. Plenty of limestone grit and oyster shells were kept always in 

 each pen. 



The pens were all in one house separated by partitions, each pen 

 having floor space of 10 x 12 feet. The small, open yards attached 

 to Nos. 1 and 2 covered about 240 square feet each, and those of 

 Nos. 3 and 4 about 160 square feet each. The yards were covered 

 with coal ashes. 



Although at the start it was considered best to have a good num- 

 ber to average from, it is probable that the sixteen birds in each of 

 pens 1 and 2 were too many for best results, for during the winter 

 months they were necessarily kept altogether indoors. The average 

 floor space per fowl in these pens was less than eight square feet and 

 the average space in the open yard about sixteen square feet. The 

 only hens at this Station that have laid from ten to twelve dozen 

 eggs each per year have had an average of twenty square feet floor 

 space in the pen and seventy-five square feet yard space per fowl. 

 It is probable that the best results in egg production can not be 

 secured where the space of open run available per hen is much less 

 than seventy-five or one hundred square feet. For a feeding ex- 

 periment, however, in which it is necessary to account for all food 

 obtained, it is not possible to allow extended range. Somewhat 

 more room than that given to the fowls in this feedingtrial would be 

 desirable, but no larger yards were available. Under the conditions 



