198 



Is there any way of feeding fowls which requires little time 

 and attention and yet which gives good results with respect to 

 egg yield? 



HOPPER FEEDING. 



On many farms it has been the custom in the past to feed 

 once per day a mash composed of ground grain, beef scrap, etc., 

 moistened with water. Moistening the ground feed and placing 

 it in troughs for the fowls requires considerable time. Exper- 

 ience and good judgment are also required in order to feed just 

 the proper amount. If too much mash is fed the excess is 

 usually wasted, and if not enough is supplied the egg production 

 is restricted to that extent. 



In the hopper system of feeding, the grain or dry mash is 

 placed in suitable receptacles so that the fowls can help them- 

 selves at will. This materially reduces the cost of labor in feed- 

 ing the fowls, but do they lay as well? The experiment de- 

 scribed below has been performed for the purpose of beginning 

 the study of this subject. 



The experiment began December 8th, 1905, with four lots 

 of fowls each consisting of twenty single comb White Leghorn 

 pullets. On January 17, 1906, another pen of twenty White 

 Leghorn pullets was added to the test and the record of this 

 pen also is given. The pullets added to the test in January 

 were hatched later in the season than those in the other four 

 pens and were practically of the same age and weight when 

 added to the test as the other pullets were at the beginning, and 

 it is believed that the results derived from all five pens are to a 

 certain extent comparable. The test was continued for one year. 



The method of feeding each pen was as follows : 



Pen 1. This lot of fowls was fed shelled corn, beef scrap, 

 and wheat bran, in hoppers constructed so that there was a 

 supply of these feeding stuffs constantly before them. The gen- 

 eral health of these fowls was apparently good, although the 

 mortality was heavy, four dying in the course of the year. 

 Those which died were fat and heavy and probably the cause of 

 death was enlargement of the liver. 



