90 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



eat it unless they need it," was my reply, though I agreed with him 

 about the dog. To his surprise those hens ate almost a quart of it. 

 None of them died and they soon commenced to lay. Give the little 

 chicks the small chick-grit. Eight pounds of this will be sufficient 

 for the first two months of the life of fifty little chicks and then 

 they should have a larger size. One hundred pounds of hen grit, 

 which can be bought at the poultry supply houses, is sufficient to 

 last a hundred hens about a year. 



Pigeons consume more grit than hens, proportionately to size. 

 Give pigeons grit to keep them healthy. My attention to grit and 

 gizzards was aroused many years ago. "Will madame look to 

 what I have found in the interior of this fowl?" said my French 

 maid to me. She had opened the gizzard of a fat young hen and 

 had found thirteen china buttons and two pearl buttons or parts of 

 them, mixed with the black adobe mud. Since that day I have tried 

 to keep my fowls well supplied with grit. 



Starve for Lack of Grit 



"I cannot think what ails my fowls," said one lady. "They have 

 all the food they can eat, but here is another dead." "Have you ever 

 opened one to discover the trouble?" I asked. "Yes, but I never 

 find anything." "Well, I think your fowls have indigestion," I 

 said, "but we will hold a post mortem on this one and try to solve 

 the difficulty." We found a medium sized gizzard, full of dark 

 earth, no stones, no grit, not even buttons. That told the story, 

 the fowls were starving to death in the midst of plenty just for lack 

 of grit to grind their food. 



I occasionally make curious discoveries when I hold a post mor- 

 tem, for the contents of a school boy's pockets are scarcely more 

 varied than those of a fowl's gizzard, when not supplied with the 

 proper kind of grit. My Indian Runner ducks, being great pets and 

 never doing any mischief, were allowed the freedom of my place. 

 I had noticed them around the out-door fireplace where the caul- 

 dron was boiled, old boxes, building scrap and rubbish being used 

 for the fire. 



I thought the ducks were picking up bits of charcoal, but one 

 morning I found a fine duck dead. The post mortem revealed an 

 enormous gizzard, twice the usual size, on opening which I found 

 a number of nails, some bits of wire, two two-pointed tacks. Sev- 

 eral of the nails were embedded in the gizzard and the largest one 

 pierced quite through it. The ducks had always been supplied with 

 plenty of river sand, but this particular duck seemed to have de- 

 veloped an ostrich's appetite. After that I gave them also the 

 smaller chick grit and with most excellent results, for never ducks 

 laid as many eggs as did those. Grit, oyster shells, or clam shells, 

 and charcoal are indispensable for fowls. 



The Symptons of Grit Craving 



When your hens seem "mopey" just break up some old china, 

 and see if they will not refuse the best food for it. 



When you see water run from a hen's mouth, when she puts 



