Feeding t]ie Hen. 107 



demands certain elements that may be beyond the power of 

 the hen to procure during those seasons when she is really a 

 prisoner and deprived of her liberty. The natural period of 

 laying is during the spring and summer, but domestication has 

 resulted in inducing the hen to lay at a season of the year 

 when the earth is sealed up with frost, and the storms and 

 winds drive her to some place of security provided for her. 



The hens that thrive on a diet of corn during the summer 

 do not derive their nutriment from the corn alone, but from 

 the variety of forage secured, and as the hen is more prolific 

 during the warmer season she keeps in better condition for 

 laying by the rapid conversion of the food into eggs instead of 

 into fat, but overfeeding will eventually result in fatty degen- 

 eracy of the liver, and the hen is then more liable to disease, 

 but in the winter she requires not only corn or other grain, 

 but also foods that contain mineral matter and the essential 

 elements that enable her to perform her work. 



Among the foods sometimes allowed that may be considered 

 out of the regular course are sunflower-seeds, linseed-meal (or 

 oil-cake), rape-seed, millet-seed, charcoal and cut clover These 

 foods are beneficial more from a dietary standpoint than from 

 the benefit imparted, yet they are also useful in assisting to 

 provide the hens with a variety. Sunflower-seeds, linseed- 

 meal, rape-seed and millet-seed, though highly nitrogenous, 

 contain large proportions of oil, and are therefore fattening 

 also; while the oils from them induce the shedding of the 

 feathers, causing premature moulting. For that reason they 

 should be fed as an occasional ration only (about twice a 

 week), and they will then serve to promote digestion by regu- 

 lating the bowels, linseed-meal having the same effect on 

 poultry that it has on animals. The charcoal is indigestible, 

 but when freshly burned serves to correct bowel disorders, as 

 well as to assist in reducing the food in the gizzard. 



The most important of all foods is finely chopped clover- 

 hay, scalded, and fed in troughs. It is rich in mineral matter, 

 nitrogenous, contains a large proportion of carbonaceous 



