CHAPTER X. 

 Feeding the Hen. 



A BALANCED RATION.— Nothing connected with poultry keeping 

 requires more skill and judgment than giving the hen what she needs to 

 make feathers, flesh and eggs. A farmer who just throws corn out to 

 the hens now and then will say feeding is eas}', and there is no skill about 

 it. He is wrong, for the hen furnishes the skill and judgment. She eats 

 the corn, and then goes out and hunts for insects, seeds, grass — anything 

 that she can find. H we could gather everything she selects in this way 

 and analyze it we would find that it makes a "balanced ration," much 

 the same as the mixture of grain and meat which the skilled feeder gives 

 his hens in the Winter. To prove this statement we have only to remem- 

 ber that in Summer, when the corn-fed hen has a chance to balance her 

 lation she lays eggs. In Winter, when still fed corn but denied the chance 

 to hunt for insects and meat she quits and lays on fat. I know a farmer 

 who for years fed corn in Winter and had few eggs. He bought a bone 

 cutter and fed cut bone, and had a good supply. Why was this? The 

 cut bone enabled the hen to balance her own ration as she did when she 

 hunted insects to go with the corn. The idea of a balanced ration was 

 suggested first by an effort to imitate the hen's natural food, when she 

 is shut in a yard or house. It is based on the fact that certain parts of the 

 hen's body cannot be produced unless certain distinct elements are sup- 

 plied in the food. For example the shell of the egg is composed largely 

 of lime. It will not be made of any other substance, and unless lime is 

 supplied in some way there can be no shell. The feathers, the white of 

 the egg, the muscles and lean meat of the hen contain an element known 

 as nitrogen, and the food must contain a fair supply of this muscle-making 

 material. The chemists call this part of the food protein, but we will call 

 it here muscle-maker. The fat of the body is made from starch, sugar, 

 and similar materials in the food. The muscle cannot be made from 

 these fatty foods. If we feed too many of them the hen will stop making 

 lean meat or laying eggs and simply lay on fat. We will call this part of 

 the food "fat formers." There is also a quantity of oil or pure fat in most 

 fooHs. It is more digestible than the fat formers and we call it "pure 

 fat." Left to herself, with plenty to choose from, a healthy hen will make 

 a nice selection of these three elements in her food, taking enough "muscle 

 makers" to keep up her bone and muscle and provide for the egg, and 

 enough of the others to suit her purpose. Human mothers need the 

 doctor or some other wise man to come and tell them that their children 



