62 Tlic Business lien. 



try to satisfy our hens. There may be cases where skim-milk is cheap 



and plenty. If we used it in place of water we should need less linseed or 



meat, as we can learn from our table. In many cases corn is by far the 



cheapest food. We can safely use large quantities of it if we use some 



form of meat with it to provide the needed muscle makers. Taking 



care not to have the proportion of fat formers in our ration too large, we 



should feed_ to please the hens, making them work for most of their 



food, and when once getting them satisfied making changes very slowly. 



Another method of feeding 



hens in Winter quarters is 



given here. This is useful on 



a dairy farm where skim-milk 



is handy : 



"In the morning they are 



fed about 10 quarts of dry feed 

 Fig. 33. HANDY FEED BOX. - .u i-.. • . i.- i j 



m the litter m scratchmg sheds, 



the litter pushed up into a heap, and the grain scattered through it so 

 they must scratch; the grain is usually half cracked corn and half wheat, 

 sometimes oats in place of wheat, sometimes buckwheat, but always half 

 cracked corn. As I have two hundred hens, this is a light feed, about, 

 one pint to ten hens. I want them hungry enough to work. Early in the 

 forenoon eight quarts of skim-milk are placed on the back of the kitchen 

 stove, where it will heat without burning, and at noon this is poured into 

 a large iron kettle, together with two quarts of animal meal, a table- 

 spoonful of salt and three times a week a teaspoonful of red pepper; then 

 stirred into it all it will wet thoroughly of bran and cornmeal, two parts 

 bran to one of meal. It makes eighteen quarts of feed, all the hens will 

 eat up clean. About every other day three or four quarts of boiled pota- 

 toes are cut up and mixed in the milk. Just before sundown they are 

 fed the same dry feed as in the morning, only more in quantity. I aim 

 to feed at this time all they will eat. For green food' cabbages are 

 fed three or four times a week. The above shows what is fed, and how 

 much, but as a matter of fact, each coop is fed differently; and I do not 

 know of anything more difficult for the novice to learn than how properly 

 to feed fowls. Last night I sent 'my boy, 14 years old, to feed' the hens ; 

 this morning, an hour after the hens were off the roosts, in three of the 

 coops there was still a lot of feed in the troughs. That means nn scratch- 

 ing, no work, sitting around half the day in a bunch; and if tliat sort of 

 thing was kept up it would soon mean few if any eggs. My fowls have 

 had no green cut bone, no cut clover, no bought grit; doubtless all these 

 things would be good for them, and might increase the egg yield, but my 

 experience shows that very good results can be obtained without them. 

 I keep ground oyster shells and fine gravel gathered from the wash by the 



