A Foothill Poultry Farm, California 



feed wisely, while another comes short or over-does it. It is not possible to make 

 definite rules for various breeds, for differing climates, and for varying conditions 

 of the flock, and it is not easy to decide how much to feed, and to so balance the 

 rations as to produce vigor, maintain health, avoid fatness and insure egg 

 production. 



Feeding and Exercise 



Feeding alone is only part of the problem of egg production. The healthy 

 man is not made by feeding only, nor the laying hen. Exercise is an important 

 factor and closely related to the egg basket. The busy hen is the laying hen. 

 She keeps her crop partially filled, instead of stuffing it periodically, and gets her 

 exercise as nature provided, while scratching for her food. She takes hours in 

 feeding, and is busy and contented. The vigorous young fowl must lay if well 

 bred and given plenty of exercise in finding the grains hidden in deep litter. The 

 scratching shed with straw or chaff in it is not a fad, but a sensible device with 

 its basis in the nature of things. Work it; work it persistently. 



In France they found that the dark or red meat in fowls was the product of 

 muscular activity. There is less hemoglobin, or fewer red blood corpuscles in the 

 white meat along the breast bone, because it is placed where exercise cannot 

 affect it. These French investigators found also that exercise affects the fertility 

 of the egg. In close confinement there was a larger per cent of infertile eggs, 

 owing to lack of virility in the fowl a falling off of vigor. 



Feeding, we repeat, should go with exercise. It should necessitate exercise. 

 This is the reason for the scratching shed and the deep litter which compels 

 search for the grain. Provide it, by all means; do not think it unimportant; renew 

 it and keep it supplied with cut straw, chaff and litter from the barn. Keep the 

 litter dry; shake it up frequently; see that it is not musty. The use of it by the 

 fowls will promote digestion, maintain health and tend to secure a continuous 



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