MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 



103 



Numbers of hens kept. The number of hens kept on a farm 

 in this section varies from four or five hundred to over two 

 thousand. Stocks of from eight hundred to twelve hundred are 

 most common. The principal object is to produce market eggs, 

 but as the two-year-old hens and the cockerels that are not 

 needed for breeding purposes are sold every year, the receipts 

 from the sale of live poultry are sometimes considerable. 



FIG. 102. Colony houses at Michigan Agricultural College. (Photograph from 



the college) 



Feeding, care, and results. The hens, being well distributed 

 over the farm, pick a large part of their living. Hard grain 

 (usually cracked corn) is kept always before them in the house, 

 in hoppers which will hold a bag of grain each. Once a day, in 

 the morning, the hens are given a feed of mash (or, as it is 

 called in this locality, dough) of about the same composition as 

 the mash described on page 89. The dough is cooked in a 

 large iron set-kettle in the evening and left there until it is to 

 be fed the next morning. Then it is loaded into boxes or large 



