244 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



Green Foods. Green food of some kind is an essential 

 part of the ration or diet. The health of the fowls and the 

 demands of egg production require it. The lack of a suffi- 

 cient supply of green food is one cause of the scarcity of 

 eggs in winter. During the summer the farmers' flocks, 

 which furnish the markets with the large proportion of 

 eggs and poultry, usually find all the green food necessary, 

 but in winter, since the farmer does not realize the im- 

 portance of providing green food, the chickens do without 

 it and we do without the eggs. Spring is the natural laying 

 season ; but by seeing to it that the fowls get the same kind 

 of food in winter that they do in spring or summer, it is 

 .possible to overcome largely the egg famine in winter. 

 Fowls should have all the green food they will eat at all 

 times. Green food is cheap, or should be grown cheaply 

 with good management. 



Green food may be fed in different forms. Clover or 

 alfalfa or grass in the fields ; clover leaves or alfalfa leaves 

 in the haymow or in the haystack, make excellent green 

 food; vetch, peavine, rape, rye, kale, mangels, sugar beets, 

 cabbages, lettuce or turnips will fill the bill. It will be 

 noticed that these green foods have a larger percentage of 

 mineral matter or ash, and of protein, than the grain foods. 

 Alfalfa and kale are especially rich in protein and ash. 

 Clover, alfalfa, grass, rape, kale and vetch, will give good 

 color to the yolk of the egg; beets will not. Alfalfa and 

 clover will give eggs of good quality and flavor. Kale, 

 cabbages and rape will give a slightly undesirable flavor to 

 the eggs if eaten heavily, but not enough to injure their 

 selling value materially, if at all. If fed regularly, how- 

 ever, so the fowls may eat it at will, there is no evidence 

 that an undesirable flavor will be imparted to the egg. 



In western Oregon and the Pacific Coast generally 

 thousand-headed kale is probably the most profitable crop 



