THE MOULTING SEASON 



The moult with hens in the natural state lasts from sixty to 

 a hundred days, but with some hens, especially with hens that have 

 hard, close-growing feathers, the moult and the results of it will 

 sometimes last over a hundred and fifty days ; in fact I have known 

 of some that went six months without laying any eggs. Too long 

 to spend half a year dressmaking. Think of the loss to their 

 owners! I did not wonder at the man who told me of it, saying 

 that he just turned them out and "let the blamed things rustle for 

 themselves," but I thought if he had helped them "rustle" perhaps 

 they would not have been so long about it. 



Let us consult Nature, as you know I am very fond of doing. 

 After the wild bird has raised her young and her responsibilities 

 are somewhat over, she moults. The older she is the longer and 

 slower is the process of dropping her feathers and growing them 

 again, because as she ages her vitality is gradually lessening. It is 

 the same with hens ; the older a hen becomes the longer will be 

 the period of the moult, and not only that but the later will it com- 

 mence. Let us again turn to Nature and in this copy her. We 

 want the old hens, if we keep them at all, to be the parents of our 

 young next spring and we are only keeping them over for a certain 

 reason (or for sentiment), as they have, perhaps, proved them- 

 selves to be our very best layers, or as the parents of our prize win- 

 ners, or may be prize winners themselves and therefore we want 

 their offspring in the hopes of perpetuating these excellent traits. 



The Starving Process 



How shall we help these elderly hens to get quickly through the 

 moult? Some years ago I read of a man in New York State, who 

 claimed he could make his hens moult at any time of the year and 

 therefore he could also, by controlling the moult, make his hens 

 lay at any time of the year. His plan was to starve the hens and 

 so stop their laying, and when they had stopped for a week or two 

 he fed them highly with fattening food. This he said made them 

 .moult and drop their feathers very quickly, so that in a few days 

 the hens would be almost nude and the new feathers would come 

 in very rapidly. His theory was that when hens sit for three weeks 

 on eggs and raise a brood of chickens they moult quickly because 

 they grow thin during incubation, and when they have the rich 

 feed which is given to the little chicks, it makes them shed their 

 feathers and assists the moult. 



His theory sounded very plausible and I decided if he could do 

 it I could also, and tried. I discovered the New Yorker was only 

 partly right in his deductions and that it does not pay to force 

 Nature out of season. 



The following year I was much more successful, for I only 

 attempted to "assist" Nature and not to "force" her. I did not try 

 to make the hens moult in June, but waited till nearer to the nat- 

 ural time of the moult, that is, until August. I then put the hens 



