24 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



There has been upon the market for the last few years a 

 certain grit known as Hen-e-ta, for which great claims have 

 been made by the company putting it out. In one of their 

 circulars a statement was made that the eggs from hens fed 

 Hen-e-ta contain twice as much phosphoric acid as ordinary 

 eggs, and, therefore, hatch better. We decided to feed a lot 

 of hens on oyster shell and another lot on Hen-e-ta, in order 

 to test this claim by analyzing the eggs. Two pens of White 

 Leghorns were selected and fed for about six weeks, one on 

 oyster shell and the other on Hen-e-ta. In other respects 

 their feed was the same. At the end of the period six eggs 

 were selected from each pen and analyzed, with the follow- 



ing results : — 



Table 10. — Analysis of Eggs. 



Peb Cent of Phosphoric 

 Acid (P2O5). 



Oyster-shell 



Hen-e-ta 



Eggs. 



Egg shells, . 

 Whites of eggs, 

 Yolks of eggs. 



.33 



.27 

 2.81 



It would appear from this analysis that the whites of the 

 eggs from the oyster-shell pen contained slightly more phos- 

 phoric acid than those from the Hen-e-ta pen, whereas the 

 yolks of the eggs from the Hen-e-ta pen contained slightly 

 more phosphoric acid than those from the oyster-shell pen. 

 This slight apparent difference evidently lies within the 

 radius of experimental error, so our conclusion naturally is 

 that the feeding of Hen-e-ta rather than oyster shell makes 

 no difference in the amount of phosphoric acid in the eggs.^ 



It would be much more convenient for the average poultry- 

 man were we to compound our rations on the basis of meas- 

 ure rather than of weight, because many poultry keepers 

 either do not buy a large quantity pf feed at a time, or, even 

 though they do, they may not mix it all at the same time; 



* Mr. H. D. Haskins, of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, performed the 

 chemical analysis. 



