No. 4.] EGG PRODUCTION. 95 



mediately imj)roved physically. We gave them what they 

 wanted in the way of lime. When we cut them open we 

 found all of the hens, except just one out of the six, in full 

 laying condition, and all laying hard-shelled eggs, and none 

 of them eating their eggs. Egg eating is a vicious habit they 

 are liable to contract, which you may never cure. However, 

 these did not continue to eat their eggs, but they continued 

 to lay and they laid hard-shelled eggs. They need an enor- 

 mous volume of grit to do their grinding. 



In another experiment, which I cannot at this time dis- 

 cuss, we fed the hens powdered oyster shell as compared with 

 whole oyster shells and various combinations of that sort, 

 in which we found that even if they had all the lime they 

 wanted they also required grit. They need sufficient grit to 

 crush their food, to macerate it, in order to get the most di- 

 gestive value. They need grit to grind their feed as well as 

 lime to make the egg shell. Sometimes that little lack of 

 limestone, broken oyster shell, clam shell or something of 

 that sort, is the one factor that stands between reasonably 

 good egg production and poor production; and oyster shell 

 only costs 50 to 60 cents a hundredweight. 



Figure 24 represents a feeding experiment in which four 

 diiferent types of ration were fed for three years to the same 

 flock or flocks of hens. The first flock was fed a grain mix- 

 ture, — corn, oats and wheat, — and ground mixed feed, 

 consisting of corn meal, wheat bran, wheat middlings, and so 

 forth, and meat scraps, fed as a wet mash. The second flock 

 was fed the same kind of grain, same kind of ground feed, 

 and the same kind of beef scraps, only fed dry in a hopper 

 where they could eat what they wanted to at any time, and 

 the grain was fed in a litter out of hand the same as it was 

 in the first pen. The third pen had the same kind of grain 

 as each of the other two, and the same kind of meat scraps, 

 but the grain was fed out of hand and there was no ground 

 feed. The fourth pen had exactly the same treatment as the 

 third, except that they could eat out of a hopper whenever 

 they wanted to, and they had no ground feed. Let's see 

 what the result was in three years' time. Our best results 

 were in favor of the grain morning and night in the litter. 



