105 



do not like rye. Let them have access to this dry mixture at twelve 

 o'clock until they go to bed at night. Perhaps once or twice a week 

 mixing that dry mash with some warm water and giving it to them 

 at night, they would appreciate it. In addition to that feed, chopped 

 alfalfa or clover. Warm clover up by pouring hot water over it and 

 letting it stand or feeding it dry. I am trying to bring out the fact 

 that more depends upon the feeder than upon the feed. You may 

 .irivr them one-half bushel of this feed to one hundred hens, but the 

 idea is to give them variety. Suppose you were shut up in a house 

 and you had corn meal much for breakfast and had not had any 

 for a long time. Suppose you had corn meal mush for dinner. Your 

 appetite would be pretty good. You would have corn meal mush 

 again for supper and your nose would go up a little, and by the next 

 morning you wouldn't care whether you had corn meal mush or not, 

 but if you did't eat anything you couldn't work. It is the same 

 with poultry. If you do not get a variety you get nothing from it. 

 We often had complaints along in February and March of hens dying 

 on the nests, and probably due to the fact that hens were overfat. 



A hen that is overly fat will be degen- 

 erated, having a degenerated liver, 

 blood vessels and muscles. We have 

 found, on examination, that where 

 hens have died on the nest they have 

 suffered from hemorrhage of liver and 

 brain, and the hens would contain 

 eggs and ready to lay. The reason 

 that they would die was because they 

 were overly fat and the strain of pass- 



^ ing the egg would cause extra pres- 



Buff piymoutiTRock. sure an( * rupture, and back of this fat 



we could lay it to corn diet, which 

 hens receive almost exclusively through corn belt in winter time. No 

 hen can produce properly on corn alone. You will find that your corn 

 contains from nine to eleven per cent of protein. You will find that 

 your egg contains a much larger per cent. So you see in order to get 

 enough protein to build an egg a hen would have to eat more corn 

 than she would care to, and would have to eat more fat. Therefore, 

 feed corn to balance up a ration with a meat ration or beef scraps 

 from packing house. It is to be preferred to green-cut bone, because 

 it is much cheaper in the long run. Beef scrap is much to be pre- 

 ferred on the basis of cost because of water contents of two feeds. 

 Beef scraps contains eighteen per cent of water and green bone con- 

 tains eighty per cent of water. In the rabbit country you can shoot 

 a rabbit, hang it up to freeze, then hang it in chicken house and let 

 the chickens pick at it. 



Question. What is the proper term to use in speaking of poultry 

 husbandry, a poultry farm or a poultry plant? 



Answer. We should say "poultry farm" and not " poultry 

 plant." The words "poultry plant" should never have passed the 

 lips of any man. 



Question. When should cooked Avheat be fed? 



