USEFUL HINTS 229 



Go into the hen house at night and listen dili- 

 gently for a short while. It is a good way to detect 

 a cold or the first symptoms of roup in the flock. 

 Birds breathing hard or rattling in their throat should 

 be taken off the roost and carefully examined, and, 

 if affected in any way, removed to a coop or apart- 

 ment away from the rest of the flock. 



Do not let your hens get into the habit of eating 

 eggs. This habit is one of the worst fowls can have, 

 and it is very apt to spread very rapidly throughout 

 a flock. By having the nesting boxes as dark as 

 possible, there is little danger of the hens acquiring 

 this habit ; hens also prefer a dark, secluded place in 

 which to lay their eggs. 



If your method of feeding gives good results do 

 not change it just because you read of other methods 

 used by other poultry raisers. Various methods may 

 be successful; conditions are so different that they 

 demand different methods, and a poultry raiser must 

 study the conditions of his own flock, their surround- 

 ings and the climatic conditions also. 



Do not give foods of a too fattening nature during 

 the hot summer months. A good hot-weather feed 

 which can easily be obtained by the backyard poultry 

 raiser is boiled table scraps mixed with bran. Feed 

 this in a crumbly mass, and cold. For a grain food, 



