APPENDIX G 483 



for litter, cleaning the hovers at least once a week, regulating the diet of 

 the chickens as far as possible, and spraying the hovers with kerosene and 

 carbolic acid once every two weeks. The brooder lamps had to be filled 

 every other day and trimmed every day. Green food was furnished in 

 the form of finely cut lawn clippings and sprouted oats. The chickens 

 of certain matings had to be leg-banded and kept separate. 



In picking out the cockerels for next year's breeding pen, I chose them 

 from the early hatches in order to have them mature next spring when 

 I wish to use them. In picking out the cockerels, I follow the " Ameri- 

 can standard of perfection," and what I have learned. I select cockerels 

 which are well formed, large, having pure white plumage, a well-developed 

 tail standing at an angle of 45 degrees, clear colored yellow legs, bright 

 eyed, five distinct points on their combs, white ear lobed, and which crow 

 the most because crowing denotes vigor. Of course it is impossible to get 

 all these good qualities well developed in one bird, that is, a cockerel may 

 be well developed in shape and color but at the same time lacking in vigor, 

 which is essential for breeding stock. I try to counterbalance the poor 

 qualities of the male by picking out hens which have these qualities well 

 developed, that is, if the cock is small, I would have large hens. My idea 

 is to produce a strain of single-combed white leghorns which shall be good 

 layers, well proportioned, pretty, healthy and vigorous, and which develop 

 good-sized early broilers. 



As to feeding, I feed all the fowls a ration to make them large and 

 good layers of large, white, chalky eggs. To the old stock I feed each 

 morning three quarts of grain, wheat, oats, and barley mixed, for each 

 hundred fowls. I keep a dry mash before them all the time in a Cornell 

 range hopper. This mash consists of one hundred pounds of bran, 

 one hundred pounds of middlings, one hundred pounds oatmeal mill by- 

 products, ground corn, wheat bran, middlings, and oat refuse. Beef scrap 

 is kept before them all the time, and I give them fresh ground green bone, 

 about an ounce for each hen daily. During the molting season, August, 

 September, October, and November, I add 50 pounds of linseed oil meal 

 to the mash. This produces feathers and hurries them through their 

 molt. Green food was supplied to them in the summer in the forms of 

 lawn clippings, green oats, or alfalfa. In winter I used cut dried alfalfa, 

 cabbages, and other vegetables. 



The fowls run in an orchard of apple, pear, plum, cherry, and peach 

 trees. I kept this sowed with oats during the summer while it was damp. 

 At night I feed all the stock all the mixed grain that they will eat up 

 clean, so that their crops will be full and they can digest the food while 

 they sleep. All the grain is fed in litter to make them work, because 

 exercise is necessary for vigor and egg production. 



