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the bird can moisten a large handful of dry mixture after it 

 enters the crop so evenly as I can before it goes there. Then 

 if the mash is about the temperature of the bird's body when 

 it is fed (or, on cold mornings, a little higher) she will not 

 have to use up her heat in raising it to that temperature. 



FEED ALL THE HENS WILL EAT UP CLEAN. 



I feed all the mash the hens will eat up clean in a reason- 

 able time say from 15 minutes to half an hour. Then I go 

 through the pens and empty what is left (if anything) back 

 into the kettle to be fed the next day. At 11 o'clock I make a 

 round of the pens to collect the eggs and look after the birds. 

 On this trip I take with me green food of some sort mangel 

 worzels, cabbages, apples or onions and leave in each pen 

 the amount that experience has shown me the birds will eat up 

 clean. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon I make the round of 

 the pens again. I have told you that in each pen I keep a male 

 and 12 -females, and on this trip in the early afternoon I throw 

 down in the deep litter one quart (dry measure) of grain of 

 some kind. The three grains I feed are wheat, cracked corn 

 and oats. I study to give variety. On a mild afternoon I feed 

 all oats or all wheat, on a moderately cold afternoon, about 

 half cracked corn and about hal"f wheat or oats, and on a very 

 cold afternoon, cracked corn alone. When I get home from 

 making pastoral calls it is generally dusk andthe hens have 

 gone to roost. Before supper I go through each pen to see that 

 the birds are all right for the night. I empty the water dishes, 

 collect any eggs that may be in the nests, pause a moment in 

 each house to see that the birds are breathing right (no colds 

 nor bronchitis) and occasionally feel of the crops to see if I 

 am feeding enough. If the crop is comfortably full neither 

 distended on the one hand nor nearly empty on the other I 

 conclude that the grain ration is about right so far as quantity 

 is concerned. 



STUDY VARIETY. 



I have given the ingredients of my standard morning mash, 

 but I vary these ingredients from time to time. I don't want 

 the same thing for breakfast every morning, and I don't believe 

 my birds do. About twice a week I substitute gluten meal or 

 linseed meal for green ground bone or meat scraps ; and once 

 in a while I give a breakfast of scalded oats the oats scalded 



