80 



and plenty of these eggs strewn in the litter upon the floor. 

 Then pare the upper beak of the guilty bird until it shows 

 signs of bleeding, so that when she strikes the china eggs 

 the pain will make her stop. Generally this will effect a cure. 

 Something can be done by having the nests in a dark place 

 and so arranged that it is difficult for the hen to get at the 

 egg after she has laid. A nail keg makes an excellent nest for 

 egg-eating hens. I have know^n men to make a double-decked 

 nest, so that the egg after being laid would drop through a 

 small hole into the receptacle below. Raw salt pork, chopped 

 fine, is recommended for egg-eating hens ; but the best thing 

 is never to allow them to contract the habit. 



Mr. S. D. Fox, to whom I have several times referred, has 

 a method of breaking hens of egg eating as novel as it is 

 efficacious. "My hens got to eating eggs one spring," he says. 

 "and I went to work to cure them. I got an egg, chipped off 

 one end and took out the yolk and white. Then I filled up 

 the egg with soft soap, sprinkled in a good stiff dose of cayenne 

 pepper, stuck on the end with white court plaster, and dropped 

 the egg on the hen house floor. They ate that egg. The next 

 day I gave 'em another. They ate that. The next day I gave 

 'em a third. They didn't eat that, and they never ate another 

 so far as I know. Didn't like the flavor, I guess. Hurt 'em? 

 Wall, no, I never see that it did. Might have cleaned 'em out 

 a little soft soap is good for that, you know but it didn't 

 rumple a feather, so far as I could see." 



