23 



EXERCISE. 



Hens need a reasonable amount of exercise. They do not 

 need to be kept on the jump from morning until night, but they 

 do need enough exercise to keep them in good trim. Where 

 hens have free Tange they will attend to the matter of 

 exercise themselves although a hen having free range knows 

 enough not to work when it is very hot or very cold. But when 

 in confinement exercise must be provided for them. The floor 

 of the hen house, or scratching shed, should be kept 

 carpeted with six inches of litter in winter, and the fowls should 

 be made to work for all the grain they eat. This litter, as I have 

 already said, should be frequently shaken up and occasionally 

 renewed. Straw, fresh hay and dead leaves make the best litter. 

 Dry planer shavings are good if they are not allowed to become 

 too fine. 



THE POULTRY YARD. 



In summer the hens should be out in their yards. The yard 

 does not need to be very large. Indeed, unless the yard is large 

 enough to grow all the green stuff that is needed for forage, a 

 small yard is better than a large one, for it is more likely to be 

 kept clean. Much money is spent each year for wire netting 

 and foundation boards for fences that could be laid out to much 

 better advantage in some other way. There should be shade of 

 some kind in the yard. If the yard is small it should be raked 

 and swept every week and the surface droppings removed. It 

 should be spaded up from time to time. In the spring the sur- 

 face soil to the depth of three or four inches should be removed 

 and spread on the garden and replaced with fresh earth. If this 

 is done there is much less danger of sickness with a small yard 

 than with a big one that is never cleaned. 



GRIT, CHARCOAL AND OYSTER SHELLS. 

 Nature has not provided fowls with teeth, and consequently 

 they cannot masticate their food as can the higher animals. The 

 food passes from the crop into the gizzard, where it is prepared 

 for the intestines by trituration ; that is, as the food passes 

 through the gizzard it is triturated, or ground up, by the little 

 flinty particles which line that~member. Unless the fowl is well 

 supplied with grit the food passes into the intestines improperly 

 prepared, and the result is indigestion. It is a great mistake not 



