26 



FEEDING FOR EGGS: HOW MUCH. 



The problem, as every poultryman knows, is not what to feed,, 

 but how much. If you do not believe this write to the editor of 

 your favorite poultry paper and ask him how much food you shall 

 give a flock of 15 hens, and see what he will say. It takes a 

 great deal of skill to steer between overfeeding on the one hand 

 and underfeeding on the other. I believe however that there is 

 a scientific principle underlying the matter, and think that after 

 a great deal of study and experimentation I have discovered the 

 principle. 



In order to determine how much we should feed we must 

 again interrogate Nature. Before we began to dissect the crop 

 of the hen we had killed, suppose we had put it in the scales to 

 ascertain its weight. If the hen from which the crop was taken 

 was of an American breed, if she had been running in the fields 

 all day and just before she had been killed had been given all the 

 corn that she would eat, her crop with its contents would weigh not 

 far from six ounces. Allowing that two ounces of food have 

 passed. from the crop into the gizzard during the day, and from 

 the gizzard into the intestines, it will be seen that when a hen is 

 on the range, supplied with abundance of food, she will consume 

 about eight ounces of food in the course of 24 hours. It would 

 seem therefore that this is about the amount a hen needs to supply 

 all the demands of her system and leave a margin for egg produc- 

 tion. But before we settle down to this conclusion there are some 

 things to be taken into consideration. On the range the hen has 

 had plenty of exercise, and needs more food to supply the tissue 

 lost than when in confinement. On the range food is more 

 bulky and less nutritious than the food the hen receives in her 

 pen. It contains a larger proportion of grass and vegetables. It is 

 probable that in the pen, where the hen does not exercise so freely 

 as she does on the range and where her food is more concentrated, 

 she does not need so much food by one-fourth as she does when 

 at liberty. Six ounces of food a day ought therefore to be ample 

 to supply all the needs of a hen in confinement. 



Six ounces of food a day for a hen weighing six pounds seems 

 at first sight an enormous quantity. In the same ratio a man 

 weighing 160 would consume 10 pounds of food every 24 hours. 

 But before we dismiss the matter as absurd let us consider a 

 moment. The hen's food is not so concentrated as the man's. It 

 contains far less nutriment in proportion to bulk. A considerable 



