THE GALL OF THE HEN. 



35 



well he got lots of eggs, but some of his hens died ; then when 

 he did not feed them so well they did not lay so many eggs, 

 but none of them died. He said he had repeated this a num- 

 ber of times with the same results. He said the ones that 

 died were as fat as butter. I picked up one of the hens; 

 she was in prime condition for th,e ma'rket. I picked, up 



FIG. 8 Showing how to test condition. The legs of the hen 

 are drawn upward, so that you can see the breast. The condition 

 is tested by placing the thumb and forefinger about % inch from 

 the front of the breast-bone. Figs. 20, 21, and 22 show the method 

 in detail. 



another one; she was very thin. I examined all his hens. 

 I found he had, like a great many poultrymen, three distinct 

 types of hens: the egg type, the dual-purpose type, and the 

 meat type. As he had fancy birds in all the different types, 

 he did not want to dispose of any of his flock, so I segregated 

 them into three divisions: the egg type, the dual-purpose type, 

 and the meat type. After that he fed the egg type all the 

 grain they could clean up in the scratching-shed and kept a 



