ABILITY OF CHICKENS TO DIGEST PIECES OE ALUMINUM. 3I5 



When chicks are taken from the pedigree incubator baskets 

 at this Station each one is banded with an aluminum band. 

 This is a flat strip of metal with rounded corners which is bent 

 into a ring around the chick's leg. As the bird grows this ring 

 is enlarged from time to time, but when the chick is six to 

 eight weeks old it has outgrown this band altogether and is 

 then rebanded with another type of aluminum band. This sec- 

 ond band is adjustable. The portion of the band not used is 

 sni'piped off. The size of these snips varies greatly with the 

 size of the chickens' legs. As the chicks are rebanded the dis- 

 carded bands and snips are dropped on the range. It is not 

 unusual to see chickens pecking at them. Figure 148 shows at 

 the top a random sample of fifteen snips cut from the second 

 bands and at the bottom two of the discarded first bands. The 

 O'ne of these to the left is opened out flat and the one to the 

 right is bent double. It may be seen from this figure that the 

 snips are narrower than the bands. 



Fig. 148. Shownig band snips and whole chick bands. 



August 6, 1913, a fine strong Barred Plymouth Rock pullet, 

 normal in all respects, was killed for material. In the gizzard 

 2 



