20 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I904. 



fatness. Other methods of feeding may be as good or even 

 better. While it is true that only the full fed hen can lay to the 

 limit of her capacity it is equally true that full feeding of the 

 Plymouth Rocks, unless correctly done, results disastrously. 



Years ago the "morning mash," which was regarded as neces- 

 sary to "warm up the cold hen," so she could lay that day, was 

 given up and it was fed at night. The birds are fed throughout 

 the year daily as follows : Each pen of twenty-two receives one 

 pint of wheat in the deep litter early in the morning. At 9.30 

 A. M. one-half pint of oats is fed to them in the same way. At 

 1 P. M. one-half pint of cracked corn is given in the litter as 

 before. At 3 P. M. in winter and 4 P. M. in summer they are 

 given all the mash they will eat up clean in half an hour. The 

 mash is made of the following mixture of meals : 200 lbs. wheat 

 bran; 100 lbs. corn meal; 100 lbs wheat middling; 100 lbs. 

 linseed meal ; 100 tbs. gluten meal ; 100 lbs beef scrap. The 

 mash contains one-fourth of its bulk of clover leaves and heads, 

 obtained from the feeding floor in the cattle barn. The clover 

 is covered with hot water and allowed to stand for three or four 

 hours. The mash is made quite dry, and rubbed down with the 

 shovel in mixing, so that the pieces of clover are separated and 

 covered with the meal. Cracked bone, oyster shell, clean grit, 

 and water are before them all of the time. Two large mangolds 

 are fed to the birds in each pen daily in winter. They are struck 

 on to large nails which are partly driven into the wall, a foot and 

 a half above the floor. Very few soft shelled eggs are laid and, 

 so far as known, not an egg has been eaten by the hens during 

 the last five years. 



We are testing another method of feeding with several pens 

 of hens this year. It consists of the morning, 9.30 A. M., and 

 1 P. M. feedings of dry food in the litter as usual, but instead of 

 the mash at 3 P. M. all the dry cracked corn they will eat is given 

 in troughs. Beef scrap is kept before the birds at all times, in 

 elevated troughs where they cannot waste it. They are supplied 

 with grit, oyster shell, bone, and mangolds. Dry clover leaves 

 and chaff are given them on the floor each day. One pen of 30 

 hens were fed through last year in this way with good results, 

 and 150 hens are being fed on the dry food, through this year, in 

 comparison with a like number of their mates that are having 

 mash at the 3 P. M. feeding, as usual with us. 



