5ti roCLTKY DEEDING AND FATTENING 



they wanted. Second division received fourteen pounds 

 raw cut bone and all the gravel they wanted. Third 

 division received six pounds oyster shells and gravel. 

 Fourth division received nothing but gravel. Counting 

 bone at throe cents per pound and shells at two cents, 

 the hens fed with cut bone more than doubled in value 

 of eggs. There was enough difference in those fed 

 shells to more than pay for the shell, but left a narrow 

 margin when fed with bone. Those fed bone more 

 than douljled on those fed nothing but gravel, or by the 

 test twenty cents per pound could have been paid for 

 the cut Ijone, ^vhile eggs brought twenty-five cents per 

 dozen. The hens that received the bone possessed a 

 much better plumage and wintered much the better. 



It is a highly concentrated food and must Ije used 

 cautiously. Tlie only danger lies in feeding too niucli 

 or in feeding that which is sour or moldy. The one 

 results in forcing the chicks or fowls "olf their feed," 

 and in leg troiililes, and tlie other in diarrhea and bowel 

 complaints. The maximum ration for laying hens is 

 one-half ounce per day. 



The use of green cut l)one not only increases egg 

 productiijii, but lessens the food cost of eggs. This is 

 very clearly shown by an ex]ieriinent carried out by the 

 Platch exijcriment station of Massachusetts a few j'ears 

 ago with two lots of hens and pullets, nineteen in each 

 lot, and continuing seventy-nine days from February 9. 

 The food for one lot was in pounds as follows : "Whole 

 wheat !i!»,5, oats 100, A\-]ieat liran 18.5, wheat middlings 

 18.5, Chicago gluten meal 18.5, gi-ound elover 18.5, 

 green cut l^one 10, total ■.',s:!.5, cost $o.'J5, nutritive 

 ratio 1 to 1.8. The other lot recei\-ed essentially the 

 same food, except that in jjlace of the green bone it 



got !».7 jMiunds animal al. The total food was 287 



jiounds, cost $:-!. •.'(;, nii(i'iti\c ratio 1 to l.H. Tlie lot 

 ^•reen cut bone laid ■?i;;i egos at a cost of .910 



