126 POULTRY-CRAFT. 
168. What to Use for Scratching Litter.— Straw and cheap hay 
make the best scratching litter. Those who grow their own grain, and those 
who can get sheaf grain sometimes feed it unthreshed.. Dry leaves, raked up 
in the fall and stored to be used as needed, make good litter, but break up 
quickly, and are not as easily handled as straw. On a large plant provision 
must be made for a regular supply of litter in quantity. Sometimes the 
rough manure, mostly soiled and broken straw from livery stables, can be 
had for the hauling. It usually contains more than enough grain to pay for 
hauling it. This can be used only in yards* or open sheds. Damp litter 
should never be allowed to remain in the poultry house,— much less be put 
there. A poultryman who can get the old bedding from a race track stable 
should consider himself in luck, for it is nearly all good clean straw, but little 
broken and soiled, and contains much good grain. In many places good 
‘straw is so cheap that it is the cheapest litter obtainable. When straw costs 
from five to eight dollars a ton it is time for those who use much to look for 
cheaper stuff. When only enough litter for a few pens is needed, baled 
straw, (even at the prices named) may be used. Shavings or other clean 
rubbish — almost anything that conceals the grain, and can be ‘‘ scratched,” 
will do. 
169. To Keep a Scratching Floor in Good Order — the litter must be 
often renewed, and yet be always in nearly the same condition. When litter 
is long and the floor thickly covered with it, it takes fowls too long to scratch 
out their grain — unless a considerable excess (over what is needed at the 
time) of grain is thrown into the litter. Fowls cannot be fed evenly in this 
way. If the litter is short it packs together, and the grain is not hidden when 
thrown on it. Then, unless the grain is raked or forked into the litter,—a 
tiresome and tedious process, and unnecessary when the floor is managed 
right —it is eaten rapidly, and the fowls take too little exercise. Beginning 
with a clean floor, as much litter should be put in as, when well scattered by 
the fowls, will cover the floor loosely to a depth of four or five inches. As 
soon as this is so broken that it packs, and does not conceal the grain scattered 
on it, a little more should be added, and more, and more at regular intervals, 
— the object being to keep four or five inches of litter of such length that 
grain thrown on it is nearly all hidden at once. After about a month from 
the time the first litter was put in, the coarser stuff on top should be raked to 
one side, and some of the finely broken, dusty stuff next the floor removed. 
Once the floor is filled up right—about an inch of fine — but not too finely 
broken —litter next the floor, and three or four inches of coarse, loose litter 
above it,— it can be kept right by adding long litter once a week and remoy- 
ing broken litter about once a month.f 
* NoTe.— Where there is not too much wet and snowy weather the yard, or a part of 
it, can be used as the exercise-feeding ground. 
+ Note.— This will be about right when the floor space is five to six feet per hen. With 
