136 MAKING POULTRY PAY 



encountered when the birds . were required to eat 

 slowly and exercise by digging the hard grains out of 

 the straw bedding. 



The birds were fed throughout the year daily as 

 follows : Each pen of twenty-two received one pint of 

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

 a. m., one-half pint of cracked corn was given in the 

 litter as before. At 3 p. m. in winter and 4 p. m. in 

 summer they were given all the mash they would eat 

 up clean in half an hour. The mash was made of the 

 following mixture of meals : 200 pounds wheat bran^ 

 100 pounds corn meal, 100 pounds wheat middlings, 

 100 pounds linseed meal, 100 pounds gluten meal, 100 

 pounds beef scrap. The mash contained one-fourth of 

 its bulk of clover leaves and heads obtained from the 

 feeding floor in the cattle barn. The clover was cov- 

 ered with hot water and allowed to stand for three or 

 four hours. The mash was made quite dry, and rubbed 

 down with the shovel in mixing, so that the pieces of 

 clover were separated and covered with the meal. 

 Cracked bone, oyster shell, clean grit, and water were 

 before them all of the time. Two large mangolds were 

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

 were stuck onto large nails which were partly driven 

 into the wall a foot and a half above the floor. Very 

 few soft shelled eggs were laid and so far as known,, 

 not an egg has been eaten by the hens during the last 

 five years. 



The records of several years' feeding show that 

 from fifty to fifty-five pounds of dry meals, not includ- 

 ing the clover leaves of which the mash was made up, 

 were eaten by each hen per year. The quantity of grain 

 fed in the litter was the same every dav, winter or sum- 

 mer. The quantity of mash was variable, being all' 

 they would eat in an hour at the close of the day- 

 They ate more in cold than in warm weather ; also con- 



