HOW TO GET EGGS 105 
This means proper housing and proper feeding. It is axiomatic 
that pullets will only do well by their owners when their owners do 
well by them. The ground they run on must be sweet and clean, 
free from taint of the fowls themselves and open to the action of 
air and sun. Then they must be encouraged to lay. Their house 
must also be kept scrupulously clean, and their nest-boxes invitingly 
laid with fresh hay or straw. It is a mistake to think that these 
things don’t matter. If eggs are to be found in dirty houses that 
is not an argument that more eggs are not got in clean houses. 
The birds must be kept free from the various parasitic pests that 
afflict them, and their comfort and well-being ought to be the 
first consideration of the farmer. 
All this being attended to, there comes the problem of feeding, of 
providing the right sort of food in the proper proportions. There 
is, or need be, no mystery about this. Whether fed on dry or wet 
mashes the ration of albuminoids to carbohydrates ought to be 
as one in five. The albuminoids go to make flesh, and incidentally 
eggs ; the carbohydrates supply the heat and energy. The question 
may be worked out in meals as follows :—one pound bran, one 
middlings, one maize meal, one fish meal and one half clover meal. 
One of soya-bean meal may be added when not too expensive. 
As I have said, these meals may be given moistened with warm 
water or fed dry, just as they are, but in that case the dry mixture 
must be fed out of a specially constructed box called a hopper. 
To bring a pullet on to lay quickly, green bone fresh from the 
butcher’s should form part of the food—say one-third—on every 
alternate day. One must be careful not to give too much green 
meat, for while one can “force” a pullet up to a point one may 
overdo it and affect the health of the bird. 
Sprouted oats or sprouted wheat are economical feeds and 
excellent aids to hen fruit. By placing the oats in shallow boxes 
and sprinkling with water, a little heat only is necessary to make 
the grain sprout. 
