Personal Experiences 39 



Among my hens was one young leghorn pullet about six months 

 old. One morning I heard her outside the door cackling. I 

 opened the door and she came in. After a while she made a 

 nest on a sack and laid an egg. I grew very fond of this hen, 

 and I would give her a cup of wheat and a cup of oats and let 

 her help herself. She also ate bread and milk left by the dog, 

 and she seemed fonder of this than of the grain. Day after day 

 that hen would come into the house and lay. When she was 

 outside I would see her scratching in the ground for worms. 

 Very seldom would she miss a day without laying an egg. 



The other hens, I noticed, would not eat for a week or so at 

 a time. Then I would notice them scratching for angle worms. 

 A crust would start to form on the comb, the comb begin to 

 turn red, the droppings become clean and free from odor, and 

 the hen would start to lay; but she would, however, lay only a 

 few eggs and then she would be taken sick, her droppings would 

 be bad and she would be sick for a week or so. This would be 

 repeated about every fortnight, and the hens would become 

 gradually weaker. 



The hen that came into the house did not eat the mash 

 food that the other hens ate. She never stopped laying. She 

 seemed to be nice and fat and had all the grain she could 

 possibly eat, while my other hens all seemed to be poor. I 

 thought that if the grain helped her it would probably be 

 a good thing for the flock, so I put out a sack of wheat for 

 the other hens. They were very badly afflicted with roup, 

 and there were no worse looking hens in the country. They 

 were also afflicted with canker. 



I turned them out to roost in the trees. Never in my life 

 have I seen hens change so quickly. In a few days nearly 

 all of them were out scratching after worms. They would 

 go after the wheat, and then the eggs began to come. 



