Personal Experiences 47 



to moult. After running this for three weeks, Pen No. 2 hens 

 were in fine condition and from five hens I got about two eggs 

 a day. But eggs were not what I was after; I was after health 

 and condition. I wanted a foothold, a foundation, to stand on, — 

 a method of feeding to which I could return instantly and get 

 the same results every time. This would be extremely valuable 

 to me, especially when a hen was run down after a prolonged 

 experiment. 



Many, many times I thought I had such a method, but it would 

 soon prove to be inefficient in one way or another. I tried the 

 food I fed to Pen No. 2 on all the other pens, and in a short 

 time the hens in these pens looked as well as those in Pen No. 2. 

 I wanted to try this out thoroughly, and I fed these hens so that 

 they would go down hill rapidly. Then in about a week I would 

 return to the feed they got in Pen No. 2. I tried this five times 

 on four pens, or twenty experiments in all, and got the same 

 results every time. I was now satisfied that I could always 

 get the same result by going back to the same feed. 



I then began to make other experiments, as I wished to get the 

 droppings just a little stiffer. I used corn in three pens, but to 

 my surprise, instead of the droppings getting stiffer, they be- 

 came a little looser, although the hens ate a large amount of 

 dry mash containing corn. I could not understand this then, 

 but a little later it became very simple. One thing that made me 

 think was that in the pen where I used wheat, oats and corn 

 the hens would fight for corn and would not touch the other 

 grain until after the corn was all gone. I did not pay any 

 particular attention to this, but a short time later it came to me 

 like a flash. I understood the situation; it was a secret to me 

 no longer. It takes time to learn, and one has to make a 

 great many mistakes before getting things exactly right. 

 Many times the same mistake is made over and over again, 

 because you do not possess the secret. 



