PRAIRIE FARMER'S POULTRY BOOK 



day the latter part of that month. "But the pullets are begin- 

 ning to lay now and the cows are coming in, so it looks like 

 a pretty good winter." 



Verne is farming 80 acres, which doesn't raise enough corn 

 and oats to make much of an income these days. But when 

 you feed that corn and oats to chickens and pigs you have 

 another story. 



"Chickens and eggs and butter money came in steadily 

 all summer,'' Verne says, "and it was surely a big help. A 

 few hogs now and then helped out, too. I didn't have enough 

 of them, but I'm going to have more next year." 



Anderson sold 226 dozen eggs from his flock of 110 white 

 Wyandotte hens from Jan. 1 to Apr. 9. During that period 

 he used 18 dozen in the incubator, besides eating unrecorded 

 dozens. The price of these eggs ranged from 65 cents down 

 to 18, most of them bringing 40 to 45 cents. 



The Hen's Menu 



The following is the daily menu of Anderson's flock of 

 100 or so laying hens: Eight pounds corn, five pounds oats, 

 three pounds middlings, three pounds bran, and 1% pounds 

 tankage. The middlings, bran and tankage are mixed together 

 to form a dry mash. The oats are fed whole and the corn 

 cracked; both are fed in the straw so the hens have to work 

 to get them. 



"I like tankage for laying hens," Anderson says. "It is 

 just as good as the more expensive beef scrap, and supplies 

 the protein and animal matter that the hens need. Some 

 farmers rely on skim milk instead of tankage, but my expe- 

 rience is that milk will not take the place of tankage. I feed 

 some skim milk— from 3 to 3% gallons a day — but even then 

 it pays to feed tankage too. 



"You will notice that my ration is made up of cheap feeds, 

 mostly produced at home, so my feed bill is small. I don't 

 even buy my middlings and bran, but get it from the mill 

 when I get my winter's flour ground. I mix my mash feed 

 very carefully by weight. I used to do it by guess and found 

 it didn't pay. 



Anderson has a modern poultry house 20 by 20 feet, built 

 according to plans furnished by the farm bureau. "This 

 poultry house alone has much more than paid my farm bureau 

 dues," he says. 



[234] 



