GRIT AND GIZZARD 99 



"It's enough to kill a dog; let alone those poor hens." "The hens 

 will not eat it unless they need it," was my reply, though I agreed 

 with him about the dog. To his surprise those hens ate almost a 

 quart of it. None of them died and they soon commenced to lay. 

 Give the little chicks the small chick-grit. Eight pounds of this 

 will be sufficient for the first two months of the life of fifty little 

 chicks and then they should have a larger size. One hundred 

 pounds of hen grit, which can be bought at the poultry supply 

 houses, is sufficient to last a hundred hens about a year. 



Pigeons consume more grit than hens, proportionately to size. 

 Give pigeons grit to keep them healthy. My attention to grit and 

 gizzards was aroused many years ago. "Will madame look to 

 what I have found in the interior of this fowl?" said my French 

 maid to me. She had opened the gizzard of a fat young hen and 

 had found thirteen china buttons and two pearl buttons or parts of 

 them, mixed with the black adobe mud. Since that day I have tried 

 to keep my fowls well supplied with grit. 



Starve for Lack of Grit 



"I cannot think what ails my fowls," said one lady. "They have 

 all the food they can eat, but here is another dead." "Have you 

 ever opened one to discover the trouble?" I asked. "Yes, but I 

 never find anything." "Well, I think your fowls have indigestion," 

 I said, "but we will hold a post mortem on this one and try to solve 

 the difficulty." We found a medium sized gizzard, full of dark 

 earth, no stones, no grit, not even buttons. That told the story, 

 the fowls were starving to death in the midst of plenty, just for 

 lack of grit to grind their food. 



I occasionally make curious discoveries when I hold a post mor- 

 tem, for the contents of a school boy's pockets are scarcely more 

 varied than those of a fowl's gizzard, when not supplied with the 

 proper kind of grit. My Indian Runner ducks, being great pets and 

 never doing any mischief, were allowed the freedom of my place. 

 I had noticed them around the out-door fireplace where the caul- 

 dron was boiled, old boxes, building scrap and rubbish being used 

 for the fire. 



I thought the ducks were picking up bits of charcoal, but one 

 morning I found a fine duck dead. The post mortem revealed an 

 enormous gizzard, twice the usual size, on opening which I found 

 a number of nails, some bits of wire, two two-pointed tacks. Sev- 

 eral of the nails were embedded in the gizzard and the largest one 

 pierced quite through it. The ducks had always been supplied with 

 plenty of river sand, but this particular duck seemed to have de- 

 veloped an ostrich's appetite. After that I gave them also the 

 smaller chick grit and with most excellent results, for never ducks 

 laid as many eggs as did those. Grit, oyster shells, or clam shells, 

 and charcoal are indispensable for fowls. 



The Symptoms of Grit Craving 



When your hens seem "mopey" just break up some old china, 

 and see if they will not refuse the best food for it. 



