October, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 





POULTRY 



DEB 





WHEN THE HENS MOULT 



By E. I. FARR1NGTON 



GROWING a new coat of feathers is 

 a serious matter for a hen, and for 

 that reason she needs particularly good 

 care during the moulting period, which 

 commonly lasts nearly three months. With 

 most poultry, moulting is more or less con- 

 tinuous, but once a year there is a general 

 shedding of the feathers and the growth 

 of an entire new body covering. Some- 

 times the new feathers come almost as 

 fast as the others fall out, but again a hen 

 may become nearly bare in the course of a 

 moult. 



Such hens as moult early and get their 

 new feathers before Winter weather ar- 

 rives, may be expected to produce a profit- 

 able number of eggs when eggs are high. 

 Birds which commence moulting late in the 

 Autumn are hardly worth keeping over, 

 unless especially valued as breeders. As a 

 rule, the amateur will do well to make table 

 poultry of the fowls which do not begin 

 dropping their feathers before cold weather 

 is at hand. If they are not in good con- 

 dition for eating, they may be confined for 

 a week and fed liberally of ground grains 

 softened with milk or water. 



Naturally the hens which have been the 

 heaviest layers will be in the poorest phy- 

 sical condition, but they are likely to be 

 the very birds which the owner will want 

 to keep for breeding purposes. They will 

 need close attention. The early hatched 

 pullets should be ready to lay soon after 

 these older birds have ceased to fill the 

 egg basket, but there is likely to be a short 

 eggless interval which the amateur finds 

 difficulty in bridging over. 



It is important to keep the pullets and 

 the hens -eparate. for the latter will need 

 special feeding as the moult comes on, if 

 they are to be kept over. Green food in 

 abundance will be required and there should 

 be an extra allowance of beef scraps, al- 

 though without going to extremes. After 

 the first two or three weeks it will be well 

 to add a little linseed or oil meal to a 

 crumbly mash given each morning. If the 

 amount proves to be laxative it must be re- 

 duced. Sunflower seeds may also be fed 

 as a part of the grain ration. All these 

 oily feeds aid in the growing of feathers. 

 The mash should not be sufficient to con- 

 stitute a whole meal, but grain should be 

 scattered in the litter in the usual way, the 

 birds being compelled to scratch for what 

 they eat and not allowed to become cloyed 

 with food and thus lose their appetites. It 

 is perhaps well to cut down on the corn 

 ration and to feed more wheat and oats. 

 Still, the amateur is to be cautioned against 

 any sudden or drastic departure from his 

 usual methods. It is a mistake to be led 

 into trying first one system of feeding and 

 then another. And changes of any sort 

 best introduced gradually. 



A few years since a plan to hasten the 

 moult wa-. exploited and many poultry 

 keepers believed a way had been found to 



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