1905.] Feeding Fowls for Eggs in Winter. 



meal, two parts oatmeal, and quarter part prepared meat 

 (scalded). The foregoing should be mixed together with 

 warm water and given' in a crumbling state, troughs being used 

 for the purpose. If soft food is thrown about where there are 

 dry leaves, grass, straw, or similar rubbish, evil results often 

 follow through fowls being cropbound. Although there may be 

 plenty of grass, there is nothing more helpful in winter 

 than a midday feed of some kind of greenstuff. Thousand- 

 headed kale is best, but failing this cabbage may be used. 



For the evening meal use wheat, oats, and kibbled maize 

 in rotation, changing the grain each week. This should be 

 scattered wide, or in a way that it will give the fowls plenty of 

 exercise to gather it. 



If it can be managed it is advisable to keep the pullets in a 

 field or on a grass-run and separate from the hens until the end 

 of October, when they may be moved into their winter quarters, 

 if there are any. Many of the early pullets should be laying by 

 this time, and as it is certain to take them a week to get used to 

 their new quarters the egg current is not so likely to be interfered 

 with by the upset of moving as when the weather gets colder. 



Feeding the hens. — Many hens are kept which fail to produce 

 an egg for several months each winter. A large number of these 

 hens are useless for the purpose for which they are kept, but the 

 remainder, with care and proper feeding, would be egg pro- 

 ducers. There are two months in the year when hens require 

 special attention as to feeding — September and October — 

 and many hens that would be egg producers fail through 

 neglect at this period. The injury is caused through want 

 of helpful food during moulting, so as to enable them to 

 get their young feathers quickly without check to the system 

 and before the cold weather comes. 



Special feeding should start as soon as a sign of moulting 

 appears. Experiments made on fifteen hens just beginning 

 to moult, and selected from a yard of 180, gave the following 

 results : — They were placed in three different pens of five birds 

 each on September 9th, and kept there until the 9th February 

 following. 



No. 1 pen had nothing but hard grain, consisting of wheat 

 and maize, with cold water to drink, and were kept without 



