©02 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
THE HEN MAN TALKS. 
Hygrometer; Feeding Rations. 
1. Are the hygrometers used in incubators 
of any practical worth, or are they only 
a bait for amateurs? 2. Some advocate 
a different ration for Winter and Summer, 
and for between; if this is necessary, what 
would be the best for Leghorns during 
each period? J. h. b. 
Kauffman, Pa. 
1. Hygrometers are of practical value in 
determining the moisture content of the 
air in incubator cellars or other rooms 
where hatching is carried on. Under or¬ 
dinary conditions they are not a necessity 
and, like a great many other things, they 
may well be dispensed with in the inter¬ 
ests of the credit side of the ledger. 
2. Poultry rations should be vai’ied ac¬ 
cording to the season, since, during the cold 
weather, more carbohydrates or heat pro¬ 
ducing elements in the food are needed 
than in the Summer. It is not necessary, 
however, to attempt to formulate a scien¬ 
tifically balanced ration for each of the 
four seasons; simply increase the propor¬ 
tions of such fat-forming foods as corn, 
barley and buckwheat in the Winter, and 
in warm weather replace a portion of these 
grains by oats, wheat, clover and other 
foods having a higher protein content and 
less fat. m. b. d. 
Good Poultry Rations. 
Will you give me feeding rations for 
chicks and laying hens? a. b. 
Newly-hatched chicks should receive their 
first food, and be given water, when about 
36 hours old ; for the first few meals bread 
crumbs moistened with milk may be given, 
and at the same time some chick grit and 
finely granulated charcoal should be placed 
before them. For the first three weeks 
chicks should be fed five times daily, and 
they seem to do best when given both hard 
and soft food. The former may be one of 
the commercial chick feeds, or the 1-2-3 
mixture. This consists of one part pin¬ 
head oat meal, two parts finely cracked 
corn, and three parts cracked wheat, these 
proportions being by weight. For the soft 
food old-fashioned cornmeal johnny cake 
or the following mash mixture recom¬ 
mended by the Cornell Experiment Station 
may be used: Wheat bran, wheat mid¬ 
dlings, cornmeal and sifted beef scraps, of 
each three parts by weight, to which may 
be added one part of bone meal. This is 
moistened with skim-milk. r ^he johnny 
cake may well be fed for the first week, 
and the mash mixture then substituted for 
it. From the second day up to three weeks 
of age, the chicks should receive three 
meals daily of the soft feed and two of 
the grain, and the same mash mixture 
should be kept before them, dry, in shallow 
dishes, the supply being renewed daily and 
any that becomes soiled thrown away. The 
cracked grain may be fed in shallow litter, 
or may also be placed in trays. After 
three weeks the number of meals should be 
gradually reduced, first to two of mash and 
two of grain, then to one of mash and two 
of grain, the grain being fed night and 
morning, and the moist mash at noon, still 
keeping the dry mash constantly before 
them. After about six weeks the chicks 
will eat whole wheat and hulled oats, and 
the corn need not be so finely cracked. 
After eight weeks the grain ration may be 
changed to two parts of wheat and three 
of cracked corn, and, if the chicks are on 
free range, this may be kept constantly be¬ 
fore them in hoppers. The moist mash 
should be continued once daily if it is de¬ 
sired to force the chicks as rapidly as pos¬ 
sible, otherwise this, too, may be fed dry, 
In hoppers, always accessible to them. 
Whole beef scrap may be fed. mixed in 
the dry mash, in the proportion of one- 
sixth to one-fourth of the mash by weight, 
or, if the chicks are accustomed to it, and 
are on range, tt may be kept constantly 
before them in hoppers. Uo not forget that 
at all ages, fresh clean water, always ac¬ 
cessible to the chicks, is absolutely essen¬ 
tial to their welfare. 
For laying hens the following method 
of feding used by the Cornell Station 
would probably be hard to improve upon : 
Whole Grain. 
Winter. 
60 lbs. wheat 
60 lbs. corn 
80 lbs. oats 
80 lbs. buckwheat 
Summer. 
60 lbs. wheat 
60 lbs. corn 
30 lbs. oats 
Dry Mash. 
Winter and Summer. 
60 lbs. cornmeal 
GO lbs. wheat middlings 
30 lbs. wheat, bran 
10 lbs. Alfalfa meal 
10 lbs. oil meal 
50 lbs. beef scrap 
1 lb. salt 
The dry mash is kept before the fowls 
In hoppers, open afternoons only. The 
grain, about one quart to each 25 fowls, 
is fed in their litter nights and mornings. 
Green or succulent food is also given, and 
grit, oyster shells, and charcoal are always 
before them. M. b. d. 
Henhouse Construction. 
I am planning to build a henhouse this 
season. Which will be the more satis¬ 
factory material for me to use, concrete or 
wood? Which material will be cheaper? 
There seems to be a difference of opinion 
among my neighbors as to the dampness 
of concrete houses. Some say the fowls 
will not be as healthy in them as in wood 
houses. If I build of wood would it be 
best to have a concrete floor? Some tell 
me a dirt floor is better than any other. I 
plan to build a house 20 x 10 feet, eight 
feet high at the front, six feet at the back. 
The front will be open with frames cov¬ 
ered with muslin to be used in cold 
weather. What will be the approximate 
cost of such a house? e. j. 
Warner, N. Y. 
The plan of your proposed henhouse Is 
open to criticism on the ground that the 
dimensions are not such as to secure the 
greatest economy in cost consistent with 
capacity. Unless there is some special rea¬ 
son for desiring a narrow house, it will 
be found advisable to make the building 
more nearly square, giving it a depth of 
at least 14 feet, and making it of such 
length as to provide the capacity required, 
which capacity may be figured by allowing 
each fowl a floor space of from four to 
six square feet. The reason for this is that 
the more nearly square a building can be 
constructed the less will be the material 
required in its walls, and in a house of 
the open-front type a deep building has the 
further advantage of affording the fowls 
greater protection from drafts. Unless 
local conditions are unusual, a house can 
be built more cheaply of wood than of 
concrete, though there is no reason why 
the latter material should not make a 
building equally dry and healthful if prop¬ 
erly constructed. In either case a concrete 
floor has the advantage of being vermin- 
proof, and much morn easily cared for 
than one of wood or dirt, but if your soil 
is naturally dry or can be made so by 
drainage, a dirt floor is very satisfactory, 
and, of course, much cheaper. Without 
knowing the prices of labor and material, 
no one could give even an approximate es¬ 
timate of the cost of such a building as 
you require, but any local builder should 
be able to furnish you with such an esti¬ 
mate. m. B. D. 
Lame Cockerel. 
We have a Brahma cockerel, nearly a 
year old, which has gone lame. lie first 
hopped around on one leg, and seemed to 
be getting better, when suddenly he went 
to pieces on both. lie is a handsome bird, 
and I hate to kill him. What might it be, 
rheumatism or paralysis? He looks “pale 
and peaked” now, but for a long time his 
general health seemed to be good. 
Deposit, N. Y. s. H. s. 
If an examination of this cockerel’s feet 
and legs disclosed no local trouble to ac¬ 
count for his lameness, I should conclude 
that he was suffering from rheumatism. 
He should be placed by himself in a 
warm, dry and sunny place, where he 
could be fed alone and be given plenty of 
water to drink, or, better still, have all 
the skim-milk that he would take. All 
meat or other stimulating food should l^e 
removed from his rations. m. b. d. 
Adjusting Incubator Losses. 
A keeps purebred chickens, B has in¬ 
cubator and agrees to do hatching for A 
at so much an egg. Of course it is taken 
for granted that A stands all loss from 
infertile eggs, but what would be a fair 
and honest adjustment of the eggs that 
are, for any reason, allowed to cook or be 
destroyed by chilling? a. r. 
Cottage Hill, Fla. 
If eggs taken for hatching are spoiled 
through negligence of the operator, be 
would, in my opinion, be morally respon- 
able to the extent of the value of such 
eggs. This would not, of course, fully re¬ 
imburse the owner of the eggs, as the mat¬ 
ter of lost time is frequently as important 
as that of the wasted eggs. Legally, I 
doubt if damages could be collected, as it 
would be impossible to show that any cer¬ 
tain number of the eggs would have 
hatched under proper conditions. I, my¬ 
self, recently received 117 weak, poorly 
hatched chicks from the proprietor of a 
“mammoth” incubator. I had sent him 
400 valuable eggs that I knew to be 
strongly fertile and capable, under proper 
conditions, of yielding at least a 75 per cent 
hatch. The only satisfaction that I got 
was the statement from the operator that 
the compartment of the machine in which 
my eggs were placed ran at too low a tem¬ 
perature. This statement could not have 
been applied to my temperature when I 
received the shipment, but I was obliged 
to charge the loss to experience. 
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