1910. 
THE RURAL NKW-YORKKR 
247 
A SUCCESSFUL HEN MAN TALKS. 
I noticed on page 1116 a reply made 
by Win. R. Fisher to F : P. B. on the 
question of dry mash feeding of poultry. 
My time has been devoted to the study 
of making poultry pay along business 
and commercial lines. I thought at least 
F. P. B. might be interested to know of 
one poultryman who first, last, and all 
the time believes in dry mash, and who 
is at least able to tell how to prepare a 
good one. Four years ago I purchased 
a large farm on the Connecticut River. 
My business previous to this had been 
brokerage. For years I had a natural 
inclination toward raising poultry on a 
large scale. When I came to the farm 
I experimented for a year and a half, 
using different breeds, figuring both on 
meat and eggs, natural and artificial in¬ 
cubation and brooding. I found to my 
satisfaction the only hen for me was 
the one that would lay the largest num¬ 
ber of eggs on least amount of food. I 
found I could hatch and rear chicks bet¬ 
ter, have nicer cleaner youngsters and 
less per cent cost by artificial hatching 
and raising. Nothing could induce me 
to set a hen. While she is being watched 
for twenty-one days, I can devote not 
much more time to a 390-egg incubator, 
and be reasonably sure of a larger per 
cent of chicks from my eggs, and be very 
sure the incubator chicks are free from 
vermin. 
It took me almost three years to work 
out the feeding question to my satisfac¬ 
tion. I fed all ways and all grains, and 
I want to say right here most emphatic¬ 
ally I am a hopper feeder of dry mash. 
Mr. Fisher says hopper feeding is a lazy 
man’s method. If Mr. Fisher were to 
follow me for one week he would not 
say that; I have been called everything 
from a lizard up, but never lazy. I 
never heard of any sane poultryman 
feeding dry mash alone, the only reason 
for feeding some whole grain being to 
found; hens, to do well on dry-mash 
feeding, must be dry-mash-fed chicks. 
•As with the layers, a little-chick grain is 
also fed, but my chickens when one week 
old, have small, hoppers, of-growing (not 
laying) mash placed where they can al¬ 
ways have access to it and if hoppers of 
chicks or hens are allowed to go empty, 
why as the saying goes, “I start some¬ 
thing.” 
The R. X.-Y. is a farm paper, I have 
always noticed that farmers in general 
seem to think a lot of mongrel hens lay 
more eggs than the same number of pure, 
breds. I once entertained this idea, but 
it is the greatest mistake or wrong idea 
one can connect with poultry. It is ab¬ 
solutely impossible to feed a ration fitted 
to a lot of hens of different size, inclina¬ 
tion and activity. What fits one or the 
majority will not do for the remainder. 
No matter what breed one chooses, they 
all have advantages. Breed an even lot 
of purebred birds and know they are 
from a heavy laying strain. For the 
money invested, I am satisfied that there 
is more money to be made in egg farm¬ 
ing than any other branch of farm work 
on the ordinary farm. My laying mash I 
make as follows : 200 pounds wheat bran ; 
100 pounds best white middlings; 100 corn 
meal; 100 yellow gluten; 50 old process 
linseed meal; 70 pounds fine cut or 
ground Alfalfa; 100 meat meal or fine 
scraps (the best) ; thoroughly mixed and 
fed in hoppers. Also oyster shells, grit, 
charcoal and beef scraps. I make a five- 
compartment hopper which holds in 
separate compartment the above as men¬ 
tioned. It is a well known fact that the 
best paying year of a hen is her first or 
pullet year. From 1,000 to 1,200 laying 
pullets I pick 300 of the most persistent 
layers to carry over as breeders for the 
next year. The remainder of these pul¬ 
lets I dispose of along in the Summer 
after they stop laying in paying quanti¬ 
ties. My pullets are shut up October 
1 and do not step a foot out of their 
house until the following May, and up 
to date, since last October, I have not 
lost one per cent of bird's. As a rule 
breeders on a large scale allow from 10 
to 15 per cent annual mortality. Mine 
may come later. a. g. lord. 
Connecticut. 
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promote exercise. In addition to the 
mash in hopper, I feed at about 2 P. M. 
(this means Fall and Winter months) 
equal parts mixed, cracked corn, good 
red wheat or white, and best white oats, 
fed at rate of about one quart to each 25 
birds and scattered in very deep dry 
sweet litter. Litter should be from eight 
to 12 inches deep. This will keep a 
healthy lot of hens scratching and busily 
working until nearly or quite roosting 
time. After the birds have gone to roost 
we again scatter in litter same kind of 
grain, and about same amount. This 
will start the hens at work in the morn¬ 
ing. I have never seen the hen that 
would eat dry mash if ■she has a chance 
to find a stray kernel of grain, and one 
will find that hens will work as eagerly 
for a little whole grain where a good dry 
mash is before them as they will if the 
dry mash were not present. 
My chief reason for dry mash for 
layers is that my business is egg produc¬ 
tion. I use nothing but open front 
houses, and breed S. C. White Leghorns. 
I have this Winter 1200 layers, and since 
November 5 to date, February 2, have 
been able to maintain very nearly a 50 
per cent egg yield; that means the 
average from my entire flock of layers, 
excepting my breeders, which only com¬ 
menced to lay again last month. Now, 
I have found from past experience that 
I could not outwit nature to the extent 
of obtaining such a large egg yield 
when eggs were wholesaling at from 49 
to 54 cents per dozen unless I fed a ra¬ 
tion very high in egg-producing in¬ 
gredients. For large egg production, I 
am a firm believer in a ration somewhat 
narrow. The hen must have protein, fat, 
bone ash or carbohydrates. Some ad¬ 
vise a ration of 1—4—4; personally I 
have better success with a narrower ra¬ 
tion, say 1—2 y 2 , or one per cent protein 
to 2fat and bone ash. There posi¬ 
tively is no way one can properly balance 
a hen’s rations except in mash and life 
is too short for me to feed a damp 
mash. Some of the grains the birds 
like better than others, but in a properly 
constructed hopper to eat any they must 
eat the mixture. Another thing I have 
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