FOODS AND FEEDING. 
PRODUCING AN EARLY MOLT. 
The Van Dreser Method and Some Comments 
Upon it. 
A couple of years ago the story of Mr. Henry 
Van Dreser’s poultry farm was published in an 
agricultural weekly paper, and in it an account 
of how he induced his hens to lay at the time 
when most hens had retired from business and 
were busy with the molt; the method was 
described as follows: 
t 
“ During July and August the wealthy people 
of the city who eat these fine eggs, are cff at 
watering places and pleasure resorts and the 
eggs are not wanted; Van Dreser makes his 
hens molt and get ready for fall business. For 
two weeks they are kept in a pen and get only 
one-fourth of their ration; this reduces their 
flesh. They are then let out into the sunshine, 
and fed with a rush, with the best possible food; 
all they can eat,—peas and oats, wheat and 
corn and particularly sun-flower seed. This 
soon loosens up their old feathers so as to leave 
the hens almost bare. Under the heavy feed 
they soon take on new plumage; the combs 
get red, and just about the time the aristocracy 
get home and other hens are on strike, Van 
Dreser’s are in full lay.” 
There was much discussion of this story in the 
poultry papers, but there was nothing par¬ 
ticularly new in the idea. We were told of 
similar work done by a farmer in Vermont a 
dozen years ago. This farmer’s method was to 
select out perhaps 30 or 40 of his (about 150) 
hens, put them in a pen in a hen house in the 
rear of the farm buildings,and after keeping them 
shut in for a few days to wean them from any 
desire to return to their old quarters, he gave 
them the run of a pasture-lot, watered by a 
brook and dotted with trees. This he called 
“turning them out to grass,” and during the 
month in which they were thus treated they 
were fed once a day a light feed of some grain, 
as oats and wheat, and at the end of the period 
they were substantially reduced in flesh, and 
had' got into good, “hard” condition. They 
were then fed a good grain-ration, with the 
usual proportion of corn, etc., and beef scraps. 
The result of this was the hens molted immedi¬ 
ately and in three or four weeks were well 
clothed with a new suit of feathers, and laid 
abundantly. Mr. Foster did this in order to 
be supplied with eggs in fall and early winter, 
that he might keep up with his orders for select- 
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outdoor Brooders Under Natural Shelter. 
ed eggs for New York City clients; and he spoke 
of the method as working exellently well 
There is no doubt but an early molt can be 
produced in this manner. ’Whether it is profit¬ 
able to thus force the molt is an altogether 
different question, and much would depend 
upon the object in view. If the object is to 
have hen’s eggs in fall and early winter, forcing 
the molt will accomplish it; if, however, the 
object of keeping over a proportion of the year- 
old hens to have especially good hatching eggs 
in the spring, it may well be doubted if an early 
molt is of any value. It is the opinion of 
many observant poultrymen that we get 
stronger and better chicks from eggs of year- 
old hens that have laid very little during the 
winter, hence come to the breeding season not 
at all exhausted in strength, and, indeed, in 
the best possible condition to produce eggs 
which will turn out the strongest and most 
vigorous chicks. Until we have further light 
upon this subject, and perhaps have tested the 
ability of hens to lay for an entire twelve 
months following the forced molt, it may be 
well to suspend judgment. 
The following is the report from Bulletin No. 
83, September, 1902, of the West Virginia 
Agricultural Experiment Station: 
A Trial of the VanDreser Method of Producing 
an Early and Uniform Molt. 
When a specialty is made of producing winter 
eggs it is of much importance to have the hens 
shed their feathers early in the fall so that the 
new plumage may be grown before cold weather 
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