





























— New Yorx AgrictutturaL Experiment Srarion. 281 
Observations on F eather-Eating. 
During the winter the vice or habit of “feather-eating” made 
318 appearance in pen No. 8, and at first only one or two of the 
fowis were inclined to this. As the ration at this time was such 
as never appeared to be unfavorable to other fowls and contained 
an average of one-fourth ounce of fresh cut bone snd meat per 
day per fowl, the habit was allowed to develop and no attempt 
wis made for some time to check its spread until after a few 
weeks every fowl in the pen had acquired the habit cr was: 
suffering very conspicuously from it. After this habit had been 
very scriously prevalent for some weeks, vaseline or lard (some- 
times one, and sometimes the other), ia which had been mixed 
“powdered aloes, was applied to the old feathers near the spots 
which bad been picked bare, and .n th2 new feathers which 
appeared. After continuing this treatment for some time the 
habit apparently disappeared so that tae birds were enabled to 
grow a full coat of new feathers. No changc of any consequence 
was made in the food, etc., and the suppression of the habit was 
probably due to the disagreeable taste of the aloes.* 
The means taken to discourage this habit necessitated frequent 
handling of the fowls and would not pay with ordinary stock. It 
would be more economical to kill the birds first affected. 
It does not seem probable that a ration deficient in some 
_ ecnstituent is always the cause of this trouble, for in this cage 
four pens of fowls were fed alike and the habit developed in 
only one and was afterward suppressed in this pen without any 
radical change in the food. The habit appeared, developed, and 
had begun to disappear during the few months, in which almost 
no change was made in the composition of the ration. During 
this time quite a liberal amount of fresh cut bone, containing 
considerable lean meat, was fed. Before this even », larger pro- 
portion of fresh bone had been fed. 
The most apparent cause for the development of this habit 
was idleness, to someextent consequent uponthe confinement of 
‘the fowls, although they all spent afair proportion of time scratch- 
ing for their grain in the straw which covered the floor of the pen. 

* An extract of aloes would probably be better where grease on the feathers is objectionable. 
_ 86 
