Treatment of the Laying Hen.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 87, 19 June 1908, Page 4

Treatment of the Laying Hen.

It must be remembered that when a fowl lis laying, her system has to be supported just the same as when she is not laying, besides giving material or substance to make the eggs. House scraps, mixed with good middlings, are sufficient when scraps consist of pieces of meat and good food, but when the household is a small and frugal one. the difficulty in quality of house scraps should be supplied by the mixture of good bis-cuit-meal and meat, either fresh or granulated. For egg-production nothing is better than this, with the addition of a sprinkling of poultry powden This is a nutritious and egg-producing I'ccd for the birds, and much more economical than a larger supply of less expensive food, for we have proved by careful experiments that fowls eat at a much smaller quantity of this mixture, and appear better in health, and certainly prove imore profitable than when fed on a less>nourishing mixture. Exercise is an important factor to success when laying fowls are kept, and this is especially the case when birds of the brown egg-producing breeds are kept, as there is a tendency with those to that inertia which results in the accumulation of adipose tissue to the detriment of results in the form of the eggs, as internal fat is really harmful to fowls, clogging their liver and preventing the egg organs performing their proper functions. The lazy hen is invariably unprofitable, and, although it is not possible in the provision of scratching exercise to supply the bird with egg-producing machinery, the lack of exercise frequently interferes with the development of eggs in hens and pullets which would otherwise prove really profitable.