The Calico Rock Progress

POULTRY
BALANCED RATION NEEDED FOR HENS
Students of hen science believe that an ordinary bird should be able to produce a thousand eggs if we knew how to give her a fair chance. She is a wonderful machine, with the embryo of more than a thousand eggs in her make-up, but so many things combine to prevent her from doing her best that she generally falls away short of such production during her few years of life.

If you like to count eggs before they are laid, you may figure the matter out to suit yourself—so many pounds of grain, meat, lime, fat, fiber and water to each dozen eggs—and there you are.

All would be well, and you could begin at once to count your eggs, if it were not for the fact that "something always happens" to prevent the regular machine-like production desired.

Certainly we must be careful to supply the needful ration so that fat, protein, nitrogen, fiber, ash or mineral and water will be fed. This is necessary, because no eggs can be produced if one of these elements is lacking.

The fowls must be kept in condition or they will not "shell out." This is one of the most difficult parts in our whole plan of egg production. The grains are high in nitrogen and protein. Meat scrap, bone and meat meal are high in fat and protein. When the flock is out on the range, young and old pick up what they instinctively seek as needful.

Some of the prepared feeds are mixed so that just about the right proportion of each needed element is in the ration. Sometimes the birds do not seem to like the ration as mixed for them, so the plans of the scientists do not work out.

Molting Period Is Good Index of Value of Hen
Hens that are in the midst of molting do not, as a rule, lay. The time of the year when molting takes place is, therefore, a reliable index of the value of the hen to the flock for the reason that a hen molting in wrong season, when she should be laying, can deprive the flock of more profit than would be the case had she molted early enough to be laying at the peak of high prices.

The "early molter" is not, however, a good layer, as a rule. Molting usually starts with the neck, then the body and finally the tail and the wings. It takes, usually, three months for the molting process to be fully completed.

While it would seem that the early molters would be the best winter layers, actual experiments have proved that such is not the case.

These tests held by various experiment stations have brought out the fact that egg production controls the molt rather than the molt controlling the egg production. So long as laying is continued the molting will be postponed. And it is quite universally conceded that the late molter is the best layer. In fact, it seems to be a standard rule on commercial farms now and in the experiment stations to discard the hens which have completed the molt in late September and are in full feather and to hold those molting in October and November.

Soy Bean Meal for Hens Is Most Excellent Feed
A number of feeding tests at various experiment stations have shown the value of soy-bean oil meal as a poultry feed. From these tests it was concluded that soy bean oil meal could replace rolled oats in chick feeding. Poultrymen in the Pacific coast states have used soy-bean oil meal for several years and consider it a most excellent feed for growth and egg production.

Another series of experiments showed that soy-bean oil meal when fed with a suitable mineral mixture is a better supplement to corn meal than scraps and is nearly as good as condensed buttermilk when fed to chickens for short-time intensive feeding periods.

Way to Make Hens Sick
Feeding moldy cornmeal is rather a sure way of making hens sick. Spoiled feed will ruin either young chicks or ducklings in a short time. Always sort carefully any corn containing moldy or decayed ears and discard all that are not fit for food. Dogs can disgorge material that proves harmful to them but when a hen or chick eats spoiled grain or decayed meat it must pass through the entire digestive system and often it kills the bird.

Feed Value of Chess
There are no feeding tables giving the food analysis of chess. But it is safe to say that it has a fair feeding value. Many times it has been fed with satisfactory results. It is best to grind it and mix it with other grain. Chickens are shy about eating any new grain. If you bring your chicks up on wheat, and then suddenly change to corn, they will at first refuse to eat the corn, but in a short time they learn to eat the corn readily.