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Show CARING FOR LAYING PULLETS Dry, Comfortable Houses Should Bo Provided and an Abundance of Green Is Necessary. Changes in management of poultry can not be made during the course of the breeding and hatching season without seriously interfering with the results. Any new methods of management, manage-ment, feeding', etc., which one wishes to use, must be inaugurated at the beginning be-ginning of the season and adhered to throughout. The bringing of the chickens in from the range upon which they have grown from little chicks, into the laying lay-ing home, is apt to be a very violent and abrupt transition. An authority w 1113 rt Green Food Growers. upon the raising of poultry profitably, has the following to say on the subject: sub-ject: "It has seemed In studying the birds in the fall of the year that the change from the range to the laying house, was an important one in "the life of the bird, and that the results during the subsequent winter with reference ref-erence to egg production depended much upon the way this transition was made. It seemed advisable both on general grounds and from observation observa-tion of the birds themselves to make this change as gradual as possible. With this idea in mind the pullets have been brought into the houses from the range much earlier during the past few years than was the custom cus-tom before and the results hare been excellent. When the pullets are first brought in it is not advisable to shut them up entirely in tin houses at once. 'On the contrary, our work is planned in such a way that there is always a freshly-seeded yard full of green grass for the birds to run in after they are brought into the house until cold weather sets in. The fowls are brought from, free range into a condition of restricted range, but with better pasturage on the restricted range than on the free range. The yards are freshly seeded and have not been trampled down or burned oi dried out by the sun, as is the grass on the open range from which the birds are taken. In this way the attempt at-tempt is made to have the transition from the range conditions to house conditions as gradual as possible. After about two months of restricted range, the birds are finally shut up in a curtain front house for the winter. The feed of all adult birds, whether pullets or not, consists of two essential essen-tial parts: (a) The whole or cracked grains scattered in the litter, and (b), the mixture of dry ground grains generally gen-erally known as a dry mash. In addi tion to the grains and dry mash, oyster oys-ter shell, dry cracked bone, grit and charcoal are kept in slatted troughs: and are accessible at all times. Plenty Plen-ty of clean water is furnished. About five pounds of clover hay cut into one-half inch lengths is fed dry daily to each 100 birds in winter. A, Empty Flat; B, Oats Started tc Sprout; C, Oats Well Sprouted. When the wheat, oats, and cracked corn are given, tbi birds are always ready and anxious for them, and they scratch in the litter for the last kernel ker-nel before going to the trough where an abundance of feed is in store. The hens like the broken and whole grains better than the mixture of the fine, dry materials. Yet they help themselves them-selves to it, a mouthful or two at a time, whenever they seem to need it. There is a general unanimity of opinion among poultrymen that the fowls do best when some form of green or succulent food is given them during the winter months. In fact, it is an absolute, necessity, if best results are to be obtained. The function of green food is largely in the nature of a digestive stimulant. Green sprouted oats have been widely used in recent years as a green food for poultry and it is a most excellent thing. The oats are fed when they are from four to six inches in height, and are fed at the rate of a piece of the matted oats and attached green stalks about six by eight inches square for each 100 birds per day. |