Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-01-01
miscellaneous.
MORE EGGS.

| The commercial rule is, 'supply and
demand regulate each other but for two
or three months after moulting season we
never knew the supply of eggs to be equal
to the demand, and this though the price
rises to twice and often to thrice what it is
at other seasons. The cry for a month be-
fore Thanksgiving and a month after
Christmas is for more eggs. Every body
uses them economically at this season, still
the supply in cities is limited, and in the
country, merchants are often compelled to
turn off their customers with. 1--WE have
not an egg in the store and can't get one"
Farmers should take note of these facts
and wake up to the demands of the market
There is no necessity that hens should lay
by for repairs three or four months every
winter, like an old mill 1t was an old
woman that complained of her hens laying
abundantly when eggs were cheap and
stopping the supply when they were dear.
Farmers know or ought to know, that the
hens are not to blame in this matter. They
are merely machines for manufacturing
eggs, and proprietors of machinery don't
expect products without furnishing raw
material, and all the adiunctss requisite
for the smooth running of their machines.
As few farm products are commanding
such remunerative prices as do eggs. as al
most every farmer is inquiring what he
can do to raise a little cash, few sugges-
tions as to the winter production of eggs
may be timely.
In the first place it is the pullet
that must be relied upon during the
moulting season. Pullets do not
change their feathers in the fall,
and while the old hens are passing
through the revolution in their system
there should be some early chickens ready
to keep up the supply of eggs. Chickens
Matched in April and May will commence
laying in October and November, if kept
thriving through the summer and stimu-
lated with suitable food in the autumn
The age at which chickens lay depends
also in part upon the breed. The power
of heredity is as manifest i'm chickens as in
the featherless bipeds The Brahmas,
and the large Asiatic fowls generally come
to maturity slowly The white and the
brown Leghorns and the Dominiques are
ready to lay in five or six months from
Matching if properly treated
Then again the moulting season need not
be protracted so indefinitely as it often is
1t is the old, feeble, poorly-fed hens that
shed their feathers so freely and are long
time replacing them. A hen is not a good
egg-making machine after she is two years
old. and the greatest product may be ex-
pected from her when she is from six to
eighteen months old The true plan there
fore is to kill off the old hens and to keep
the flock young and vigorous. If for any
reason it is desirable to keep them through
two mouting seasons, feed them well and
keep them comfortable every way, and
they will soon recover from the typhoid
depression which seems to accompany
moulting.
This leads us to say that the great rea-
son why we have no more eggs in winter
is that the hens have not comfortable quar-
ters, nor requisite food. The hen is ten
der animal. She is an exotic in this cold
climate, and wants warm bedroom and
comfortable nursery. If we compel
her to sleep on fence or a tree, and
to lay her eggs where the snow
can sift upon them and the frost will
crack them, she will lay very few Under
such circumstances she has little energy in
this direction and knows too much to
waste what little she has. Comfort is the
concomitant of egg production, and food
the great torerunner. In summer, hens.
if allowed the free run of the farm, can
scratch for IA living, and pick up seeds,
grubs and perfect insects enough to sup
ply all demands for the raw material
from which eggs are manufactured In
the winter this supply fails and the eggs
of course fail. An egg is essentially ami
NAL food; in fact it contains the elements
of a perfect animal, the chick Hence it
requires for its manufacture i'm winter
some substitute for the insects which the
hens eat in summer. Comfortable quar-
ters and a mixed animal and vegetable
diet are therefore the great secrets of egg
production in winter. The animal food is
best furnished in the form of animal meal.
This is made at our large abattoirs in
great quantities by steaming the bones and
refuse parts of the animal, and then drying
and grinding them. This meal costs but
little more than corn meal. and quart of
it mixed with three or four quarts of corn
meal and wheat bran, will furnish hens
just the raw material for making eggs.
We have tried it, and know. Some recon-
mend adding to this mush a little red pep
per. And this is a good stimulant but we
have not found it necessary. A box of
coal ashes in one corner of the hennery
and another box of pounded clam shells
in another corner, with pure water in
abundant supply, and the hens will cackle
ont their eggs and thanks ayarv dav