The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1889-08-24
THE POULTRY YARD,

Many a farmer in the West who lives
far from the sea shore or from large
cities, where oyster shells are abundant,
may have at times felt that perhaps his
lack of profit in poultry keeping was
due to the fact that he could not afford
to get oyster shells at the expense they
would be to him when obtained in such
small quantities IS he would need. To
such we commend the following which
we clip from the Poultry Keeper:
The PouItrB World takes up the mat
ter of feeding oyster shells to fowls, and
the editor expresses himself as follows:
Rash man Is he who dare5 in these
days to speak good word for oyster
posed them? And did not a writer,
years before this poultry editor published
his great expose, dare to doubt their use
in furnishing lime to fowls whose sys
TENS were overloaded with that article
from the food they ate? And yet,
strange to say, the hens like ground oys-
ter shells just as we'll az they did before
these articles were written, and seem,
like the American public, as Barnum
once said, as if they liked to be hum
bugged. They don't seem to have read
these articles. The trade in ground
oyster shells continues to be brisk, we
ere informed, and We know lots of
poultrymen who continue to feed this
useless rubbish. Unvitiated and unde-
PRAYED taste is n very good index of
what the system requires. \ yitlated
appetite is not. Hawthorne has in one
of his inimitable stories a beautiful
maiden who is brought up to breathe
the odoT from a poisonous plant until
she herself becomes, like the plant,
capable of breathing death to others.
Her appetite, her taste has become
vitiated. But fowls kept in the most
natural way and fed in the most natural
manner are very fond of ground oyster
shells. They don't exactly cry for them,
but they do go for them with great
eagerness. 1t would seem that they
found in them something that they felt
they wanted. May be they are only
good for grit. May be that gravel and
broken crockery and splintered glass
are inst as good, but somehow they don't
seem to banker after these articles as
do after ground oyster shells. If grit is
all they want they have choice in the
kind of grit, and they show that choice
when the oyster shells are put before
them. We think it is wise to furnish
the hens what their appetites demand,
what their systems crave. We think the
poultrymen who do this will not fall
into any very serious error"
The World does not properly under
stand our position. We have not con-
demned oyster shells, or recommended
their abandonment. Our position is
simply this-that oyster shells are not
necessary to provide lime for egg shells
and we have shown that fact by giving
the compositions of foods. As to the
trade in oyster shells being brisk, etc,
it is not logic. Fowls will cat anything
if educated to it. That they don't seem
to hanker after broken crockery, etc, as
for shells" we deny cmphatically. That
shells will do no harm l. true. That
they are cheap is true. That they will
be used is also true. But that they are
necessary needs confirmation. In some
sections the hens never see piece OF
she'll. That they prefer sharp pieces of
she'll and will not cat shell meal, (the
most available form is also true. Be
cause shells are used, that hens eat
them, that poultrymen don't seem to
have read the articles" and that the
shell trade is brisk" does not prove or
disprove anything.