The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-11-15
Poultry Thrives on Alfalfa.

(Mrs e. Robertson)
I do not find much written about
alfalfa in any of the poultry journals
and yet | have demonstrated to my
satisfaction during the past year that
it excels clover both as green food
for growing chicks and a winter relish
for adult fowls. We have field OF
ten acres sown to alfalfa stretching
Just below the colony coops and pens
where | raise my chicks. During sum-
mer a year ago l noticed that soon as
| gave the chicks free range thel would
seek this field and spend hours in the
growing alfalfa, particularly when 1t
blossomed ready for cutting. by
close observation | found that they ate
the tender tops and purple buds raw
enously and certainly seemed to thrive
on the food
| tried sowing some seed in my nurs-
cry pen and it was wonderful to see
how the chicks enjoyed it-wee, fiut-
fly fellows just from the incubator
This set me to thinking. When win
/ ter came on l housed one hundred
pure Buff Cochin pullets in a fairly
roomy and comfortable house. The
large hay barn was stored to the
roof with alfalfa and millet hay. From
the former the leaves and dried bios
SONS, still green in hue, fell in masses
of fiine-fragrant litter, useless to the
cattle and horses which only ate the
bulkier stems All winter long l used
this alfalfa chaff for litter in my
houses, bedding the floor deep every
day The hens scratched in it for
their grain and ate every available
bit they could pick up. BY night the
floor would be bare and a fresh sup
ply was thrown in ready for the morn
ing meal.
My hens have always done well as
winter layers, but this season they
have outdone themselves and made a
record which is the wonder and envy
of all my neighbours | give the credit
to alfalfa, especially as some close
neighbors with warmer houses-one
of them heated-who bought patent
egg-making foods, protein and blood
meal in large quantities and who have
bone mills and feed green bone all
winter, with oyster shells, mica grit
and cut clover, got next to no eggs
at all. In fact the one who has the
heated chicken house, did not average
three eggs a week and the other bare
ly got enough for family use. One
has flock of five hundred Brown
Leghorns and the other two hundred
and fifty pure Barred Rocks. Both
neighbors have bought eggs for hatch
ing of me this spring and are going
to try Cochins for winter layers.
In past winters eggs from my old
hens have been few and far between
1t was the pullets that laid the eggs,
but not only did the hens lay, but want
to sit, just as if it was summer wealth
err. | broke as many as a dozen at
a time last January. In the face of
facts like these l naturally give the
credit to alfalfa. This was the sole
addition to their feed and the only
grain they had was corn and an occa-
sional feed of boiled oats, for we did
not SOW wheat last year At the pres
ent writing | have over six hundred
thrifty growing chicks scratching in
alfalfa litter for their grain, whereas
in the neighborhood the hens are only
laying afew eggs. l have become
an enthusiast on the subject of alfalfa
and l say to all breeders of chickens,
SOW it in the pens and also store it
as winter egg producer.
The $2000,000 irrigation project