Every egg is worth, in my market, 2-1/2 cents, which means that the
yearly product of each hen could be sold for $3. Something more than two
thousand dozen are consumed by the home colony or the incubators; the
rest find their way to the city in clean cartons of one dozen each, with
a stencil of Four Oaks and a guarantee that they are not twenty-four
hours old when they reach the middleman.
In return for this $3 a year, what do I give my hens besides a clean
house and yard? A constant supply of fresh water, sharp grits, oyster
shells, and a bath of road dust and sifted ashes, to which is added a
pinch of insect powder. Twice each day five pounds of fresh skim-milk is
given to each flock of forty. In the morning they have a warm mash
composed of (for 1600 hens) 50 pounds of alfalfa hay cut fine and soaked
all night in hot water, 50 pounds of corn meal, 50 pounds of oat meal,
50 pounds of bran, and 20 pounds of either meat meal or cotton-seed
meal. At noon they get 100 pounds of mixed grains--wheat and buckwheat
usually--with some green vegetables to pick at; and at night 125 to 150
pounds of whole corn.
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