The food requirements of a laying hen are very like those of a growing chicken.  One addition to the list is, however, required for egg production, which is lime, of which the shell of the egg is formed.  In the summer-time hens on the range will find sufficient lime to supply their needs.  In the winter-time they should be supplied with more lime than the food contains.  Crushed oyster shell answers the purpose admirably.

A supply of green food is one of the requisites of successful winter feeding.  Every farmer should see that a patch of rye, crimson clover, or some other winter green crop is grown near his chicken-house.  Vegetables and refuse from the kitchen help out in this matter, but seldom furnish a sufficient supply.  Vegetables may be grown for this purpose.  Mangels and sugar-beets are excellent.  Cabbage, potatoes and turnips answer the purpose fairly well.  Mangels are fed by splitting in halves and sticking to nails driven in the wall.

Clover and alfalfa are excellent chicken feeds and should be used in regions where winter crops will not keep green.  The leaves that shatter off in the mow are the choicest portion for chicken feeding, and may be fed by scalding with hot water and mixing in a mash.  Hens will eat good green alfalfa if fed dry in a box.

The feeding of sprouted oats should be practiced when no other green food is available.  Oats may be prepared for this purpose by thoroughly soaking in warm water and being kept in a warm, damp place for a few days.  Feed when the sprouts are a couple of inches long.

Almost all grains are suitable foods for hens.  Corn, on account of its cheapness and general distribution, is the best.  The general prejudice against corn feeding should be directed rather against feeding one grain alone without the other forms of food.  If hens are supplied with green foods, with mineral matter, some form of meat food, and are forced to take sufficient amount of exercise, the danger from overfatness, due to the feeding of a reasonable amount of corn, need not be feared.

As has already been emphasized, the variety of food given is more essential than the kind.  Do not feed one grain all the time.  The more variety fed the better.  Corn and Kaffir-corn, being cheap grains, will form the major portion of the ration, but, even if much higher in price, it will pay to add a portion of such grain as wheat, barley, oats or buckwheat.

Cleanliness.

The advice commonly given in poultry papers would require one to exercise nearly as much pains in the cleaning of a chicken house as in the cleaning of a kitchen.  Such advice may be suitable for the city poultry fanciers, but it is out of place when given to the farmer.  Poultry raising, the same as other farm work, must pay for the labor put into it, and this will not be the case if attempt is made to follow all the suggestions of the theoretical poultry writer.