Page 13 - Poultry Review June 2008

POULTRY REVIEW 13

What Does It Cost a Year to Keep a

Hen?

BV EDQAR WARREN.
What does it cost a year to keep a that it costs him at the present
hen? This was the conundrum pro- prices for feed $1.73 a year for each
pounded to the chairman of the Com- hen. Corn, wheat, oats and barley
.
mittee on Agriculture at Washington a mixed are fed at the rate of four ounces
few days ago. The congressman who a day. "Accessible at all times should!
asked the question was in a facetious be a hopper mixture of bran, middlings
mood, and the question was greeted with and corn meal, also green feed such as
ripples of laughter. But it is no laugh- cut clover, alfafa, cabbage or mangels.
ing matter to several millions of people Animal food, such as cut bone or beef
in the United States. It is a more im- scraps, should be fed every other day,
portant question to the poultry keeper Mr. Clark makes the point that a hen
than the cost of our army and navy, the my be kept alive for 80 cents a year,
amount of the river and harbor bill, or but if she is to lay generously it will cost
even the fate of our foreign dependencies. for feed more than twice that. He also
The Boston Herald took up the ques- says: "A swill-fed hen produces eggs
tion, and offered three small prizes for quite liberally for $1.35 per year, but
the best answers. Many of the letters they are of swill quality."
received were written in a jocular vein. Putting these reports together and
But the three that were awarded prizes dividing by three, it will be seen that the
treated the matter seriously. The first average cost to these three poultrymen
prize was won by Robert A, Lynch, for feeding a hen is $1,80 a year.
Maiden, Mass., who keeps a fiock of
An Experiment Anyone May Try.
twenty-three White Plymouth Rock
pullets, and who finds that it costs 4K Many readers of this paper would like
cents a week for each pullet, or $2.31 a to find out just what it costs them per-
sonally to keep a hen a year, but are de-
year. Mr, Lynch did not enter into de-
tails as to his method of feeding, but terred from doing so by the trouble it
states that he keeps them on "good involves, I will suggest a method that
mixed grain." will give them approximately the result
The second prize was won by Mrs. they are after, with the minimum of
G. F. Merrill, of Hampton Falls, N. H., bother and loss of time.
There are $2 weeks in each year.
who entered much more fully into par-
ticulars. She says: "If you want a hen Now, it follows that the cost of feeding
to lay eggs you have got to feed her well. one hen 52 weeks will about equal the
My hens have laid well all Ti'inter. The cost of feeding 52 hens one week; and if
following is what it costs to keep a hen you feed 52 hens one week you will as-
a year: Oats 58 cents; wheat, 39 cents; certain about what if costs to feed one
hen ration, z8 cents; cracked rom, 16 hen s* weeks. I put in the word
cents; cabbage, 4 cents; ground oyster "about," for absolute accuracy is im-
shell, 2 cents, which makes a total of possible. Even where the records are
$1.47." Mrs. Merrill states that the kept for a full year you cannot tell what
ration which she uses is that recommend- it costs to feed an individual hen. Some
ed by the Maine Experiment Station. hens in the pen will eat more and some
Levi Clark of Waltham, Mass., finds less. Hens will eat more at certain