Feeding Experiments with Laying Hens on Corn Meal and Vegetable Protein Rations

Abstract

The feeding experiments with laying hens on the use of high vegetable protein feeds and the feed cost of eggs with various rations which the Animal Husbandry Division has been conducting at its experimental farm near Washington, D. C., since 1912 were continued during the war period. Cotton seed meal has given the best results of the high vegetable protein feeds and is one of the best sources of vegetable protein where bone meal and meat scrap are added to the mash. Experiments covering two years with cotton seed meal gave very low egg yields (an average of only 33 eggs per hen) and a high cost of eggs where the mash was composed of 1/3 cotton seed meal and contained no meat scrap. A considerable per cent of the eggs produced, on this ration high in cotton seed meal, had discolored yolks with green or greenish-brown spots, making them …