REPORT 0*' THE POULTRY MANAGER. 229 



ration. Col. T. D. Bliss, in Hoard's Dairyman, gives the following list of foods and 

 their description : — 



Highly Nitrogenous Foods — Skimmed milk, buttermilk, cotton seed cake, linseed 

 meal, rape cake, malt sprouts, brewer's grains, sunflower seeds, hempseed cake, red clover 

 before bloom, young pasture clover, rich pasture grass, lucerne before bloom ; flaxseed, 

 pea-meal. 



Foods with an excess of Carbonaceous Matter. — Cream, oat bran, corn bran, 

 wheat middlings, corn, buckwheat grain, oats, barley, rye, carrots, sugar beets, potatoes, 

 corn cobs, ensilage, fodder rye. 



The following are given as useful forms of food for poultry : — 



Cow's milk, barley middlings, buckwheat bran, barley bran, rye bran, coarse wheat 

 bran, cotton seed, millet, wheat, turnips, cabbage, white clover, red clover, and alsike. 



Suitable for both the Dairy Cow and the Hen. 



In the list will be noticed cow's milk, wheat, turnips, red clover, cabbage, wheat 

 bran and buckwheat bran, all of which are more or less available on a farm, particularly 

 where cows are kept in any number. Indeed, the objection may be raised to the 

 vegetable and some of the other materials named, on the ground that they are intended 

 more for cows than hens. But it is a point in favour of the poultry department, that 

 the food which is best suited to the dairy cow is also the best for the laying hens. As a 

 matter of fact much of the waste of the dairy may be utilized as most suitable food in 

 the hennery. In the first report issued by the Experimental Farm Poultry Department 

 will be found the statement " that milk dealers and market gardeners are most favour- 

 ably situated, as regards the disposal of new laid eggs in winter at the highest figures, 

 for they are among the best people in the city every day." That remark, perhaps, more 

 particularly applied to the opportunities for obtaining high prices, but it is gratifying 

 to find that the dairyman is still more favourably situated, inasmuch that the waste 

 material, or at ^ny rate the material that he has in abundance in his establishment, is 

 one of the best rations for poultry. The waste of the market gardeners, in the shape of 

 unmarketable vegetables, &c, &c, is suitable as good food for egg production. 



Cow's Milk. 



As to cow's milk, not long since, I had a letter from a gentleman in the province 

 of Quebec, who asked, " if milk is a satisfactory food for hens, as he had plenty of it 1 " 

 He was answered that it was not only good for his laying hens, but one of the best 

 rations to make his young chickens grow rapidly and vigorously. Again, a leading 

 authority on dairying in the same province wrote me, " If you think milk can be used 

 to good advantage in the poultry department, you will do well by advocating its use, 

 for we are having a large number of dairies started, and there will be plenty of it to 

 spare." As in the previous case, answer was returned that it was one of the best foods 

 for both fowls and chickens. 



TOO MUCH GRAIN AND ITS EFFECTS. 



The experience of the past seven years goes to show that a great deal too much 

 grain is fed. A farmer writes : " I feed my hens all the grain they can eat and yet 

 they do not lay." It is generally the case that when grain is made the sole feed, the 

 result is fat rather than eggs, and as is frequently stated in our reports, " a fat hen 

 will not be a laying one." No doubt in the case mentioned above the farmer fed alto- 

 gether too much grain. It must be recognized that fat is a disease in the laying stock. 

 It has been stated in a previous report that the laying gtock require, while confined to 

 winter quarters, to be supplied with all the materials necessary to make the shell as 

 well as the egg. In other words that the hen, in winter quarters must be supplied 



