130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



This graphically describes a common experience in feeding 

 chicks, but does not explain the cause of the difficulty, which 

 may be defined as, in part at least, a too rapid eating or " gulp- 

 ing " of the food. One poultry writer describes it as follows : 

 " Your mash-fed chicken gets up in the morning, waits around 

 an hour or two vmtil the feeder gets ready to bring along a 

 bucket of hot or cold mash, which is thrown down on a board 

 or trough and a wild scramble begins. Each one gulps down 

 what he can reach ; the weaker get a little and the stronger 

 get the bulk of the food. If the mash is hot it raises the tem- 

 perature of the bird above what is normal, and perspiration is 

 started, which is far from what should be, as this opening of 

 the pores of the skin paves the way for a chill and the founda- 

 tion of colds and roup is laid. The food goes through the crop 

 with very little change except fermentation, and the extra work 

 of preparing the food for digestion is thrown upon the gizzard 

 and intestines, whereas the saliva of the mouth and kneading 

 of the crop should have done quite a little towards softening 

 and partly digesting it. 



" The cooking of food, some say, makes it more digestible, 

 which we have no doubt is true, but the question arises as to 

 what particular part of the food it makes more digestible. Of 

 course, the starch is more easily digested, but the protein is not, 

 and we think that here is where the mischief arises from 

 cooked food. The simple scalding of a mash makes no chemi- 

 cal change in it; you may just as well mix it with cold water 

 as hot, the chemist tells us. The writers say mix the mash as 

 dry as you can mix it ; if it is better to mix it as dry as possible, 

 why is it not better to leave the water out of it entirely ? Surely, 

 it is very much easier to»mix it dry than wet. ' But,' it is ob- 

 jected, 'the fowls won't eat it!' This is true. They will 

 not eat the dry mash for a day or two, when they have been 

 brought up on the wet-mash ration, but brought up on the dry 

 mash they eat it freely and whenever the appetite prompts, and 

 it never stands before them sour — the last spoonful in the 

 hopper is as sweet as the first. 



" Furthermore, each bird gets its full share. There is no 

 wild scramble for the heaps of wet mash in the trough. A bird 

 goes to the food hopper and eats two or three mouthfuls of the 

 dry mash, taking time to turn over and properly moisten it with 

 saliva, and then turns away to search for other bits, as a seed 



