1906.] THE NEW POULTRY CULTURE. 1 35 



" A mixed lot of cockerels is about as uncomfortable a set 

 of individuals as is ever gotten together, and this method of 

 feeding is the only one by which each bird can be fed singly 

 and all get a full share. Here each one goes to the hopper and 

 eats as long as he has plenty of saliva to moisten the food, then 

 moves away, allowing a weaker brother to come up and take 

 his turn. They must necessarily eat slowly, because they can 

 swallow only a small amount of this dry mixture at one time, 

 and thus all have an equal opportunity at the food. 



" Here the digestion of the food begins in the mouth. If 

 the crop of one of these birds is cut open, in place of the sour, 

 partly fermented mess that is found in the crop of a mash-fed 

 chicken, we find the grain as sweet as ever, but smelling as 

 though partly cooked ; there is no fermentation of any kind, 

 and we think the crop now does the work nature intended for 

 it to do. 



" With the system of dry-feeding and the chickens on range, 

 the hopper of food awaits them immediately they are off the 

 roost in the morning ; they eat a little and then start upon the 

 day's hunt over the fields for the bugs, worms, grasshoppers, 

 and grass, which go to make life one sweet dream for them. 

 At any time during the day that their appetites dictate, they 

 can call around at the coop, get a supply of such grain and 

 meat food as they desire, and eat it unmolested, and in a gentle- 

 manly and ladylike manner. Much more uniform gains result ; 

 the younger and weaker chicks thrive as well as the larger 

 and stronger, summer chicks grow practically as well as the 

 spring hatched — and bowel trouble is a thing unheard of from 

 the shell to maturity ; the essential things are that the proper 

 heat be maintained in the brooders for the baby chicks, plenty 

 of room in the coops for them to be comfortable as they get 

 older, and that the grain and beef scraps used are of the best 

 quality. 



" When the pullets go to the laying houses they are 

 fed cracked corn, wheat, oats, and barley ; fifty per cent, of 

 this, however, is cracked corn. A hopper of beef scraps is 

 kept constantly before them, and we now add a hopper of dry 

 bran. The whole grain is thrown in litter two or three times 

 a day, as convenience dictates. The birds are made to scratch 

 for all of their grain, and there are cabbages for them to eat 

 constantly before them. If cabbages are not plenty we use cut 



