New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 563 



and reared in out-door lamp-brooders. They were taken from two 

 hatches, from which many of the chicks were used for other pur- 

 poses, and, although the two lots were entirely comparable, the 

 cliicks in each lot varied a week or more in age. They were 

 of several breeds, the Light Brahma, Dark Brahma, Buff Cochin, 

 Partridge Cochin and some of Cochin-Game cross. The records 

 of feeding and of growth were kept from the time the chicks were 

 hatched until they w^ere three months of age. The cockerels were 

 then caponized and were fed during the winter. The pullets were 

 also fed the contrasted rations for a while, but were too few in 

 number to make the results satisfactory, and were not carried 



through. 



FOODS. 



The grain food for one lot of chicks. No. I, consisted from the 

 start entirely of ground grain, and that for lot Ko. II, entirely of 

 whole or cracked grain. Both lots were fed skim milk freely. 

 Lot No. I had dried blood. Lot No. II had cut, fresh bone, all 

 the chicks would eat, twice a week, and what dried blood they 

 could be induced to eat with the whole grain. Of these animal 

 foods not enough was eaten, however, to bring the amount of 

 nitrogen in the whole grain ration entirely up to that in the 

 other. Each lot was kept on a small enclosed grass run, sur- 

 rounding the brooder, from which their green food w^as obtained. 

 In some preceding experiments it had been found that the dry 

 matter of the green food eaten by the chicks was so small that 

 its oonsideration would not affect the averages for short periods. 

 The cost also of the green food was so small as not to appear in 

 the average estimates, but only in the aggregates for long periods. 

 For this reason, although green food is of great importance in 

 feeding, account of it does not appear in the data which follow. 



The grain mixture. No. I, fed to the chicks, consisted of two 

 parts by weight of corn meal, two parts of wheat bran and one 

 part each of wheat middlings, old process linseed meal and ground 

 oats. The mixture. No. II, fed to the capons, consisted of ten 

 parts by weight of corn meal, two parts wheat bran, and one part 

 each of wheat middlings, ground oats and ground barley. 



