No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 383 



mcnl ill rcallici-iii};, and also in <;r()\vlh and foiin. The succeyylui 

 breeder must know bis birds as individuals. The best birds for 

 breeders are the liustlers; those which are vij^orous, active and 

 bright, and good feeders. 



The hen is simply a machine, and the better the machine, the 

 larger and better the product will be. In both fancy and practical 

 breeding I believe in keeping the male birds by themselves until 

 ten day's or two weeks before wishing to save eggs for hatching, and 

 then as soon as the breeding season is over, separate them again. 

 Good male birds will do well for seA^eral years if handled in this way. 



FEEDING. 



In the feeding of poultry, as in the breeding, wonderful devel- 

 opments and discoveries have been made. Successful poultry feed- 

 ing is certainly a science in itself, and but few of the would-be 

 poultry breeders are, to my mind, successful feeders. If we do 

 not give the proper amount of food, if we do not feed enough, if we 

 feed too much, and if we do not feed in the right manner, there is 

 loss. ^Ve begin to feed the chick when w^e are feeding the hen to 

 produce the egg from which the chick is to be hatched, and we know 

 that successful feeding- is to develop the chick to a mature bird as 

 rapidly as possible, keeping it in a strong, healthy condition, at as 

 low a cost as possible. The chick should have nothing to eat for 

 twenty-four hours after it is hatched, as it takes from twenty-four 

 to thirtj'-six hours for the chick to absorb or use up the yolk of 

 the egg which nature has provided to care for it during that time. 



In my opinion more than fifty per cent, of the mortality in chicks 

 is caused by injudicious feeding. We now have the chick thirty-six 

 hours old to care for and feed. The first thing the chick should 

 have to eat is fine grit composed of mica crystal grit, oyster shells 

 and granulated charcoal. This should be kept before them at all 

 times. Chicks should be fed five times a day for two weeks with 

 a variety of foods. They should be fed lightly, just what they 

 will eat up clean in a few minutes, and none should be left lying 

 around. 



The most profitable feeding I ever did was to have Wyandotte 

 cockerels weigh three and one-half pounds at twelve weeks old, and 

 pullets laying at five months old. Those birds were fed five times 

 a day for two weeks and three times daily from that time on. The 

 first three days I fed nothing but baked pone, composed of corn 

 meal, brown middlings, buckwheat middlings, coarse bran, gluten 

 meal and meat meal, with a little pulverized charcoal added. This 

 was mixed with sour milk and soda and a little salt, and baked in a 

 hot oven the same as we would bake ordinary corn bread. After 

 being well baked, it was crummed through a fine sieve and fed in 



