1140 Rural School Leaflet 



wheat and one pound barley. Fresh water should be given to the 

 chickens every day. 



Noon feeding. — At the midday meal is the best time to provide those 

 appetizing mixtures so greatly relished by the fowls and so successful in 

 helping to produce eggs. Take the scraps of meat, bread, and vegetables, 

 or oatmeal, from the table, mix them with corn meal, wheat bran, and 

 wheat middlings. Moisten the mass with skimmed milk until it is crumbly. 

 When skimmed milk and table scraps are not to be had, take a pail of 

 cut alfalfa or clover hay and pour boiling water on it, allowing it to steam. 

 Feed when it is still warm. A portion of this steamed alfalfa added to 

 the noon mash gives it a pleasant, appetizing odor. A little salt and pepper 

 can also be added to the mash, in about the same proportion as would be 

 used in your own food. When it is not convenient to make a moist mash, 

 the same ground feeds may be fed dry in a hopper that should be left 

 open during the afternoon. A good mixture for this purpose is: six parts 

 corn meal, six parts wheat middlings, three parts wheat bran, five parts 

 meat scraps, one part oil meal. The best results will be obtained if the 

 hens eat about one third of the ground feed mixture to two thirds whole 

 or cracked grain. At noontime as much green food (beets, cabbage, 

 or lettuce) as the fowls will clean up before the following noon should be 

 given. At this time see that the oyster-shell and grit hoppers are filled. 

 When it is impossible to follow the practice of feeding three times a day, 

 the scraps and green food should be given with the morning feed. 



Night feeding. — Fowls go to roost very early, making it necessary for 

 them to eat before sundown. This requires feeding in the latter part of 

 the afternoon, while they can still see to pick up the grain. When given 

 the opportunity, a fowl will go to roost with its crop rounding full of grain, 

 which it gradually digests during the night. This process of digestion 

 warms the body and keeps it more comfortable. An empty crop is a poor 

 bedfellow for the fowl. The same grains can be fed at night as in the 

 morning, but in large quantities so that some will be left over after the 

 fowl's appetite has been entirely satisfied. 



IX. ELIMINATING UNPROFITABLE CHICKENS 



James E. Rice 



In nearly every flock of chickens or fowls there are good ones and poor 

 ones; in some flocks there are very good ones and very poor ones, and 

 occasionally there are flocks in which there may be found greater extremes 

 than these. Very likely the good ones are profitable and the poor ones 

 are kept at a loss. If we are to make money from our fowls or chickens 

 we must not keep any that are not profitable. 



