lo Feb., 1909.] 



Utility Poultry Keeping. 



Preparation of the Mash. — The quantities of the different constituents 

 of the mash being weighed out, the pollard and bran are put in the trough 

 which is 4 ft. 6 in. long by 3 feet wide by 12 inches deep. The pollard 

 and bran are then mixed up, and chaff (steeped over night until soft and 

 pliable) or chaffed green stuff is added. All are then well mixed together 

 and put at one end of the trough. Then the meat scraps and soup are 

 placed on top of the mixture, and a little at a time is worked into a nice 

 mealy mash, comparatively dry, but Just moist enough to enable the birds 

 to eat it without any trouble or waste. 



Green Food.--T\\Q green food consists principally of kale, lucerne, 

 silver beet, and rape. 



Comparison of Foods. 



It is by comparing the action of the nitrogenous or flesh-forming foods, 

 with the heat givers, or those of a starchy or fatty nature, that the import- 

 ance of adopting a rational system of feeding is brought under notice. It 

 was noticed that, when much starchy food was given to the laying hens, 

 they did not lav nearly as well as when animal food was mixed with it, 

 also that growing animals did not thrive unless the starchy and flesh- 

 forming foods were present in the dailv ration in proper proportions. This 

 relation between the digestible protein or nitrogenous matter and the diges- 

 tible carbo-hydrates and fat in a food is known as the nutritive ratio. It 

 will be seen that, to compare the protein with the carbo-hydrates and fat, it 

 is necessary to reduce these two to some common term. 



It is found that the heat energy of i lb. of fat is equivalent to 

 that of almost 2.3 lbs. of starch ; thus if the amount of fat in a percentage 

 composition be multiplied by 2.3 it enables us to add the product to the 

 percentage of starch given, as both are now in similar terms. The list of 

 foods to be mixed being given, and the parts of each supplied to compose 

 the ration being noted, recourse must be had to the table of analyses of the 

 foods giving the percentage of digestible nutrients. To the amounts of 

 carbo-hvdrates are added the equivalents, in carbo-hydrates, of the fat. 

 This, as already explained, is obtained by multiplying the total digestive 

 percentage of fats by 2.3, since one part of fat supplies as much heat 

 energy as 2.3 parts of starch. Then to find the nutritive ratio of barley 

 we look at the food tables and note that in the protein column it states 

 9.64, in the carbo-hydrates column 60.77, a"d in the fat column 1.86 

 Then the latter two are added, after reducing the fat to carbo-hydrate equi- 

 valents, and the total sum is divided by the amount of digestible protein, 

 which gives us a nutritive ratio of 6.7. If there be two parts barley in a 

 mixture, then the co-efficients are multiplied by 2. 



TABLE GIVING THE APPROXIMATE NUTRITIVE RATIOS OF THE MORNING AND 

 AFTERNOON RATIONS AS A WHOLE. 



