r= New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 79 
mixed with bone and shell were always satisfied with a moderate 
amount. It therefore seemed not improbable that in this one case 
they were instinctively searching for what the glass alone failed to 
supply. 
SKIM MILK PROFITABLY USED. 
To learn whether skim milk could be freely utilized for poultry 
feeding without ill effect, many chicks had been grown to maturity 
with this only for drink. None were sickly and the few losses were 
accidental. Unusually early and full feathering, especially among 
Asiatics, was attributed to the free use of the skim milk in the 
ration. 
To get information as to the possibility of feeding it to chicks 
as profitably as to calves and pigs, two lots of the chicks!’ were fed 
in confinement where all the food could be accounted for. Except 
for the close confinement they were reared by ordinary farm 
methods and were brooded by hens so long as necessary. 
The sweet skim milk constituted on the average about three- 
fifths of the total food. For the whole time that the feeding trial 
covered, one pound increase in live weight was made for every 3.4 
pounds of dry matter in the food, very slightly less by one lot and 
very slightly more by the other. Allowing for the gain in weight 
made by the hens while they were kept with the chicks the figure 
would be reduced to about 3.2 pounds for each lot. The result 
compared favorably with the showing made by other farm animals 
of lower market values per pound than poultry. 
Chicks averaging 2.4 pounds in weight at from ten and one-half 
to eleven and one-half weeks of age were grown at a cost for food 
of 5.3 cents per pound in one instance and of 5.4 cents per pound 
in the other, a cost very considerably below the market value of 
the poultry. While the foods and products have fluctuated con- 
siderably in price since then there has been no occasion to modify 
the conclusion then made that some of the skim milk of the farm 
could be profitably used for growing chicks. 
THE USE OF SALT IN THE RATION FOR FOWLS. 
Salt in some quantity is a necessity to the living animal. Some 
foods contain all that is probably needed, but the amount in others 
is small. In order to guard against any possible deficiency it is well 
™ Bul. 39; also in Rpt. 10:189-193 (1891). 
