POULTRY. 



559 



also all the water she will drink. The chickens should have water kept by them, but never 

 be forced to either eat or drink. They will follow their own natural instinct, and eat and 

 drink when they require nourishment, if the food and drink are provided for them. Lop- 

 pered milk should also be given them. A little meat, cooked and chopped fine, should be 

 given once a day. Insect food is a part of their natural diet, and chickens fed with a little 

 meat will have more constitution and grow and fatten more rapidly than if deprived of it. 

 Sheep s pluck, refuse meat from the butcher, such as the lights of beef, make excellent food 



when boiled tender and chopped. Rough tallow, 

 chopped fine, and drippings from meat are also 

 good to mix with scalded corn meal as the chicks 

 get older. Skimmed milk is better than water to 

 mix with the corn meal. Cracked corn, or wheat 

 screenings, scalded, come next in order, and may 

 be given when the chickens are old enough to 

 digest it. A pailful of corn or wheat should be 

 covered with boiling water in which a large table- 

 spoonful of salt has been dissolved and left to 



stand covered until it is cold. Cayenne pepper should be added if the weather is cold or 

 wet. Rice is also an excellent diet for chickens. An inferior quality known to the trade as 

 &quot;broken rice &quot; is just as good for this purpose, and it requires so little for food that the 

 expense is not much greater in the Northern States than corn-meal, while at the South it will 

 be the cheapest feed known. 



FIG. 1. BARBEL COOP. 



FIG. 2. BARREL COOP. 



FIG. 3. BARREL COOP. 



It should be cooked or soaked before feeding. During the first week, every two hours 

 during the day will not be too often to feed chickens. Feed them all they will eat at each 

 time, but do not leave any to become sour, or to be mixed with dirt and afterwards eaten. 

 Chickens will never thrive unless they have a supply of clean, fresh food. From one to two 

 months old, once in three hours, is none too often to feed; after that, three or four times a 

 day is sufficient. 



Chickens should also have green food. If there is no grass plot for them to run upon, 

 give them cabbage or lettuce leaves cut in fine shreds. When the hen has hatched her brood, 

 and is ready to be taken from the nest, she should be placed in a coop where it will have a 

 southern exposure, so that the chickens can have the benefit of the sunlight. Never permit 

 them to be exposed to the wet and cold. Coops of almost every pattern may be designed, 



