CHAPTER VI 

 Foods and Feeding 



The hopes of the poultryman and the pleasures and 

 profits of poultry-keeping depend, in very large degree, 

 on the abounding life of the birds of the flocks. 



Hens like human beings may of dust be made and 

 to dust eventually return but, betweenwhiles, both kinds 

 of bipeds are very much alive. Beginning with the 

 development of the embryo chick within the egg, there 

 is continuous change, ceaseless movement, growing, 

 wearing, wasting, repairing, heating, producing until the 

 time of the creature's death. 



Consider one item that of bo3y warmth. Prom 

 the time the egg begins to be incubated until the chick 

 en's career is ended, there must be maintained through- 

 out the creature's body a temperature of about 105 F. 

 and this whether the temperature surrounding the fowl 

 is at summer heat, or far below freezing. Any serious 

 variation from this degree of natural animal hea/t in the 

 body of the bird is a sign of the passing of life and the 

 coming of death. 



THE LIFE BLOOD. 



In order that the body may be maintained and 

 growth or production take place, the heart and circulat- 

 ing vessels are ever at work, pumping the blood through 

 the body, carrying the fresh materials to the parts for 

 increase or repair and removing the wastes of wearing 

 and renewal. 



The red blood contains all the elements composing 

 the parts of the fowl. It is the source of supply for 

 the making and replenishing of the bones, muscles, 

 brains, nerves and all the tissues, for the forming of the 

 feathers and the producing of the egg. 



The blood is almost four-fifths water, which acts as 



