182 Farm Poultry 



highly prize tender flesh that close confinement, 

 without exercise, greatly improves the quality. 

 It is also true that fowls under these conditions 

 take on fat rapidly if the close confinement is not 

 continued too long. Little exercise with plenty 

 of pure air and an abundance of soft food, are 

 among the chief essentials for economical fatten- 

 ing. If it is desired to fatten fowls as quickly 

 as possible, the ration should consist largely of 

 corn. Ground oats, wheat, buckwheat, and bar- 

 ley may also be used to some extent. A variety 

 of foods undoubtedly will serve a good purpose 

 in maintaining a good appetite somewhat longer 

 than could be maintained with but one or two 

 kinds of grain. After fowls have been kept for 

 some time on soft food, whole grain cannot form 

 a considerable portion of their ration without a 

 loss. The organs for grinding and digesting hard 

 food have been so long in disuse that they are 

 quite unfitted to perform the office required of 

 them when hard or whole grain is provided. 



The kind of food and the form in which it is 

 to be given will depend somewhat on the kind of 

 fowls. Some successful poultrymen, who make a 

 specialty of young fowls of fine quality, are ac- 

 customed to feed animal meal in such proportion 

 that it will form 10 to 20 per cent of the total 

 ration. No one would think of using so large a 

 proportion of animal meal in compounding a ra- 





