212 Farm Poultry 



In addition to the grain given to the chickens, 

 it will be necessary to provide some animal food. 

 Various mixtures of grain foods have been com- 

 pared to mixtures of grain and animal meal, 

 but the latter have given the better results. The 

 domesticated hen seems to thrive best, in all 

 stages of existence, on a ration which consists in 

 part of animal food. "A ration in which about 

 two -fifths of the protein was supplied by animal 

 food was much more profitably fed to chicks 

 than another ration supplying an equal amount 

 of protein, mostly from vegetable sources, but 

 supplemented by skim milk curd."* 



Experiments have demonstrated clearly that the 

 ordinary grain foods, as usually fed, do not contain 

 sufficient ash to permit the most rapid develop- 

 ment of the young. The following briefly states 

 the results of somewhat extended experiments at 

 the New York Agricultural Experiment Station : t 

 " Of two rations which contained practically the 

 same proportions of the ordinarily considered 

 groups of constituents, but different amounts of 

 mineral matter, one wholly of vegetable origin 

 proved much inferior for growing chicks to the 

 other ration, higher in ash content, containing 

 animal food. When the deficiency of mineral 

 matter was made good by the addition of bone 



* Bulletin No. 149, New York Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 t Summary of Bulletin No. 171, 



