FARM ANIMALS 309 



ence in poultry feeding in California a number of 

 rations have been found to give excellent results 

 and one or two of them may well be mentioned in 

 this connection. For a flock of one hundred hens 

 it is well to allow for each day's food four pounds 

 of corn meal, five pounds of wheat, five pounds 

 barley, two pounds bran, two pounds alfalfa, one 

 pound meat meal, one and one-half pounds blood 

 meal. Various other ground animal feeds may be 

 substituted for those in the above ration in a proper 

 proportion. Thus we may use middlings, cocoa- 

 nut oil cake, linseed meal, skim milk, shorts, and 

 various materials which will readily occur to the 

 poultryman. In fattening chickens for market 

 excellent results have been obtained from the use 

 of a mixture of two pounds ground oats, one pound 

 ground barley, and one pound corn meal to which 

 beef suet is added boiled in milk. Fowls are fed 

 all they will eat of this mixture twice daily. After 

 chickens have been forced about two weeks they 

 begin to lose their appetite and a crammer may 

 then be used if desirable. The ordinary crammer 

 consists merely of an apparatus by which grain 

 mixture or mash containing also some animal and 

 green feed is forced down the chickens under 

 pressure. The mixture is of course previously 

 moistened to such an extent that it is semi-fluid. 

 An all grain ration for fattening chickens is some- 

 what cheaper, but is considerably less effective 

 than a mixture of grain and beef scraps. 



The cost of gain in chickens usually amounts 

 to about three to four cents a pound. Since the 

 farmer can obtain at least ten and sometimes as 

 high as twenty cents a pound for well-fattened 

 fowls the profit from transforming grain and other 

 farm products into chicken meat should be appar- 



