THE FEEDING PROBLEM 39 



down in the front, the spaces between them being two inches wide 

 to enable the chickens to feed from the trough. A k 'V" shaped 

 trough is made to fit into two notches in cleats in front of each 

 crate. The crate stands 15 inches from the ground; the droppings 

 are received on sand or other absorbent material and removed daily. 

 The coop is large enough to hold 12 or 18 young chicks (2 or 3 in a 

 stall) or six full grown fowls. Fowls are fed three times a day all 

 they will eat in 15 minutes. 



See cut of fattening crate. 



Formulas for fattening : 



(1) Equal parts of bran,-cornmeal and -oat meal (rolled break- 

 fast oats) mixed with skim milk, fed three times a day. 



(2) Buckwheat flour, pulverized oats, cornmeal in equal parts, 

 mixed thin with buttermilk. 



(3) Equal parts barley meal and oat meal and a half part of 

 cornmeal, mixed with buttermilk or skim milk. 



(4) A favorite French combination is two parts barley meal, 

 one part cornmeal, one part buckwheat flour. 



A little salt and coarse sand should be added to their food. Three 

 weeks is the length of time to continue the feeding. Chickens do 

 not seem to be able to stand the confinement for a greater length 

 of time. The last week of the fattening process, five per cent of 

 cotton seed meal and a little tallow may be added to any of the 

 above formulas. 



Feeding Beans 



Our readers know our "Rule of three" or the three essentials 

 of egg production Comfort, Exercise and Proper Food, and how 

 very necessary each of this trio is for filling the egg basket. 



The successful poultry breeders, those that are really making 

 money in the poultry or egg business, all and each follow our Rule 

 of three. Some put more emphasis on one of the three conditions, 

 and some on the other, but I find the man that uses all three essen- 

 tials about evenly balanced is the successful man. 



Just at present there are several of our readers who are seek- 

 ing for advice on the problem of the proper food and have appealed 

 to me for information about the use of beans and some other foods 

 which are available or cheap in their locality. I would like to 

 help them discuss this subject together with the different breeds 

 they are feeding. 



We all know that food is first necessary to sustain life, to enable 

 the young fowls to grow and make their feathers, while it also 

 enables the mature fowls to make and produce eggs. We have 

 learnt that the body of the hen and the egg also is composed of 

 water, mineral matter, nitrogenous matter and fat, and that to sus- 

 tain life and growth and to produce eggs, the hen must be supplied 

 with these elements. It is exceedingly interesting to learn the 

 right proportion of these different elements that have to be supplied 

 to the hen, all of which may be found in the analysis of the different 

 foods given in the valuable bulletin "Poultry Feeding and Proprie- 



