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MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



for the first two or three weeks? I 

 mean millet seed alone. Mrs. P. E. N. 

 Answer When chickens are droopy 

 it is a sign that they may have either 

 lice, worms or indigestion. If you are 

 feeding millet seed, that may account 

 for it. Millet seed is very hard, round 

 and slippery, and passes through the 

 gizzard and intestines without being 

 digested, and I have known of several 

 chickens dying from it. A little used 

 in their food may not hurt them, but 

 an exclusive diet of millet is certain to 

 cause trouble. 



Skim Milk Will you kindly inform 

 me whether skim milk is a good food 

 for young pullets or laying hens? 

 Which is best, sweet, clabber or curd? 

 Is there danger of feeding too much 

 curd or skim milk? Is curd of more 

 value to young stock or to laying 

 hens? I have a bunch of ten-weeks- 

 old pullets that I am feeding clabber 

 and bran mixed until it makes a 

 crumbly mash. Is it a fattening or 

 muscle or bone making ration? How 

 would it do to feed to laying stock? 

 I give skim milk to my laying hens in 

 troughs which set in the sun. Will 

 that kill diseased germs or not? L. 

 E. E. 



Answer Skim milk is one of the 

 best foods for chickens or hens at any 

 stage of their lives. It can be fed 

 either sweet, clabber or curd. By 

 curd, I mean cooked. If you cook 

 it, be careful not to heat it above 100 

 degrees or it will become tough and 

 indigestible. There is no danger of 

 feeding too much skim milk or clab- 

 ber to fowls. The crumbly mash is 

 good feed, but you would succeed 

 just as well by giving them the bran 

 dry and letting them drink or eat the 

 milk as they want it. It is a good 

 bone, muscle and egg-making ration. 

 I give my fowls all the milk I can 

 spare, pouring it into troughs and 

 leaving it till they eat it. The sun 

 does not seem to affect it badly when 

 it is pure milk, but if bran were 

 mixed with it, the sun might make it 

 ferment and then it would disagree 

 with them. 



Sorghum Seed Will you tell me 

 the value of sorghum seed for poul- 

 try? Is it fat producing or an egg 

 food, and how would it do for tur- 

 keys? C. B. C. 



Answer Sorghum seed, broom 

 corn seed and Egyptian corn have al- 

 most the same nutritive value. They 

 can be fed to both chickens and tur- 

 keys with the same satisfactory re- 

 sults. One year when on the farm I 

 had several tons of broom corn seed 

 which was left where the threshers 

 worked and the fowls had free access 

 to it and the green-growing wheat; 

 they got through the moult early and 

 layed all winter, eggs galone. I never 

 saw better laying and the turkeys did 

 well on it. Professor Jaffa in his 

 most valuable bulletin (Farmer's bul- 

 letin 164) on poultry feeding, gives 

 us the nutritive value of broom corn 

 and of sorghum seed as both the same 

 1:8.4; of Egyptian corn, 1:8-6; Sor- 

 ghum seed is more fattening than 

 wheat and less fattening than corn. 

 If your fowls are on free range and 

 have plenty of green food and animal 

 food or milk, sorghum seed will be 

 an excellent food for them. You 

 should write to the Director Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station, University 

 of California, Berkeley, and ask him 

 to send you "Bulletin 164 on Poultry 

 Feeding," then you can see just the 

 right way to balance your ration. 



Kaffir Corn 1. Is Kaffir corn the 

 same as Egyptian corn, and is it an 

 egg food or simply a fattening food? 



2. About what should a White 

 Plymouth cockerel weigh at four 

 months old? 



Answer 1. Kaffir and Egyptian 

 corn belong to the same family and 

 are very much alike. They are both 

 fattening grains, and I prefer mixing 

 them with other grains, such as wheat, 

 barley, oats or buckwheat. 



2. A White Rock cockerel at four 

 months of age should weigh about 

 four pounds; at six months, six 

 pounds. 



