BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 73 



of feeding rations composed in whole or part of mashes or 

 cakes. The grains may be fed all whole or cracked, or a 

 part ground and mixed together, making what is some- 

 times called a " dry mash/' The feeding may be in 

 hoppers or troughs with food before the chicks for the 

 picking all the time, or a part of it may be scattered in 

 litter to induce them to take exercise.* Leaving food by 

 small chicks is not very generally practiced, for so many 

 being confined in a small space, and they being so small, 

 food that is easily accessible to them is very likely^to get 

 fouled with their droppings and with their running over it, 

 and in that condition much of it is wasted, or, if eaten, 

 becomes a menace to health. On this account the rule of 

 " little and often " is almost universally used for small 

 chickens, no matter what the food used* When the chicks 

 become large enough to eat out of troughs or hoppers 

 so constructed that they cannot foul the food in them, many 

 growers of both broilers and roasters keep food before them 

 all the time. 



Probably four-fifths of all the dry fed chickens are not fed 

 ground grains in a dry mash. Most growers using the dry 

 feed system either buy the prepared mixtures of small and 

 cracked or broken grains for chicks or make their own 

 mixtures. The commercial mixtures as a rule contain a 

 much greater variety of grains and seeds than the home 

 made. Some of them also contain grit much in excess of 

 what is required, and low priced grains in larger propor- 

 tion than they should be for the price asked. Hence while 

 it is often assumed that the prepared food is a boon to the 

 poultryman who is not a judge of foods, the fact is that he 

 needs to use the same judgment in buying prepared mix- 

 tures that he does in buying straight grain products of vari- 



