8o BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 



need of cutting it up for them. They can do it for them- 

 selves, and get good exercise while doing it. They will 

 clean up all but the toughest fibres of the stump and root. 

 After cabbage there are other foods which are sometimes 

 grown in boxes or frames for winter chickens. Lettuce, 

 wheat, oats, are all used; but such things can hardly be 

 produced profitably for large numbers of chicks, and the 

 careful grower of winter chickens will make due effort to 

 have an ample supply of cabbage. On land where roast- 

 ers are grown cabbage can be set out after the bulk of the 

 crop of chickens is marketed in June or July, and in an 

 ordinary season will have ample time to make a good crop 

 of inexpensive green food for the next crop of chickens. 



A favorite crop with growers of both broilers and roast- 

 ers is winter rye. When there is little snow during the 

 winter the chickens can get what green food they need on 

 the patches of rye in the yards or near the houses, while 

 whatever the winter, the rye furnishes green food for the 

 growing roasters in spring long before grass or other green 

 crops are available. When dry feeding is the method 

 employed it is more important that the chicks get some 

 succulent food, and if such green foods as have been men- 

 tioned are not available root vegetables may be fed raw. 



43. Feeding Meat. In feeding meat to chicks being 

 reared artificially one must be more careful than with 

 chicks at liberty with hens. Under natural conditions 

 chicks often stand foods which soon show bad effects when 

 fed under artificial conditions. Meat meal of poor quality, 

 really not fit for anything but fertilizer, may be fed in 

 moderate quantities to grown fowls and to chicks with hens 

 without bad effects, but the grower using artificial methods 



