Poultry 437 



used in place of the bread crumbs. Feed the bread crumbs, 

 rolled oats, or johnny cake mixtures five times daily for the 

 first week, then gradually substitute for one or two feeds of 

 the mixture, finely cracked grains of equal parts by weight of 

 cracked wheat, finely cracked corn, and pinhead oatmeal or 

 hulled oats, to which about 5 per cent of cracked peas or broken 

 rice and 2 per cent of charcoal, millet, or- rape seed may be 

 added. A commercial chick feed may be substituted if de- 

 sired. The above ration can be fed until the chicks are two 

 weeks old, when they should be placed on grain and a dry or 

 wet mash mixture. 



" After the chicks are ten days old a good growing mash, 

 composed of two parts by weight of bran, two parts middlings, 

 one part cornmeal, one part low-grade wheat flour or red-dog 

 flour, and 10 per cent sifted beef scrap, may be placed in a 

 hopper and left before them at all times. The mash may be 

 fed either wet or dry; if wet, only moisture (either milk or 

 water) should be added to make the feed crumbly, but in no 

 sense sloppy. When this growing mash or mixture is not used 

 a hopper containing bran should be accessible to the chickens 

 at all times. 



" When one has only a few chickens it is less trouble to pur- 

 chase the prepared chick feeds, but where a considerable num- 

 ber are reared it is sometimes cheaper to buy the finely cracked 

 grains and mix them together. Many chick feeds contain a 

 large quantity of grit and may contain grains of poor quality, 

 so that they should be carefully examined and the quality 

 guaranteed before they are purchased." 



217. Artificial incubation. Lack of care and attention to 

 details are responsible for the small hatches that so commonly 

 result in artificial incubation. The following summary of 

 directions by Harry M. Lamon in Farmers' Bulletin 585 is an 

 excellent guide to those using incubators : 



" Follow the manufacturer's directions in setting up and 

 operating an incubator. 



