Poultry Farm in California Foothills 



cause over-fatness. But give her also a variety of grains. Rolled barley, for 

 instance, is as good as wheat. 



Bulk is necessary in her diet, and wheat, bran, clover, alfalfa, or alfalfa meal, 

 must balance ground grains, wheat middlings, corn meal, oil cake and the like. 

 Too much indigestible fibre must not go with her ration. It is suggested that 

 when hens are laying heavily one-third of the ration should be ground grain. 

 Biddy will not be able to lay eggs and grind her own grain too steadily. Help 

 her by foods which supply readily available nourishment. 



Meat Scraps in the Ration 



This is an important part of the dietary, but is an expensive and troublesome 

 item that is apt to be dodged. Dried milk may be substituted. Experts think 

 very highly of skim milk, and milk curdled, put in a gunny sack and hung up to 

 drain and fed as a kind of cottage cheese or "smearcase" is very excellent and 

 equal in protein to fresh meat. It is, however, only about one-third as rich in 

 protein as beef scraps. Milk itself is good but contains only about three and 

 one-half per cent of protein, while meat scraps have from fifty to sixty per cent. 

 But neither milk nor meat scraps, meat meal nor ground bone can be provided 

 without some trouble and seldom without considerable cost, and this the 

 grower will often seek to avoid. 



But the diet of the free hen includes insects, bugs, worms, grasshoppers, 

 young mice, when they can be captured, and these elements in her dietary the 

 hen in confinement wants. Their equivalent in some form she must have, if she 

 is to lay eggs freely and steadily. 



The necessity of animal matter for poultry has been fully demonstrated. It 

 relates to the health of fowls and the more rapid growth of chicks as well as the 

 egg production; experiments a dozen years ago conducted very carefully showed 

 that in the case of young chicks "the gain in weight was more rapid, maturity 

 was reached earlier, less food was required for each pound of gain, and the cost 



20 



