20 



HOW TO FEED POULTRY FOR ANY PURPOSE WITH PROFIT 



, 



FARRER BROS.' MARK: 



FLTRY FARM, WEST NORWELL, MASS. ONE OF THE 

 PLANTS OF THIS CLASS, ESTABLISHED ABOUT 1890 



FIRST SUCCESSFUL LARGE 



Heavy production of poultry on a small area has at times made it necessary to limit operations with poultry and 

 purify the soil by raising- vegetable crops after which it can be again used for poultry. The nearest thing- to a 

 "panacea" for poultry diseases is CLEAN LAND. 



luted with water, but may be given to hens just as it 

 comes from the barrel in which it is shipped. 



At various times in the past milk products in dry 

 form, convenient and desirable for poultry feed, have 

 been put on the market. Everything of this kind is good 

 for poultry. The question of feeding any particular article 

 is the question of price. A number of milk by-products 

 have been withdrawn from sale as poultry feeds after 

 their reputation had been well established, because the 

 manufacturers had devised a way of preparing them for 

 human food and could dispose of them for that purpose 

 at higher prices than they could obtain for stock feed. 



Mineral Feeds 



The most important of the mineral feeds is oyster 

 shell. Hens that are well supplied with it do not seem 

 to require anything else to provide material for egg 

 shells, nor will they (in the writer's experience) con- 

 sume any appreciable amount of indigestible grit when 

 that is supplied on the theory that it is necessary to 

 aid the gizzard in grinding the feed. 

 Any shell or lime in form that it 

 can be fed to birds seems to an- 

 swer the purpose of supplying min- 

 eral elements needed, and it would 

 appear that on soils containing much 

 finely broken stone, poultry are 

 able to get from such matter all 

 the mineral elements they need for 

 the ordinary purposes of growth and 

 maintenance. Both young and old 

 stock on good range appear quite in- 

 different to special supplies of bone 

 or shell, except as material is plainly 

 needed for egg shells. Under other 

 circumstances, especially when quite 

 limited for range and on ground that 

 has been long used for poultry, and 

 perhaps overstocked with it much of 

 the time, the use of considerable 

 amounts of bone meal in the feed of 

 growing poultry has shown marked beneficial results. 



While ground oyster shell is the most generally 

 available of things of that character, very small sea shells 

 which can be eaten without grinding are just as good, 

 and are largely used by poultry keepers living near the 

 seashore. Poultrymen in places where such shells are 



abundant sometimes do a considerable trade selling this 

 material within convenient shipping distance. There are 

 also in some inland localities beds of infusorial earth an 

 deposits of chalky or giavelly stone which disintegrate 

 easily, and this material seems to supply all the minera 

 feed requirements of poultry. 



In general practice it is better to supply materials 

 of this kind separately, so that the birds can take as mucl 

 as their appetites seem to require, than to undertake tc 

 mix them with the feed in any definite proportions. 

 can be mixed with ground grains only when in the forr 

 of meal, as bone meal, or finely ground oyster shell. Fee 

 in this way they frequently cause irritation of the in- 

 testines. In some experiments in the use of ash and grit 

 for chicks, sand has appeared to be as effective as bone 

 or shell, and some have inferred from this that it was 

 the gritty character of materials of this kind rather that 

 their digestible elements that made them valuable tc 

 poultry. That conclusion however ought not to be ac- 



A LONG 

 This is the building 



BROODER HOUSE ON FARRER BROS.' FARM 

 at the extreme right (and only partly seen) in picture above. 



cepted without inquiry into the character of the "sand" 

 used, and the possibility of its dissolving into small par- 

 ticles, and in fact being digestible. Coarse sand mixed 

 with poultry manure that afterwards stands for a long 

 time sometimes entirely disappears, not a trace of the 

 grains of sand remaining. The processes of digestion 



