28 



HOW TO FEED POULTRY FOR ANY PURPOSE WITH PROFIT 



waste feeds requires that they be fed a variety. Hence, 

 in practical feeding, we have to deal not with the com- 

 mon grains which as they grow contain and supply the 

 principal nutritive elements in about the proportions that 

 they are required by men, animals, and birds under 

 average conditions of temperature and other matters 

 affecting nutritive requirements, but with mixtures of 

 these grains in numerous combinations. The principles 

 upon which we work in adjusting rations to different 

 conditions and for different purposes, however, are the 

 same in all cases. 



For the conditions in which corn would supply all 

 the nutritive elements in their proper proportions, it is 

 obvious that a ration that supplied the same elements in 

 the same proportions would be the suitable ration. I* 

 is also plain that for conditions requiring more heat 

 elements than corn supplies, the mixed ration would have 

 to be made more heating by the addition of similar ele- 

 ments; and that where a corn ration was too heating, that 

 particular mixed ration would also be too heating. The 

 principle upon which we proceed in making mixed ra- 

 tions is most easily illustrated by taking the case where. 



fats, so in hot weather we can reduce the heating effects a corn ration is too heating, or too fattening, and there 

 of grains by feeding more freely of bulky, succulent, and is not succulent feed or milk available to the amount that 

 fluid, or semi-fluid feeds, and with an ample supply of is necessary properly to reduce the corn ration. The de- 

 these it may still be entirely practical to continue to feed sired result is then obtained by substituting for a part 

 corn without any other grain. In fact, whatever grain is of the corn as much of a grain containing less carbonace- 

 fed in extremely hot weather, the 

 heating effects must be counteracted 

 in the way described, and under such 

 conditions the grain having the least 

 fat and starch gives best results 

 when, as is commonly the case with 

 poultry on limited range or in con- 

 finement, the supply of light, cooling, 

 succulent feeds is not as liberal as it 

 should be to properly balance a 

 hearty grain ration. 



While it is possible as has been 

 shown to use a ration containing 



TYPICAL HOUSE USED IN THE COLONY POULTRY 

 FARMING DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND 



only, one kind of grain, and to use A FIBLD IN WHICH COLONY POULTRY HOUSES LIKE THE ABOVE, AND 

 any kind of common grain in that OF SIMILAR TYPES ARE DISTRIBUTED 



way if the quality of the article fed It is very difficult to get photographs of separate small houses that give 



is such that noultrv will eat it freelv a good .idea of the looks of a field containing many of them. At a distance the* 



y contrasts in the buildings, land and. stone walls are not strong enough to show 



(and the explanation of how it can the buildings well. 



be done gives us the simplest case of 



balancing rations), in good feeding practice there is al- ous matter as is necessary to give the poultry what pro- 

 ways more or less variety in good rations. For this vari- tein they need without giving them more heat-producing 

 ety there are two equally good general reasoms: poultry elements than is good for them, or suitable for the pur- 

 like variety, and the economical use of low grade and pose for which they are being fed. 



DEVELOPMENT OF FEEDING FORMULAS 

 In discussing feeding matters nowadays we do so 

 with an understanding of the chemical constituents of 

 different feeds, and of the proportions in which they 

 should be combined for various purposes. As a matter 

 of fact, however, standard mashes of straight ground 

 products of corn and oats, and of the by-products of 

 wheat flour, and the common mixtures of the staple 

 grains used in poultry feeding were all worked out in 

 the practice of poultry keepers before chemists had made 

 the studies of feeding which now enable us to under- 

 stand the reasons for what is done, and to use a greater 

 degree of intelligence in adding new by-products and 

 feeds to rations. 



When poultrymen began to pay some attention to 

 SKIDS ATTACHED TO FRONT GEAR OF A WAGON- jhe scientific aspects of the subject, there was more or 

 FOR MOVING COLONY HOUSES less confusion and error in applying to poultry feeding 



The gable roof building is a cook and feed room. the principles and formulas worked out by scientists in the 



