34 



cent without bad effects, whereas a very slight increase 

 in the amount in a moist mash would almost immediately 

 cause bowel trouble. If poultry are kept short of hard 

 grain and vegetable feed, and at the same time fed a 

 highly concentrated dry mash with a large percentage of 

 animal matter, they will eat the mash freely, and for a 

 t.'me it is likely to give remarkably good results. 

 Before long, however, this highly concentrated ration 

 produces acute 

 digestive d i s o r- 

 ders, and leads 

 to heavy losses. 

 This danger in 

 dry f e e d i n g ; if 

 not properly 

 guarded against, 

 takes from it the 

 advantage of 

 safety which is 

 one of the prin- 

 cipal induce- 

 ments for using 

 it. As the method 

 of guarding 

 against it is sim- 

 ply to feed the 

 birds so well 

 otherwise that 

 they will not be 

 tempted to eat 

 rich dry mash in 

 such amounts 

 that they get too 

 much concentrat- 

 ed animal feed, 

 the regulation oi 

 this point is a 

 simple matter. 



It is c 1 a i m e d 



by advocates of dry mash feeding who are opposed to the 

 use of moist mashes, that the feeding of dry mash saves 

 labor. This is a point that has to be considered according 

 to the circumstances in the case, and with due regard for 

 . the fact that when dry mashes are used special provi- 

 sions are often, if not generally, necessary to supply 

 succulent feed. It was this necessity that brought the 

 use of sprouted oats for green feed into common use. 

 While there are no doubt many instances where a net 

 saving of labor is made by using dry mashes, it is doubt- 

 ful whether that is generally the case. The real advantage 

 as regards labor gained by the feeding of a dry mash 

 always accessible to the birds is that it gives greater 

 elasticity to the poultryman's daily routine, relieving him 

 of the necessity of following a time schedule closely, and 

 even permitting wide departures from it, in emergencies, 

 without any serious effects. 



And the great advantage of the. dry mash method 

 over the other, as both were practiced when dry mash 

 feeding first came in vogue, is that with a palatable dry 

 mash always before the birds none of them ever need 

 go hungry. In ordinary practice the effort to feed poultry 

 exactly in accordance with their requirements either as to 

 the kinds of feed given or as to the quality, does not work 

 well. To feed just what each lot of birds will eat up clean 

 before the next meal, requires long experience, close ob- 

 servation, good judgment, and practically constant attend- 

 ance. It makes feeding the part of the routine of poultry 

 keeping to which every other part of the work must con- 



HOPPER FOR GRAIN, SMALL BOX 



FOR MEAT SCRAP AND PAIL 



FOR WATER 



The usual feeding appliances in 

 the colony houses in the soft roaster 

 district o.f New England. 



form, and gives the poultry keeper opportunity for only 

 such other work as can be done in the intervals between 

 feedings. On a plant so large that the greater part of one 

 man's time can be taken up in feeding, watering, and other 

 daily routine, while someone else looks after the many 

 other things to be done, this may not be a disadvantage; 

 but on most poultry plants, whether taking all one man's 

 time or less, one person has to look after everything, and 

 when the feeding is on a rigid three meals a day schedule 

 it will often happen that a meal is neglected, or given 

 hastily and not in sufficient amount. This cannot be 

 avoided, for there are all sorts of demands upon the 

 poultry keeper's time; and many of them, of a nature 

 that will not wait, come right at feeding time so often 

 that the schedule cannot be closely followed. 



In comparing results from the different systems, we 

 must discriminate between instances where people who 

 got poor results when using moist mashes get much bet- 

 ter results by the use of a dry mash, and instances where 

 the poultry keeper made a living profit by either system. 

 When this is done, the dry mash system appears safest 

 for the novice, and the one by which he is surest of get- 

 ting fairly good results at the start. On the other hand, 

 the moist mash system appears as that by which an ex- 

 pert in feeding gets the biggest actual results. Whether 

 it will pay him to use the system that gives those results 

 depends upon the purpose for which he keeps poultry, 

 and upon whether he can feed on this system and still 

 handle other parts of his work promptly as required. 



Combining Wet and Dry Mash Systems 



When dry mash feeding was first introduced and its 

 merits became widely known, there was a general ten- 

 dency to discard moist mashes entirely. Only a relatively 

 small number of the poultry keepers who were getting 

 good results from moist mash feeding held to that prac- 

 tice continuously and exclusively. The first results of 

 heavy feeding of dry mashes containing much meat mat- 

 ter and other high concentrates were often so remarkably 

 good that poultry keepers who had successfully used the 

 other system for years were tempted to discard it. Both 

 experienced and inexperienced poultry keepers too, being 

 advised of the fact that in dry mash feeding much larger 

 amounts of animal matter could be used with immediate 

 good results, adopted the practice of adding more of 

 such materials to commercial mixtures which already 

 had about all of those ingredients that the manufacturers 

 considered safe to put in them. 



GRAIN AiMD JViAoH tiurftiii. FOR INDOOR AND OUT- 

 DOOR USE 



