38 



with a hardwood paddle of convenient size for stirring 

 with one hand. Where both moist and dry mash are fed, 

 (limiting the allowance of moist mash and making it only 

 a partial feed), mixing in a pail may answer for as many 

 as one hundred and fifty birds.- 



For convenience and for more satisfactory results in 

 every way, it often will be found desirable partially to 

 mix in the pail a larger quantity than can be handled in 

 it when all the ingredients are added, completing the 

 mixing in a box or trough, using a common garden spade 



OLD FASHIONED BRICKED-IN SET-KETTLE 



for the purpose. For such quantities more water will be 

 required than can be heated at one time in an ordinary 

 teakettle, so the trouble of making scalded mashes with- 

 out special equipment increases at every point as soon as 

 we go beyond what can be done with the teakettle on the 

 kitchen stove and with common appliances. It is better 

 then, as a rule, either to mix mashes cold, or to get 

 special ^cooking apparatus of the required capacity. 



Small Cooking Apparatus 



For cooking feed on the ordinary small poultry plant 

 needing special equipment for the purpose, either feed 

 cookers or iron set-kettles may be used. The former are 

 manufactured and sold for cooking feed for all kinds of 

 live stock, and consist simply of a stove with a boiler. 

 The stove cooker is cheaper, and unless the poultry 

 keeper can do his own bricklaying is less expensive at 

 the outset; but the bricked-in set-kettle is the more dur- 

 able, and also being of substantial construction, can be 

 used for the whole process of mixing where the lighter 

 cookers on stoves can only be used for cooking or for 

 light mixing, as neither the vessel nor the stove will stand 

 the heavy pressure of mixing a large batch of stiff mash 

 with tools requiring two strong hands. 



Where the mixing must be finished in a mixing box 

 on the floor or on short legs, the full water capacity 

 of the cooker may be used, and no larger cooker need 

 be installed than is required to heat the water needed. 

 But where all the mixing is to be done in the kettle it 

 should have a capacity about fifty per cent greater than 

 the amount of mash it is desired to mix in it at one time. 

 Thus if we estimate twelve quarts, or three gallons, of 

 mash to every hundred birds to be fed, one thousand hens 

 will need thirty gallons of mash. A 40-gallon kettle 

 would serve for cooking and mixing this but would be 

 rather small to work in freely and rapidly, and the addi- 

 tional cost of a 50-gallon kettle would soon be used in 

 extra time. The size somewhat larger than is actually re- 

 quired not only gives more freedom and rapidity of action 

 in ordinary usage, but admits of mixing much larger 



quantities of feed on special occasions. It is always well 

 in installing a set-kettle to put in as large a size as will 

 ever be required. 



For mixing feed in a set-kettle a round-pointed, long- 

 handled shovel generally is found most serviceable, 

 though big wooden paddles and forks like those shown in 

 the illustration on this page also are much used. In 

 mixing in a kettle with a long-handled implement, the 

 edge of the kettle is like a broad fulcrum on which the 

 shovel works, shifting up and down as it is moved through 

 the mass. This wears the handle rapidly and to provide 

 for this either a shovel with long straps on the handle 

 should be bought, or the underside of the handle should 

 have a strip of iron put on to protect the wood and pre- 

 vent it from rapidly wearing so thin that it will break. 



When a mixing box or trough is to be used it 

 should be large enough to admit of the fullest freedom of 

 movement in working over the mass of ingredients. The 

 smallest box that it is worth while to build and use is 

 four feet long, eighteen inches wide at the top, whether 

 made with straight or with flaring sides, and from fifteen 

 to eighteen inches deep, according to the construction of 

 the sides. For quick work with small batches of mash 

 (three to ten gallons), a trough eighteen to twenty-four 

 inches wide at the top, should have a depth of eighteen 

 inches, and a bottom width of ten inches, smaller troughs 

 being made in these proportions. Such a trough will be 

 found more satisfactory than straight-sided boxes, for in 

 the deep trough, narrow at the bottom, the depth of the 

 mass being worked over is greater than with the same 

 quantity in a wider, shallower box, and with the steep,, 

 sloping sides what is uppermost falls in and down every 

 time the implement used in mixing is lifted up through 

 it. Large troughs of this construction are not satisfac- 

 tory because their greater depth and wider flare keep the 

 man doing the mixing too far from the center of oper- 

 ation and the strain on him is too great 



For large batches of mash to be mixed by hand 

 power, boxes are used that are built wide enough for two 



INTERIOR OF COOK ROOM 

 Showing stove, cooker, and mixing trough. 



men to work, one on each side, and long enough to give 

 room to work the mass back and forth from end to end 

 to insure thorough mixing. Such a box will be about five 

 feet wide, from eight to ten feet long, and a foot deep. 

 A box less than eight feet in length will not give two 

 mixers freedom of movement, while one more than ten 

 feet long takes a larger batch than can be mixed well and 



