42 



can be made, and to mashes mixed with water. Under 

 this heading will be considered topically the points re- 

 lating to the use of other materials. 



Milk in any liquid form obtainable, or whey, may 

 be used instead of water in making mashes. Sweet skim 

 milk will bind the mill stuffs better than water, but with 

 sour milk and whey no difference will be observed. When 

 milk is heated it is generally desirable to avoid scalding 

 it to an extent that will make it constipating. The ex- 

 ception is that when the mash mixed with it is to be fed 

 to birds that are a little inclined to looseness, the scald- 

 ed milk in the mash may be a corrective for this. Dry 

 milk products can be handled in mash making in the 

 same way as meat scrap. 



Clabber milk and the commercial semisolid butter- 

 milk are always best used cold, and are especially good for 

 both milk and bran mashes, which are most excellent for 

 feeding in hot summer weather, also for heavier mashes 

 of milk and corn meal sometimes with meat scrap 

 added that are good both for fattening and as occa- 

 sional rich feeds for variety. 



Oat Products in Mashes Whenever good ground 

 oats, rolled oats at feed prices, or any substantial oat 

 product can be obtained, it is a good idea to substitute 

 the oat product for about half the corn meal commonly 

 used in making mashes as described in preceding para- 

 graphs. The combination of oats and corn, especially 

 when they are coarsely ground together, is one of the 

 most appetizing and useful mashes, a little rich for 

 general regular use, but most excellent wherever a rather 

 concentrated, highly nutritious mash is wanted. Ground 

 oats alone do not swell as much and as quickly as the 

 best corn meal, but swell more than inferior corn meal. 

 With good meal the mixture swells well, with poor meal 

 the oats in combination give a better result. These 

 statements refer to ground oats in which the hull is not 

 present in excessive amount. 



Soft Fruits and Vegetables in Mashes Tomatoes 

 and pears, peaches, plums, and occasionally soft varieties 

 of apples are often available for small flocks of poultry 

 in quantities far greater than can be used to advantage 

 if fed separately to birds that get some soft mash besides. 

 A good plan in such cases is to mix the mash with the fruit 

 or vegetable, and also allow the birds all they will eat of 

 it separately. The mash is made by crushing the fruit 

 or vegetable to a pulp and then mixing the mill stuffs with 

 it, using them in any proportions desired. For mashing 

 such articles in larger quantities than can be mashed and 

 mixed in an ordinary pail, a tub made by cutting a keg 

 of convenient size in two may be used, or if none such 

 is available a common pail will do, though ordinary light 

 pails of either metal or wood will not stand much of this 

 treatment without breaking the bottom. A wooden pail 

 may have the bottom reinforced by attaching a round 

 piece of suitable thickness to the underside with screws. 

 A metal pail that is strong and has a perfectly flat bot- 

 tom may be used without damaging it, but a pail with 

 the bottom creased, or with the sides extending below 

 it ought not to be used in this way. 



The mashing may be done with any heavy wooden 

 implement of suitable form and size. For occasional use 

 or for small quantities, a pick handle makes a good 

 masher. If, however, there is frequent occasion to use 

 one, it is worth while to make one with a broader mashing 

 surface. A section of a round stick of cordwood, from 

 eight to twelve inches long, and four to five inches in 

 diameter, with a hole bored in the center of one end, and 

 a broom handle, or round piece of wood of about that 



size driven into it for a handle makes a good masher for 

 this purpose. 



Table Scraps in Mashes For feeding to poultry it is 

 nearly always better to mix a little bran and meal with 

 table scraps, as saved for the purp.ose, than to give the 

 scraps alone. The dry mill stuffs take up the moisture in 

 the scraps, of which there is sometimes a considerable 

 amount, and as these are leavings of gravies, soups, cereals 

 with milk, puddings, etc., the nutritive matter in them is 

 all saved when they are mixed in a mash, while if simply 

 put in a trough these soft and more or less fluid things 

 are not always eaten clean, and the frequent feeding of 

 them in this form results in very dirty troughs. Where 

 the flock of poultry is small and the scraps mixed in a 

 mash make more than is required, it will often be found 

 that by simply taking care to keep out of the vessel in 

 which the scraps are collected, the fluids that have no 

 special value (and might as well go down the sink drain), 

 the moisture in the scraps is reduced so much that the 

 appropriate amount of meals with them does not make 

 more mash than is needed. 



In the use of table scraps for poultry, and also when 

 feeding meat trimmings, as when hogs are butchered on 

 the farm, care should be taken not to give the birds op- 

 portunity to swallow large pieces of fat meat. A fowl 

 can swallow quite a large strip of fat as it is often cut 

 from a piece of meat at the table by. a person who does 

 not eat fat, or trimmed from the raw meat by the cook 

 before cooking, and fowls are quite fond of a little fat, 

 and quickly pounce on any they find in their feed. 



It is probable that large pieces of fat often are swal- 

 lowed in this way 

 and do no injury; 

 but it is also cer- 

 tain that in a great 

 many i n s t a n ces 

 fowls known to 

 have swallowed 

 large pieces of far, 

 or to have had the 

 opportunity to eat 

 freely of fat, have 

 died shortly after 

 with acute symp- 

 toms of poisoning. 

 For that reason, 

 either instructions 

 should be given to 

 those saving 

 scraps for poultry 

 not to put such 

 pieces of fat with 

 the rest, or the 

 person doing the 

 feeding should al- 

 ways be on the 

 lookout for them, 

 and cut them up 

 before feeding. If 

 this is done no 

 one bird can get 

 enough to injure 

 it, and what each gets will be a benefit to it. 



Infertile Eggs in Mashes When eggs are available 

 to feed to young poultry the best way to use them is to 

 break shell and all, and stir with them as much meal or 

 mixed mill stuffs as the egg will moisten. 



HOMEMADE OAT SPROUTER 



