48 



HOW TO FEED POULTRY FOR ANY PURPOSE WITH PROFIT 



An orchard makes an ideal place for young chickens, 

 but any available piece of land in grass can be used in 

 the same way. On cultivated land on which other crops 

 are growing, coops must be placed along the edges of the 

 field. This plan can also be used with mowing lands 

 while the chicks are small. They will run more or less 

 in the grass, making paths through it, treading it down a 

 little in places, and perhaps keeping it quite short for a, 

 space near each coop, but if their numbers are limited and 

 the coops as far .apart as they need to be for the chicks 

 later in the season, the damage to the grass will be quite 

 insignificant. The question of placing the coops to get 



COOP USED FOR YOUNG CHICKENS ON A RHODE 

 ISLAND FARM 



The hen is kept confined to the coop, the window 

 being opened just enough to let the chicks pass in and 

 out. As the joints between the boards are open, the 

 ventilation is sufficient in ordinary spring weather. 

 If it should not be, a small screen is put in the window. 

 This is a good style of coop to use after chill weather 

 is past, when it is desired to combine several broods 

 with one hen. 



these advantages comes up early in the season, for the 

 poultry keeper must plan ahead. Other points relating to 

 the combination will be taken up later. 



On the small place where a few chicks are grown 

 each year, and where the whole place is in lawn, garden, 

 and yards for the poultry, it generally is practical to 

 place coops for small chicks in the spring where the 

 growth of grass or cultivation in the latter part of the 

 season keeps the land fresh. On all farms where large 

 stocks of poultry are grown, whether by natural or by 

 artificial methods, it is important to have the chicks 

 started on land that was not occupied by any poultry the 

 preceding season. The only exceptions to this are sandy 

 locations where droppings quickly disintegrate and are 

 carried by the rain so far below the surface of the loose 

 soil that impurities are rapidly removed, and slopes where 

 the natural drainage is such that heavy rains and the 

 removal of snow in the spring wash them quite clean. 



Wherever droppings can accumulate, and marked 

 traces of the droppings left on the land one season are 

 plainly seen at the beginning of the next season for 

 growing chicks, the rule of putting the chicks always on 

 Clean Land not used for any poultry in the preceding 

 season, should be carefully observed. On heavy clay 

 soils it is still better to have the land in .cultivation or 

 grass for two seasons between those in which it is heav- 

 ily stocked with poultry. 



First Feeds For Young Chickens 



A generation ago it was the common practice to 

 make mostly soft feeds for young chickens, and carefully 

 to avoid giving them an opportunity to pick up large 

 grains. They were allowed little grain until ten days to 

 two weeks old, and what was given them was usually 

 either steel-cut pin-head oatmeal, or finely cracked wheat, 

 corn, or perhaps a little rice, with all coarse particles care- 

 fully sifted out. The soft feeds used were corn meal mashes, 

 more often made by simply wetting the corn meal with 

 water either cold or hot just before feeding, but oc- 

 casionally scalded, or mixed with milk. More careful 

 feeders, anxious to get the best results, used baked john- 

 nycake. Generally this was made of corn meal alone, 

 but a good many persons used for it a mixture of other 

 mill stuffs with the corn meal. Stale bread of all kinds 

 soaked in water or milk and then squeezed out quite dry 

 was also widely used. Hard-boiled eggs chopped fine, and 

 mixed with crumbs of dry bread or crackers were sup- 

 posed to make a superior "first feed," and though infer- 

 tile eggs were largely used up in this way, it was by 

 no means uncommon for people who grew a few chickens, 

 and especially for novices in growing their first highly 

 bred poultry, to use perfectly good eggs to feed the baby 

 chicks. This was extravagant, but not so much so then 

 as it would be now, for in those days eggs were often 

 quite cheap in the spring. 



The use of soft feeds for baby chicks is still in com- 

 mon practice among chick raisers generally, but it should 

 be clearly understood that it is not good practice to use 

 a system of feeding young chickens in which soft feeds 

 are given to the exclusion of the common hard feeds, or 

 to use expensive arficles on the supposition that the lit- 

 tle chicks require delicacies, when less expensive feeds 

 of the same character would give as good results. 



For more than a quarter of a century the author has 

 given his chicks reared with hens, as their first feed, 

 whatever happened to come in the routine of the day's 

 feeding for all poultry in the next feeding after the 

 chicks were taken from the nest, which might be at any- 

 time from daylight to just before dark, according to how 

 the chicks were acting, and to other demands upon his 

 time. On this principle the first feed might be a com- 

 mercial chick feed, or baked johnnycake, or the mash 

 fed to the old birds, or whole wheat, or coarse-cracked 

 corn, or fine-cracked corn. For some fifteen years his 

 theory in regard to the use of coarse-cracked corn was 

 that the baby chicks would find in it as much fine stuff 

 as they wanted, while the hen would eat the coarser par- 

 ticles. Then one spring when the first chicks were started 

 in his absence the boy in charge simply fed them the 

 same as the hens, except that more feeds were given. As 

 they started off well it was decided to go through the 

 entire season with all coarse feeds. This was done, and 

 no difference in results was noted. In good, hard cracked 

 corn as prepared for fowls, there are few particles too 

 large for medium-sized young chickens. In soft corn 

 that does not crack well, but has many large uneven- 

 shaped flakes, there is a great deal that they will leave. 



When fine feeds are used, it is not because the chick- 

 ens cannot take and digest much larger pieces, but be- 

 cause when the feed is in large pieces they can get a full 

 feed too quickly and with too little effort. This is not 

 a matter of prime importance in rearing them in small 

 numbers on good range, by the natural method, but is 

 very important as we shall see when large numbers are 

 kept together and brooded artificially. For the present 

 purpose the point to emphasize is the fact that small 



