HOW TO FEED* EQ.ULTJtfriE3B.. ANY PURPOSE WITH PROFIT 



A MAINE FARM THAT SPECIALIZED IN POULTRY BREEDING BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCKS TO STANDARD 



AND FOR EGGS AND MEAT 



Here about three or four hundred old birds and from a thousand to twelve hundred chicks had the range of the 

 orchards, pastures, meadows, and some of the cultivated fields- in all about forty acres and could pick a consider- 

 able part of their living- at some seasons. 



What Poultry Eat 



Of poultry in general it may be said that their diet 

 is more like that of man than the diet of other domestic 

 animals. The pig is the only one of the larger animals 

 that is an omnivorous eater, and while the pig will eat meat 

 of any kind when it can get it, it seems much better able 

 to subsist on a vegetable diet than most kinds of poultry. 

 In comparing the natural diets of the most common kinds 

 of poultry we find at the same time such similarity and 

 such adaptability in all, that they may be kept on the 

 same ration, with slight and easily made variations, and 

 yet such differences and such special adaptabilities that 

 one kind may thrive on feed upon which another would 

 be half starved. Their differences in structure and habits 

 of life also enable them to obtain feed under different 

 conditions. The likeness of the several common kinds of 

 poultry in the matter of feeding is of advantage to the 

 poultry keeper when he wishes to keep two or more 

 kinds under intensive conditions. Their unlikeness is of 

 advantage when he wishes to utilize as fully as possible 

 the waste feeds on a large area of land, or large quan- 

 tities of particular kinds of waste or cheap feed. 



The kinds of poultry to be especially considered in a 

 general work on poultry feeding are, fowls, turkeys, 



ducks, and geese. The guinea, peafowl, and pheasant re- 

 quire substantially the same feeding as the turkey, and the 

 swan may be considered a large goose. We can, therefore, 

 cover the whole subject thoroughly by treating matters 

 relating to the feeding of fowls, turkeys, ducks, and geese 

 ftlly, and then making shorter special statements for the 

 other kinds. 



Feeding Habits of Fowls 



Fowls are the most domestic of poultry. They will 

 forage only as far as is really necessary to get feed. They 

 appear averse to getting so far away from their coop or 

 from cover where they feel safe, that they cannot reach 

 it by a quick dash if danger threatens. So they usually 

 forage over a limited area, working over it thoroughly, 

 but rarely going far in any direction. The ordinary farm 

 flock of fowls, with the chickens that are raised each year, 

 generally take all the poultry feed there is about a farm 

 house, its outbuildings, and the nearby land. That is why 

 so many farms in America have only fowls, no turkeys, 

 ducks, or geese. Fowls are, on the whole, the most use- 

 ful and profitable kind of poultry; therefore they take 

 precedence of the others except where particular interest 

 in one of the others results in either limiting the number 

 of fowls kept or making special provision for it beyond 

 the range of the fowls. 



A MASSACHUSETTS MARKET POULTRY PLANT IN A LARGE BACK YARD WHERE 1200 TO 2000 WINTER 



CHICKENS WERE GROWN A YEAR 



Here everything consumed by the birds had to be bought for cash. Only nearness to good markets, good work 

 and a good product make poultry growing profitable under such conditions. 



