FEEDING CHICKS FROM HATCHING TO WEANING 



57 



Ration No. 22 H. J. Blanehnrd's Ration 



First few days feed granulated oatmeal four times a 

 day and give water not too cold. Then begin gradually 

 working- them on a diet of cake alternated with cracked 

 wheat. The cake is made of ground oats (hulls -sifted out), 

 corn meal and bran, about equal parts by measure, with a 

 little high-grade beef scraps mixed in while dry. The mix- 

 ture is moistened with milk, salted as for the table, leavened 

 with soda, and baked. As the chicks grow older the amount 

 of beef scrap is gradually increased. Just as soon as we 

 can vet fresh grass or clover it is fed daily, cut in one- 

 eighth inch lengths. Chard, lettuce, and beet tops are also 

 used. 



Ration No. 23 James Rankin's Ration 



Start with bread crumbs and hard boiled egg chopped 

 fine one part of egg to five parts of bread, with plenty of 

 fine grit mixed in. After three days give equal quantities 

 of wheat bran and corn meal with a little fine beef scraps, 

 and one feed each day of rolled oats and cracked corn. As 

 they grow older give clabbered milk, boiled potatoes and 

 green grass daily. 



Mr. Rankin, who was one of the most skillful poultry- 

 men in America, once grew four hundred Brahmas to four 

 or five months age, in a yard only six rods square, using 

 this ration the greater part of the time, but toward the 

 last feeding whole corn and giving finely cut corn fodder 

 for green feed. 



Ration No. 24 W. D. Rudd's Ration 



First two weeks crumbled johnnycake and granulated 

 oats, dry; with green feed and powdered charcoal always 

 before them. After two weeks give also whole or broken 

 wheat and cracked corn. At three weeks begin to give 

 moist feed, stale bread soaked in sweet milk, thickened with 

 corn meal meal about one-half of the whole. At four 

 weeks discontinue granulated oats, and keep cracked corn 

 always before the chicks. 



Ration No. 25 J. A. DeMar's Ration 



First feed Spratt's chick meal, alternated with rolled 

 oats, cut oatmeal and fine cracked corn, with sweet milk 

 in one fountain and water in another. Feed in this way 

 about three weeks, then put them on a mash made of two 

 parts corn meal, and one part shorts, with a little beef scrap 

 and some grit. This is fed once a day, just what they will 

 eat up clean. They are fed the first two weeks about five 

 times a day, after that three or four times. After the chicks 

 are three w'eeks old cracked corn, wheat and barley are sub- 

 stituted for the oatmeal and Spratt's feed. From the time 

 the chicks are .a week old they are fed cabbage and mangels. 



Ration No. 26 P. R. Park's First Dry Feed Ration 



Two bags of corn to one bag of the best wheat, well 

 mixed and ground to about the size of a pinhead, and fed 

 dry in a dish or hopper, also a dish of the best beef scrap, 

 kept constantly before the chicks from the time they are 

 hatched. These, with water or milk to drink milk preferred, 

 form the entire diet on range which provides only limited 

 green feed. 



This ration is of special interest because ,its use marked 

 the beginning of the dry feeding movement. It was first 

 used by Mr. Park in 1897, and first published by him in a 

 symposium on feeding in Farm-Poultry, April, 1901. 



The six rations last given are typical of good prac- 

 tice among poultry keepers who worked out rations by 

 trying them out, and worked with rough measurements, 

 and varied rations from time to time according to their 

 judgment, before educational methods demanded more 

 exact specifications for feeding. Ration No. 24, taken from 

 a circular of 1897, was probably used as there given from 

 about 1872. 



Observations on Some Features of Common Chick 

 Rations. 



The reader studying the rations that have been given 

 will note here and there insistence by some authorities 

 upon points which others regard as immaterial, and also 

 that there are some recommendations of the author of this 

 book with which various authorities appear to disagree. 

 A case in point is the use of hard-boiled eggs. Probably 

 three-fourths of the instructions for feeding young chick- 

 ens strongly advise the use of hard-boiled eggs. Every one 

 knows that in cooking eggs for the table one egg may be 

 boiled hard yet be tender and easily digestible, and an- 

 other boiled in a different manner may be tough and in- 

 digestible. There is no doubt that eggs can be hard-boiled 

 so that they will be all right for young chickens; there is 

 equally no doubt that the greater part of the eggs cooked 

 as first feeds for young chickens, being stale to begin with, 

 and boiled with no attention to any point but thorough- 

 ness of boiling, are quite unsuitable for this purpose. The 



writer early in his commercial poultry keeping experience 

 quit hard-boiling eggs for chicks because he preferred to 

 use them in johnnycake, and if he had any not used in 

 that way, it was much easier to make raw mashes with 

 them. He had no particular trouble attributable to hard- 

 boiled eggs. But after he engaged in journalism, and was 

 often called upon to advise poultry keepers who were 

 having trouble with their young chickens, he found that 

 the feeding of hard-boiled eggs was one of the most 

 common causes of indigestion in young chickens, and was 

 not generally suspected as the cause, for the simple rea- 

 son that nearly all authorities classed it as one of the 

 best feeds, and it was often fed without any bad results. 

 Whenever there is trouble with chicks that are given 

 hard-boiled eggs freely, and no other plain cause for it 

 can be found, it is reasonably safe to advise the poultry 

 keeper that if the hard-boiled egg is cut out the trouble 

 will promptly disappear. 



Another case in point is the use of meat meals and 

 meat scraps,, bone meal, and charcoal in liberal propor- 

 tions in mash mixtures, especially in moist mashes. Many 

 of the formulas recommended contain more of these 

 things than chicks with normal appetites are likely to 

 relish as continuous diet. In dry feeding this may not 

 do much harm, or may do no harm, because the chicks 

 can pick the mash over and to some extent select their 

 diet. They can reject an excess of charcoal, and fine bone 

 meal, being heavier than other ingredients, works to the 

 bottom of the pan or hopper and much of it is eventually 

 thrown away. Much more meat can be eaten without bad 

 results in a dry mash than in a moist one. But even a dry 

 mash may be rendered unpalatable by an excess of bone 

 and charcoal, or dangerous by an excess of highly con- 

 centrated animal feed, and in the latter case the normal 

 appetite leads the chick to stop eating the mash when the 

 taste of meat in it is no longer agreeable, with the result 

 that it takes much less of the other things in the mash 

 than it was intended to take. So whenever in feeding one 

 of these dry mashes with heavy proportions of meat, 

 bone meal and charcoal, the chicks seem not to relish the 

 mash, the best thing to do is to cut out the bone and 

 charcoal entirely for a few days, and greatly reduce the 

 meat scrap. Then experiment a little with smaller propor- 

 tions of the bone meal and charcoal to determine what 

 the chicks want, or better still simply provide these ac- 

 cessories in separate receptacles so that the chicks can 

 eat them at will. 



The reader examining the rations given will also note 

 conflicting instructions and opinions in regard to the use 

 of milk in different forms. It is apparent that some poul- 

 try keepers feed milk in any form without any bad effects, 

 and that others get better results from sour milk th in 

 from sweet, and that some can use either regularly, but 

 cannot change abruptly from one to the other. These dif- 

 ferences are due either to other things in the ration or to 

 the fact that milk in a particular form does not agree with 

 certain stock, or perhaps to a tendency to indigestion ac- 

 companying some weakness originating in wrong temper- 

 ature, or in the effect of contaminated land. No one can 

 say with certainty on a statement of the ration, what other 

 cause may affect results of feeding it, but most practical 

 poultry keepers of wide- experience know that thoroughly 

 rugged and hearty chicks are not upset by little things of 

 .this kind and that there is always, in such cases, some 

 condition which should be remedied for the general good 

 of the flock. 



How Much to Feed Chicks 

 Instructions for feeding chicks generally advise the 



