FEEDING CHICKS FROM WEANING TO MATURITY 



65 



got so into the habit of eating certain things at certain 

 times that until starved into it they will eat at any par- 

 ticular feeding time only the feed they have been ac- 

 customed to get at that time. Cases of this kind are much 

 more rare since the practice of keeping feed before the 

 chicks in hoppers came into general use, but there are 

 still far too many flocks of growing chicks that are never 

 broken to take good feed as offered to them. 



By giving from the first enough variety in feeds for 

 the chicks to learn that what the feeder puts before them 

 will satisfy their appetites and that nothing else is to be 

 expected until it is gone, chicks are soon taught to eat 

 readily of any feed offered that is not actually unpalatable 

 or objectionable. Also by changing the order of feeds 

 given at different times through the day they are trained 

 ;o eat anything at any time. Chickens that are so trained 

 are not as a rule subject to digestive disorders when 

 changes in their ration are made; and though the writer 

 cannot positively affirm that it is so, it is his opinion that 

 by varying the order of the feeds quite frequently, and 

 avoiding the monotony of feeding on rigid schedules, feed- 

 ing practice is adapted to a much larger proportion of 

 chickens generally. In other words, it appears to him that 

 it is the monotony of most poultry -rations, rather than the 

 nature of any of their ingredients that is the true cause 

 of the lack of what may be called energy in digestion 

 which causes temporary trouble when chickens are given 

 an unaccustomed feed. 



There is no inconsistency between .training chicks to 

 eat what (proper) feed is set before them, and catering to 

 their appetites with the most appropriate feed at certain 

 times. On the contrary, the two policies are complemen- 

 tary. We train the chicks to take their ordinary rations 

 freely under all ordinary circumstances; and on the other 

 hand we give particular attention to furnishing the diet 

 that will at the same time best promote growth and keep 

 the chicken hearty under extraordinary and unfavorable 

 conditions for development. 



Culling and Separating Chicks in the Growing Period 



While as previously stated it is desirable to put in 

 one coop or house at weaning time only as many chickens 

 as can be carried to maturity in it, this ideal condition is 

 found so seldom, .that further separation and culling of 

 flocks of growing chickens is almost always necessary. In 

 the more precocious breeds, of which the Leghorn is 

 the most popular representative, it is best to separate 

 the pullets and cockerels at weaning time, but in the 

 medium-sized breeds 'they may be kept together much 

 longer, until three, four, or five months of age, without 

 the cockerels annoying the pullets. 



In the Asiatic breeds, and the larger and slower 

 maturing strains of the general-purpose type, the sexes 

 may be kept together until nearly or quite full grown 

 without the young males annoying the females at all. 

 Different strains vary in this respect, but nearly always 

 Asiatic males of stocks that grow to good standard size 

 are altogether indifferent to the females until they ap- 

 proach their full size and physical development. 



Where the males are to be used for roasters, and 

 fattened and sold for that purpose just before they begin 

 to show sexual proclivities and their meat would become 

 hard and staggy, it is often a great convenience to keep 

 cockerels and pullets together up to the time that the 

 foimer should be taken out for fattening. In the case of 

 early chickens, this may allow running the sexes together 

 until about July 1st, in the North, and then, with the 

 cockerels removed, the number of pullets left in each 



lot will have plenty of room both indoors and out during 

 the remainder of the growing season. 



Similarly where pullets and cockerels for stock birds 

 have been kept for a while after weaning with pullets in- 

 tended for layers, as the season advances and the growing 

 chickens begin to crowd the house, those of one class can 

 be taken from it to other quarters, leaving the other class 

 to occupy it the remainder of the season; the best condi- 

 tions being given to the stock intended for breeding pur- 

 poses. Where only the few cockerels a poultry keeper re- 

 serves for his own breeding are kept, it is often a good plan 

 to give them a fair-sized yard and special feeding, that the 

 pullets both for breeding and laying may have all the 

 available range undisturbed. Where there is room to do 

 so, the best way to handle the cockerels reserved for 

 breeding is in colonies so far away from all other stock 

 that they do not come in contact with either hens or 

 pullets where they range. 



For a generation past, so much of our poultry has 

 been grown close about groups of farm buildings, or on 

 the limited ranges of rather intensive poultry farms, that 

 it is not generally known that when they have the op- 

 portunity to do so cockerels and pullets which return to 

 the same coops or roosting places at night will volun- 

 tarily separate and go to different ranges during the day, 

 showing the instinct in this which seems to be common 

 to polygamous birds at other times than in the breeding 

 season, and which is often noted in turkeys. This point is 

 of interest because it shows that the tendency of young 

 cockerels to annoy hens and pullets is due to the ab- 

 normal life they lead, and that if they are given the op- 

 portunity to range where there is an abundance of the 

 things chickens like, to be secured by foraging, they will 

 take little interest in anything but the business of eating 

 and keeping as comfortable as possible. This applies to 

 cockerels of the precocious breeds as well as to others. 

 The writer has seen the cockerels and pullets in a flock 

 of nearly a hundred growing Leghorns that had the 

 range of some six or seven acres of land, and that were 

 fed together night and morning, go to different trees to 

 roost, and in separate bands appropriate each its part of 

 the range and never trespass on that of the other through- 

 out the whole season. 



As most chickens are housed during the period of 

 growth in rather larger numbers than is consistent with 

 their best development, culling out the inferior speci- 

 mens as fast as they are noted as distinctly inferior, or 

 as undesirable to carry to maturity, is one of the most 

 effective ways of improving conditions for those that re- 

 main, and thus getting the greatest possible returns on 

 the feed that they consume and the labor expended upon 

 them. There is no greater fallacy in regard to the feeding 

 of growing chickens than the idea that the way to avoid 

 loss on unthrifty chickens is to carry them along with the 

 rest until maturity, and try tojmake as much as possible of 

 them. The common impression is that unthrifty and 

 undersized chickens are light feeders, and that if they 

 have not grown as much in a given time as their more 

 thrifty companions, neither have they cost as much. The 

 fact is that the unthrifty chickens consume far more feed 

 to make a pound of weight than the others. They are 

 unthrifty because they have not strong vitality and good 

 digestion, and a large part of what they consume passes 

 through them undigested. 



It does not pay to keep an unthrifty chicken after 

 that characteristic is noted. It should be eaten or sold 

 for whatever it will bring. It simply cannot convert feed 

 into poultry meat at a profit, and the longer the owner 



