68 



that is hygienically clean and supplies them with the feed 

 accessoiies. They are an animal crop in a rotation of prin- 

 cipally vegetable crops. On the ordinary grain, grass, and 

 stock growing farm, where the number of chickens is 

 rarely more than 200 to 300 and the chicks can have the 

 range of many fields, it is often possible, by distributing 

 the chickens as widely as is practical, and by moving the 

 coops several times in the course of the season, to have 

 them eat a large amount of grain that would otherwise be 

 wasted. When it is considered that the ordinary waste 

 of small grains in handling in the field at harvest is 

 about five per cent of the yield, and that in ordinary 

 threshing as much more is left in the straw, and that the 

 wastes often greatly exceed this, it is easy to see that 

 a farm with from sixty to a hundred acres or more in 

 grains of various kinds and grass has waste grain enough 

 to grow quite a large stock of poultry provided the 

 birds are distributed where they can get the grain, and 

 shifted on the land to cover it all during the season. 



Reports are frequently made of farm flocks of chick- 

 ens up to 200 or more that are fed little grain from the 

 ciibs. Knowing the amount of grain that it takes to make 

 a certain weight of chicken under the conditions in the 

 experiments that have been cited, we can make close est<- 

 mates of the amount of waste feed salvaged by a flock 

 that gets practically all its grain from the land. One hun- 

 dred chickens raised to an average weight of three pounds 

 will each have consumed about ten pounds of grain a 

 thousand pounds in all. One hundred six-pound chickens 

 will have consumed a ton of grain. Of grains as they are 

 found on the farm fields and in the yards there would be 

 from forty to fifty bushels, according to the relative pro- 

 portions of oats and of heavier grains. 



On the farm that grows considerable quantities -~>I- 

 grain, the question of feeding poultry is one of using the 

 waste grain to best advantage. It will not in every case 

 be most profitable to plan to have poultry use all the waste 

 grain, but there will always be a great deal of it that poui- 

 try can glean to better advantage than anything else, and 

 the farm plans for poultry keeping should be designed to 

 get the most out of this. While for the purpose of illus- 

 tration we have discussed the possibility of a considerable 

 flock of chickens getting all their grain from the farm, 

 that may not always be the best plan. In many cases it 

 will be more profitable, on the whole, to plan the poultrv 

 keeping with a view to having stock enough to consume 

 the large wastes of grain within a comparatively short 

 time after they are available. This may mean feeding 

 more or less salable grain at other times. 



Another point which the farmer who has much waste 

 giain available for poultry at some seasons should con- 

 sider is that, except when such wastes are abundant and 

 easily obtained, leaving poultry to find all feed for them- 

 selves compels them to work too hard for what they get, 

 to use up in energy much nutriment that could more pro- 

 fitably go to growth, and makes chickens too hard-meated 

 to be really first-class table poultry. Many farmers have 

 so much other work to do that the most profitable method 

 for them to follow with poultry is to keep just enough to 

 stock the range that they can use for poultry, and leave 

 the birds generally to themselves. But wherever it seems 

 advantageous to give special attention to poultry on the 

 farm, it will be found profitable to carry stocks of chick- 

 ens much larger than the range will supply with the grain 

 needed, adopting to some extent the policy of growers of 

 first-class market poultry, who go on the principle of giv- 

 ing chicks free range, but feeding them so well that they 



will take only exercise enough to keep them in good con- 

 dition until fit for market. 



A course about midway between this practice of mar- 

 ket poultry growers and that of the farmer who makes his. 

 chickens hunt for most of their feed, will give full growth 

 and vigor without making young birds noticeably hard- 

 meated. A farmer who distributes his chickens so that 

 the grain they get from the land will equal about half of 

 the usual grain ration, and finds that he gets a normal rate 

 of growth by feeding about half the quantities of grain 

 consumed by chickens on a range that affords no sub- 

 stantial amount of grain, may conclude that he is growing- 

 chickens about as they should be grown for laying and 

 stock purposes, still keeping them so soft-meated that 

 when properly finished for market they will be quite a.A 

 tender as those which the market poultry specialist keeps 

 soft-meated by feeding so that they take the least amount 

 of exercise that will keep them from indigestion until they 

 are fattened for market. 



Observations on Various Relations of Feed and Condi- 

 tions of Feeding to Growth and Development 



Chickens from the same stock may be grown in about 

 the same time to the same weight, and yet develop on 

 such different lines that they appear to be of quite dis- 

 stinctly different types. This is most noticeable in standard 

 exhibition stock from the same breeder, grown by various 

 purchasers of eggs under different conditions, but it may 

 easily be observed by comparing stock of the same breed 

 as grown by different breeders for different purposes. A 

 ration with a large proportion of soft feed will grow a 

 different type of chickens from one with a large propor- 

 tion of hard feed. A ration in which corn is the principal 

 ingredient will grow a different type of chicken from one 

 which contains mostly wheat or barley. A ration con- 

 taining a large amount of meat will have a different effect 

 on the development of the comb and wattles from one 

 containing no meat. Feeds will modify development 

 just as conditions may. 



Soft feed, and feed of which chickens are very fond 

 and of which they eat freely, tend to make coarse-boned, 

 ioose-jointed birds which, because of these characteristics, 

 develop quite a different carriage from what they would 

 have had on a harder diet of which they ate more sparing- 

 ly. If with the feed that makes for bulk, looseness of 

 frame, and coarse bone, we have conditions of life that 

 also tend to these results, the effects are aggravated. On 

 the contrary, if we give conditions having an opposite ten- 

 dency to that of the ration, we can neutralize effects if 

 they are undesirable. Whether they are undesirable will 

 depend upon the purpose for which the birds are to be 

 used. 



Many growers of standard exhibition stock give little 

 or no meat to growing chicks, because of the tendency of 

 meat to make the comb and wattles large and coarse. Ob- 

 viously the objection to the feeding of meat in such cases 

 will be most in evidence in stocks where the tendency is 

 to a larger comb than is desired; and in stocks with rather 

 small combs it will be possible to feed meat quite freely 

 without getting objectionable coarseness in comb and wat- 

 tles. Where meat is withheld for the purpose named, it 's 

 necessary and customary to give the birds every other 

 possible advantages to make good growth. 



The feeding of yellow corn and corn meal to poultry 

 increases the yellow color in fat and in the skin, the scales 

 of the legs, and the beak. It also commonly increases the 

 creaminess of white plumage, though it does not in- 

 variably do this, for there are some birds and some stocks 

 in which the yellow color does not appear in white plum- 

 age no matter how much yellow corn is fed. In this matter 



