FEEDING CHICKS FROM WEANING TO MATURITY 



69 



the poultry keeper must act according to the circum- 

 stances. Breeders of white varieties generally try to de- 

 velop in their stock the absolute white plumage. This is 

 difficult, and also is a slow process. Meantime it is good 

 policy for one who finds that yellow corn affects the plum- 

 age of his white poultry to an undesirable extent, to re- 

 frain from using it. In England and on the continent of 

 Europe where there is more or less prejudice against yel- 

 low color of the skin and yellow fat in poultry, the market 

 poultry growers avoid feeding yellow corn and meal. In 

 the United States the yellower the poultry the better it 

 pleases the consuming public, so the grower of market 

 poultry feeds all of both that his poultry will stand. 



Feeding Chickens in the Fall 



With the coming of decidedly cool nights in the fall, 

 vigorous, healthy chickens usually develop tremendous 

 appetites. With due attention to the modification of heavy 



WELL-GROWN PULLETS IN GRASSY YARDS WITH AUTOMATIC 

 GRAIN FEEDER 



rations in the occasional hot spells that still come during 

 September in the North and may be looked for even a 

 month later in the South, the chickens should be fed ail 

 that they will eat of good, substantial rations. Those thai 

 are being fed at this season are mostly pullets for layers 

 stock birds, and cockerels that were not ready to market 

 when prices were good in the early summer, or that were 

 not sold then simply because the grower (as is the case 

 on many farms) follows the custom of letting all chickens, 

 except what are consumed at home through the season, 

 grow until late in the fall, and then make a general clean- 

 up of the stock that is not to be carried over, reserving 



what pullets and hens are wanted, and a few cockerels, and 

 selling all the remainder. 



It is usually the best policy in poultry keeping to have 

 the stock at this season down as clo>se as possible to what 

 is to be carried through the winter. Breeders who sell 

 breeding stock, of course, have to carry a considerable part 

 of it well into the winter, and perhaps some of it until 

 spring, but in nearly all other cases the poultry keeper 

 who sells all cockerels that are not to be used for breed- 

 ing, or that have not been caponized in the summer, an 1 

 works off as table poultry his cull pullets and all hens that 

 are not regarded as promising layers for another year, 

 doing this as early in the fall as possible, is in a much 

 better position to handle the stock on hand to the best 

 advantage. 



The common difficulties in feeding and in getting the 

 results that should be obtained at this season, are the 

 the overcrowding of stock, and short- 

 feeding, either as a result of short- 

 age of feed on ranges that were good 

 through the earlier part of the sea- 

 son, or because the cost of feeding 

 a large stock at a time when returns 

 from it are small is such a burden that 

 the owner adopts the mistaken policy 

 of feeding a little light, in order to 

 make the feed (and his money) go as 

 far as possible. In all management of 

 live stock, the only sound policy is 

 to keep only those that are worth 

 feeding for the purpose for which 

 they are kept, to keep only as many 

 as the land or the resources in feed 

 and money will carry, and to feed 

 at all times all that the creatures can 

 use to good advantage. Any other 

 course defeats its own ends. Ad- 

 justment to get the right conditions 

 is simply a matter of culling rigidly 

 and culling early. When this is done, 

 the unprofitable and least profitable 

 individuals are weeded out, reducing 

 the number to be fed, while the re- 

 ceipts for those sold become avail- 

 able to buy feed for the others. 



The poultry keeper can more fully 

 appreciate the occasion for heavier 

 feeding at this time if he will con- 

 sider that the chickens are mostly 

 now not more than three-fourths 

 grown, that even at summer tem- 

 peratures their requirements for 

 growth are steadily increasing, and 

 that with every decline in the aver- 

 age daily temperature the chickens, 

 to keep up their normal rate of 

 growth, must have more heat-pro- 

 ducing feed. These two things call for large increases 

 in the feed consumed, and in addition, it is the natural 

 tendency of poultry to put on fat at this time in antici- 

 pation of coming cold weather when the demands for 

 heat will at all times be beyond the heating capacity of 

 the ration that they can -digest. Thus coming altogether, 

 we have practically a trebling of the rate of increase in 

 feed requirements that obtained through the summer. 



To keep chickens growing right it is necessary to 

 provide fully for these increased requirements, giving 

 the birds all that they can eat and digest. Where whole 

 corn is available it may be fed freely at least once a day. 



