78 



rich in concentrated materials, or may be simply 

 because the birds have been allowed to get into bad eat- 

 ing habits. If birds after eating liberally of a moist 

 mash act as described, the keeper should either find out 

 how to feed moist mash without causing the fowls to do 

 this, or change to a dry mash. 



It is entirely possible to give hens, as soon as they 

 will eat in the morning, a liberal feed of moist mash 

 all they will eat at once and then have them go directly 

 to scratching for grain in litter, although there is more 

 mash still in the troughs uneaten. In fact it is the 

 nature of the normal healthy bird to do it to take a 

 variety of things at one meal, just as a normal human 

 being does. In feeding thrifty young chickens to make 

 the best possible growth it is found that after giving them 

 all they will eat of either soft or hard feed, they can be 

 given the other form and will eat a substantial quantity 

 of it, on top of what appeared to be a full meal. As they 

 complete their growth they are less inclined to do this, 

 lot their feed requirements are less and their appetites not 

 so keen; but if they have always been accustomed to find 

 grain by looking or scratching for it, and if the mash 

 when taken into the crop does not distress them, they 

 will very soon, and often immediately after eating what 

 mash they want at one time, begin to forage or scratch 

 for grain. If the birds know that there is no grain to 

 be had until the feeder gives a new supply some hours 

 later, it is not to be expected that they will look for 

 grain after filling up pretty well on other feed. If they 

 have learned by experience that what they eat while the 

 mash is before them is all they will get until the next 

 feeding time, it is not to be expected that they will be 

 prevented from taking mash to the limit of their capacity 

 by anything but shortage of the supply or positive dis- 

 tress from having eaten too much of it. Fowls are not 

 of a high order of intelligence, but all animals instinctive- 

 ly try to secure their full share of supplies of feed in 

 sight when there is nothing else immediately in prospect. 



In good practice, with the dry-mash method of feed- 

 ing, the mash is usually accessible to the birds either all 

 the time or for long periods daily, and when the mash is 

 not accessible the scratch feed is. It can hardly be re- 

 peated too often, or emphasized too strongly, that the 

 greatest value in the dry-feeding method, is in keeping 

 feed of some kind always before the birds. If this rule 

 is adopted with a moist-mash system, it will be found 

 that unless the mash made and fed is very bad indeed, or 

 the birds have indigestion to start with, the common bad 

 effects accompanying moist-mash feeding will be con- 

 spicuously absent. A poultry keeper who wishes to use 

 moist mashes regularly and freely, and to be sure that 

 the mash made is a thoroughly good one right in con- 

 sistency and bulk- can best get at the heart of the matter 

 by feeding the mash in the morning, experimenting intelli- 

 gently both with composition and mixing of the mash 

 and with the quantity to be given, until he can make a 

 mash that the birds will eat freely, but not gluttonously, 

 and still show some interest in any other kind of food that 

 may be available. 



Feeding in the morning is the best test of the mash 

 itself, because when it is fed at noon the birds usually 

 have in their crops some grain or other feed which helps 

 relieve any bad effects of an unsuitable mash, and also 

 tends greatly to reduce the amount of an unsuitable and 

 perhaps unappetizing mash consumed. Feeding mash at 

 night gives no opportunity at all to judge of its possible 

 tendency to make the biids inactive because they go to 

 roost then anyway. The old theory of the morning mash 



was that the birds having had a long fast, especially in 

 the long winter night, should have soft feed first because 

 it would be more quickly digested an'd assimilated. On 

 the same line of reasoning the night feed was of hard 

 grain with whole corn much favored with the idea that 

 it took longer to digest and that the birds were more 

 comfortable were really being nourished while the feed 

 was in the digestive tract. These ideas seemed convinc- 

 ingly reasonable to the majority 'of poultry keepers in 

 those days, but no data were ever obtained that would 

 support any theory of the kind. 



In general, the feeding of a soft mash to adult birds 

 more than once a day is not good practice, nor is it wise 

 to force heavy consumption of dry mash by giving the 

 hens less grain than they will eat if allowed to select 

 for themselves, unless the idea is to force egg produc- 

 tion as long as the hens will stand that kind of feeding, 

 and kill them for the table as soon as they show symp- 

 toms of being unfavorably affected by it. Too much 

 feeding of soft mash, with a corresponding reduction in 

 the amount of hard grain given, not only weakens the 

 digestive organs, but causes more or less relaxation of 

 the whole muscular system. When this is accompanied, 

 as it often is, by increased egg production as the result 

 of forcing feeds, many hens are unable to retain their 

 eggs in the oviduct until complete, and lay soft-shelled 

 eggs although liberally supplied with shell-forming ma- 

 terial. The best way to correct such conditions- is to 

 give a diet of all hard grain and vegetable feeds, letting 

 the bird balance its own ration of these, and feeding no 

 meat or other especially stimulating feed until it is again 

 in normal condition. 



It will be observed that nearly all the directions for 

 feeding given say that the grain is fed in litter. Obvious- 

 ly this is done in the houses in most cases, both winter 

 and summer. Wherever layers can be kept on range in 

 summer, it is much better to broadcast the grain on the 

 range, thus giving the hens every inducement to forage 

 widely. It is especially desirable to do this with the 

 heavier breeds, and hens of any breed that have a ten- 

 dency to put on fat. Some judgment must of course be 

 exercised in the matter of feeding grain outdoors in wet 

 weather. It should not be fed outside in protracted heavy 

 rains when the birds will not stay out long enough to 

 get a feed. A little experience will enable the poultry 

 keeper to judge how much rain it takes to discourage his 

 hens from foraging for their feed. Also in putting out 

 grain in wet weather he should be careful not to put out 

 more cracked corn than will be eaten before the next 

 feeding time, for cracked corn lying out in the wet or in 

 alternate wet and heat deteriorates very quickly. With 

 whole grains there is no loss, for wetting soaks and 

 sprouts them, so that there" will be no waste and no 

 harm done if oats, barley, wheat, and rye are thrown 

 out more freely than usual in damp weather. The birds 

 can get what they want more quickly, and will soon 

 clean up any excess after the wet weather is over. 



For some years the most common practice has been 

 to feed the hard grain in a mixture, giving the different 

 kinds in the same proportion at every feed. This prac- 

 tice has come in largely as the result of the necessity for 

 using commercial mixtures to get the desired variety in 

 grains, and because so large a proportion of poultry 

 keepers, buying feed in small quantities, preferred to buy 

 mixtures rather than various and sometimes small 

 amounts of different kinds of grains. While grains were 

 easily obtained in fair variety the common practice of 

 good poultry keepers was to feed the grains separately. 



