MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 



89 



the morning that they will sit around for hours. When hens on 

 a farm need only one or two light feeds a day, whatever grain 

 is most convenient may be given them. Where they get so 

 much exercise and a good variety of other foods, whole corn is 

 as good as anything. A good way to feed it is to break the ears 

 into short pieces and let the birds pick the grain from the cob. 

 In winter the feeding of the farm flock should have more 

 attention, especially if little food can be secured around the 

 stables and stockyards. It is a good plan to give, once a day, 

 a warm mash made of I part 

 (by measure) of corn meal and 

 2 parts of bran, and to give 

 as much grain at one other 

 feeding as the hens will eat. 

 Some farmers use sheaf oats 

 for litter in the floors of their 

 poultry houses, throwing in a 

 sheaf or two as often as is nec- 

 essary to keep a good depth 



Of litter On the floor, and then FIG. 86. Open-front house with hood 

 give as much Corn in addition (Photograph from Department of Agri- 



culture, Victoria, British Columbia) 



as the hens will eat readily. 



If it is not convenient to make a mash, what grain the fowls 

 will eat quickly from a trough may be prepared for a warm 

 breakfast for them by pouring boiling water on it in the eve- 

 ning and letting it soak overnight. Any of the small grains and 

 cracked corn may be fed in this way ; whole corn needs longer 

 soaking. In hard, freezing weather no more mash or soaked 

 grain should be given than the fowls will eat before it can freeze. 

 A favorite old-time practice still used on many farms is to heat 

 shelled corn in the oven and feed it while warm. 



The best vegetable foods for fowls in winter are cabbages and 

 mangel -wurzels. The cabbages can be hung up by the roots and 

 the fowls will eat all but the stump. The most convenient way 



