AMERICAN POULTRY CULTURE 



no oftener than absolutely necessary in order to 

 work up the table scraps or other waste materials. 

 Aside from their value in this connection, wet 

 mashes have nothing for which I think they should 

 be recommended to a beginner, for in unskilled 

 hands they often produce looseness of the bowels 

 and other light ailments which may get the begin- 

 ner in a good bit of trouble before he can correct 

 matters. 



The best time to feed the mash, whether morn- 

 ing or evening, is a mooted question. There is a 

 potent objection to soft food at either time. If 

 a mash is fed in the morning the hen will, of 

 course, greedily consume all she wants in just a 

 minute or two, almost without moving out of her 

 tracks, and then, her appetite being satisfied, she 

 has no incentive to rustle around further, but be- 

 comes inactive and lazy and goes back on the 

 roost or seeks a quiet corner where she may doze 

 undisturbedly. The objection to a mash in the 

 evening is that it is so readily assimilated, that 

 the digestive organs become empty before morning 

 and bodily heat is not maintained. The latter 

 objection is perhaps the less potent, and most 

 poultrymen who use mashes feed them in the even- 

 ing. Another good way is to feed the soft food 

 in the morning, but give the fowls only about 

 half as much as they would desire, and then supple- 

 ment this with a few handfuls of small grains and 



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