124 ON POULTRY. 



Manner of Feeding. 



The following method will be found a good one : Once a day, in 

 summer, feed on a mixture of corn and barley, or corn and cats. 

 This will be sufficient, if your fowls have a large enclosure, where 

 they can obtain gravel, insects, worms and green food ; if they are 

 confined to a small space, these substances must be supplied them 

 liberally ; in winter, keep corn, mixed sometimes with barley and 

 sometimes with oats, constantly before them, as well as pounded 

 oyster shells, burnt bones, or clam shells ; occasionally, give boiled 

 potatoes mashed, and mixed with Indian meal, or bran, warm, but 

 not hot. Let them have wood ashes, to dust themselves in, and an 

 abundance of clean water, fresh every day ; in freezing weather, 

 the water should be luke-warm. Chickens require no food for the 

 first twenty-four hours after they are hatched ; we have, however, 

 been in the habit of giving them water, in about twelve hours from 

 the time they leave the shell. After the first twenty-four hours, for 

 the two succeeding months, give cracked corn dry, three or four 

 times a day ; occasionally vary their food, by giving soa\etimes 

 cooked meat, chopped fine, and sometimes crumbs of bread. We 

 think dry food much better for young chickens than dough, or any 

 substance mixed with water. An abundance of clean water should 

 be constantly before them. 



Mr. Richardson says, that " it will not answer to feed fowls 

 wholly upon any one variety of food; neither will it be found ad- ■ 

 visable to feed upon any one class of food. Fowls require a mixture i 

 of green food with hard food, fully as much as horses or cattle do. 

 When the birds have the advantage of an extensive walk, they will ' 

 find this fo" themselves ; when they do not possess such an advan- .i 

 tage, you must provide green food for them. Fowl of all kinds re- ' 

 quire sand or gravel, as an aid to digestion, being, in fact, necessary 

 to promote a medium of trituration in the gizzard, as well as to sup- 

 ply calcareous matter for their egg-shells." 



We copy from the Albany Cultivator, of August last, the follow- 

 ing article on " Keeping Hens." 



" Mr. J. M. Mason, of Orwel, Vermont, usually winters two 

 hundred hens. His practice is, to buy pullets in the month of No- 

 vember. He buys those which were hatched early, as such are the 

 best to lay ,iQ winter. They cost about twelve and a half cents 

 .each. Thev are fed, in a great degree, on mutton. Mr, M. buys ■ 



