FEEDING POULTRY 355 



will do a great deal of picking at first but swallow very little. As 

 soon as they have learned how to eat,, the grains are scattered on the 

 sand for a day to teach them to scratch, and a light litter of cut 

 alfalfa hay or clover is then put in. From the time the litter is put 

 in, the chicks should be made to scratch for all their grain. Plenty 

 of exercise keeps the system toned up and is the best preventive for 

 the many ills to which little chicks are subject. Later on cut straw 

 can be used instead of the cut clover or alfalfa, but for the first 

 couple of weeks the latter is best as the chicks will eat the finer parts 

 and it will do them good. Pieces of straw would cause inflamma- 

 tion of the crop if eaten at this tender time of the chick's life. 



Beginning with the sixth day a dry mash should be fed in the 

 morning at 10 o'clock. This is composed of the following parts 

 by weight: 



2 parts bran, 

 2 parts shorts, 



1 part cornmeal or barley meal, 



2 parts meat scrap, 



1 part powdered bone, 

 !/4 part chick charcoal. 



For the next two weeks the litter should be kept very deep and 

 the grain mixture scattered in it early in the morning and about 

 2 o'clock in the afternoon, with a one-hour feeding of dry mash at 

 10 o'clock in the morning. As the chicks develop, the dry mash 

 should be gradually left before them for longer intervals until by 

 the time they are from 12 to 14 weeks old they have access to the 

 mash at all times. 



The chicks should be gradually changed over from the chick 

 grain to the laying grain-mixture after they are five or six weeks old 

 and big enough to begin to eat somewhat coarser grains. 



The steel-cut oats are first slowly eliminated at about five weeks. 

 Just as soon as the chicks can handle larger grains, whole wheat 

 and coarse cracked corn are substituted for the fine cracked corn 

 and wheat. At about ten weeks cracked oats or barley may be 

 added. At five months rolled oats or barley can be given and later 

 whole grains. At six months the pullets should be eating the regu- 

 lar laying grain -mixture. The laying mash may be substituted for 

 the chick mash at four or five months. 



Pen-Fattening Broiler Ration. The regular chick ration 

 should be fed for the first five weeks, The sixth week the dry mash 



