40 PROPAGATION OF WILD BIRDS 



mash, not over about 5 to 8 per cent, of the bulk, and using it 

 not oftener than once a day. Some scald it separately. 



Later Regimen. When the young are reduced to two 

 feeds a day, after about eight weeks, the morning food 

 should be the mash and the evening meal chick-grain. 



Other Ingredients. Another article often used with the 

 mash is boiled rice, in moderate quantity, and not too often, 

 say every two or three days, when the birds are one to two 

 weeks old. This is valuable to check or prevent diarrhoea. 

 Neil Clark at the Clove Valley Club mixes oatmeal with the 

 egg instead of cracker crumbs. Frank Hopkins, of the 

 Connecticut State Game Farm, mixes fine grit and charcoal 

 in small quantity with the mash. 



Evans's Method. Wallace Evans's great success certainly 

 justifies his method. In feeding young pheasants or other 

 species he begins with dry grated custard, as above. At the 

 age of three to four days he begins to mix in with the custard 

 his own preparation, called pheasant meal No. i, a little at 

 first, and at three weeks he discontinues the custard. When 

 the birds are about ten days old he begins his seed and grain 

 mixture, pheasant feed, fine, No. 3, giving it dry, once a day, 

 at noon, and the custard and mash morning and night. At 

 three weeks he substitutes coarser grades of the same for 

 pheasants, Nos. 2 and 4, but for quails the finer grades are 

 probably coarse enough. After eight weeks, when practi- 

 cally mature, they have no more mash, only grain mixture, 

 probably the medium, No. 4. 



MacVicar Methods. A. G. MacVicar, who has raised 

 quails as a side issue with waterfowl and pheasants, gives the 

 chicks egg-and-milk custard at first, or grated hard-boiled 

 egg. About the fourth day he begins mixing in Spratt's 

 chick-grain, scalded. He scalds it to make it swell before 

 being eaten, rather than in the tender stomachs, which last 



