35 



lime. The meal being dry the chicks cannot eat it as readily as they 

 can the egg and rolled oats, or the moistened mash, and for that 

 reason it is left for them to feed upon longer than when moistened 

 with the egg and water, but is never left before them more than lo 

 minutes at the 9 o'clock feeding time. The aim is to give them 

 enough at each of the four meals so that their desire for food may 

 be satisfied at the time, but to make sure that they have nothing left 

 to lunch upon. It is desired to have their crops empty of food be- 

 fore feeding them again. When treated in this way they will have 

 sharp appetites when the feeder appears, and come racing out from 

 the brooder to meet him. If they have been overfed at the previous 

 meal, and have lunched along, when they saw fit, they do not care 

 for the feeder's coming. If overfed a few times the creatures become 

 debilitated and worthless. 



^^'hat has been said so far is with reference to chicks that are 

 hatched out in early spring before the young things can get out of 

 doors for work." 



" When warm weather comes and the later 



Maine Method hatched chicks are able to get out on the ground 



No. 3. they find much to amuse them, and they work 



hard and are able to eat and digest more food. 

 Under these conditions the dry meal mixture described in Method 2 

 is kept constantly before them in troughs with good results. With 

 two feeds a day of the broken grains in the litter they have hard 

 food enough to insure health and they can safely peck away at the 

 dry meal mixture — a mouthful or two at a time- — when they seem to 

 happen to think of it, and thrive. This method has been considera- 

 bly used in feeding April and May hatched chicks. Many times the 

 results from it have been good. At other times, when the weather 

 was dark and raw out of doors and the little things were held inside, 

 they would hang around the troughs and overeat. They would grow 

 rapidly for a few days, then commence to cripple, eat little, and seek 

 the warm hover never to recover." 



"This consists in feeding the cracked corn, 



Maine Method cracked wheat, pin head oats and millet seed 



No. 4. in the litter, four times a day, and keeping a 



trough of fine beef scrap within their reach all 

 of the time. Sometimes commercial chick foods have been used in- 

 stead of the cracked corn, wheat, oats and millet. By this system 



