154 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER, 



also bleaches buff and brown or cinnamon plumage, and has 

 some, though less, effect upon even black and red. 



It has also long been known that food has considerable 

 effect upon colour. Yellow or red maize will make most 

 white fowls much more yellow than white maize or 

 other grain ; and much hempseed will darken the ground- 

 colour of a moulting Brahma hen. It has also been known 

 for many years that the constant use of iron, whether 

 in natural chalybeate streams or given artificially, tends 

 generally to intensify colour, whether in legs, plumage, or 

 yolks of the eggs. 



The most remarkable effects of food upon colour are 

 known in canaries, in which (or rather in some of which, 

 for the effect varies greatly in individuals), the constant ad- 

 ministration of cayenne throughout the whole period during 

 which the feather is growing converts a rich yellow into 

 very deep orange-red. This fact, coupled with the success 

 of some breeders in showing rich lemon-buff in the many 

 buff varieties of fowls which have become so popular since 

 1890, has led many to the conclusion that the best specimens 

 owe theii fine buff colour, and even other colours, like the 

 bay of golden Hamburghs its richness, to special feeding as 

 well as careful breeding ; and " colour-feed " for poultry is 

 often now advertised in the poultry papers. This appears 

 to chiefly depend upon cayenne, or the cool variety of 

 cayenne, also used for canaries, which is said also to deepen 

 the colour of buff poultry. Such colour - feeding as is 

 practised appears to consist chiefly of cayenne in some 

 form, with the addition of two to five grains per fowl per 

 day of saccharated carbonate of iron, the form in which iron 

 seems to be most easily assimilated If such feeding is tried, 

 on varieties supposed to require it, it must be remembered 

 that it can only succeed if carried on without intermission 

 during the whole period of the growth of the featJiers, from 



