98 PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 



FISH SCRAPS and DESICCATED FISH are, near the sea coast, staple 

 articles of animal food for poultry. Fish products impart a rather strong odor 

 to eggs and flesh, and are often on that account objectionable. 



CLAMS are frequently fed to fowls; either raw, pounded up shell and 

 all or cooked in the mash. 



129. Eggs. Infertile and very stale eggs are commonly used as poultry 

 food (and are sometimes too abundant either for the credit of the poultry 

 keeper or the good of the chicks, to which they are oftenest fed). The usual 

 method is to hard boil them, chop fine and feed, either alone or with bread or 

 cracker crumbs, to little chicks. A better way is to break them shell and 

 all, into the mash or the batter for the johnnycake ; or soft boil, break and 

 thicken with meal. 



130. Vegetable Foods. Nearly all common vegetables are eagerly 

 eaten by fowls. Green vegetables and roots contain little nutriment as 

 compared with grain from 78 to 96 per cent of their bulk being water. 

 With the exception of potatoes, they are hardly more than relishes in winter, 

 but in summer are an important part of the ration. 



POTATOES (WHITE) and SWEET POTATOES which contain the most dry 

 matter, are very carbonaceous, hence should be fed sparingly better not at 

 all to fowls which get much corn. 



ONIONS have a tonic and medicinal value. Fed raw, they impart their 

 taste to the flesh and eggs of fowls. When cooked they can be fed more 

 freely* without affecting the flavor of eggs or meat. The best way to feed 

 onions is to slice them in a slaw cutter, and boil with the hay or vegetables for 

 the mash ; cut up fine in this way they are quickly and thoroughly cooked. 



The profitableness of feeding vegetables depends much on their cost. To 

 buy them at the prices they usually bring for human food, does not pay, for 

 as good results can be had by using green grass in summer, and clover or 

 alfalfa hay in winter. Vegetables that can be grown cheaply, as cabbages, 

 mangels, etc., and waste vegetables of all kinds, can generally be bought at 

 prices so low as to admit of feeding enough of them to give the ration variety; 

 but, if they cannot, fowls which have plenty of good hay will not suffer for 

 lack of them. 



131. Hay. The RED and WHITE CLOVERS, and ALFALFA, not over- 

 ripe, well cured, make the cheapest green foods for winter feeding. Finely 

 cut hay can be fed as a separate feed, either dry or steamed ; but it is better to 

 feed it cooked in a mash. Where alfalfa is sold, baled, a common practice of 

 poultrymen is to put a bale under a shed or in the scratching floor, the wires 



*NOTE. Five pounds of onions daily to every one hundred hens is feeding onions 

 freely, gives them all the onions they care to eat and this amount of cooked onions 

 can be fed without affecting the flavor of the products. 



