PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 99 



remaining fast, and allow the hens to help themselves at will. Finely cut 

 clover in sacks is now on sale by leading supply houses. It is of little use to 

 feed fowls woody stalks of hay, and if fine hay cannot be had otherwise it is 

 worth while for a breeder who could use a considerably quantity of it, to pay 

 a farmer to cut and cure for him a ton, or as much as he could use in a year, 

 of clover or alfalfa in the right stage to make good poultry food. One who 

 needed but a small quantity can often arrange to get a few bushels at a time 

 of fine leaves from a neighbor's haymow ; or may cure lawn clippings for him- 

 self, though that is for most people rather unsatisfactory, and if his time is 

 worth anything, costs more than to buy vegetables. Hay is too bulky con- 

 tains too much fiber to be used as a principal poultry food. In everydav 

 use no difference is noted in feeding properties of the kinds named. Their 

 rank as determined by analyses is: (i) white clover; (2) alfalfa; (3) red 

 clover. Prepared clover finely cut for poultry food is kept in stock by large 

 dealers in poultry supplies. 



132. Milk. SWEET SKIM MILK is invaluable in poultry feeding. 

 It can be given as a drink, or the mash can be wet with or cooked in milk. At 

 the low price for which it can be bought at creameries, it is one of the most 

 economical of foods. 



SOUR MILK, CLABBER MILK, and BUTTER MILK are all fed. For mixing 

 mashes they are not as satisfactory as sweet milk, yet many use and like them. 

 Cold clabber milk thickened with bran, middlings or corn meal, makes a side 

 dish much relished by fowls in hot weather. 



CURD is a valuable food more concentrated than milk ; giving the fowls 

 the solids of the milk without the water. 



CHEESE that has passed the last stage of fitness for human food, is often 

 given to fowls, and is highly recommended as an egg producer. 



WHEY is used by many feeders to wet the mash. It contains so little 

 solid matter that the advantage of using it, rather than water, to wet the mash, 

 must be more fancied than real especially as its solids are principally 

 carbonaceous. If one has it, it will pay to use it nothing should be wasted. 

 It has not food value enough, however, to make it worth one's while to go to 

 any trouble or expense to get it. 



133. Egg Foods. Condition Powders. Tonics and Stimulants 

 of various kinds are in the debatable list between foods and medicines. Some 

 use them for one, some for the other. The wisdom of using them depends on 

 circumstances. It is certainly unwise for one whose fowls plainly need a 

 tonic to neglect on -principle to use one ; and it is as certainly unwise to 

 feed stimulants to fowls in the best of condition, and at the height of profitable 

 productiveness without them. Nearly all fowls are better for the regular 

 addition of a condition powder to their mash during the moulting period, and 

 at times when colds are epidemic; as they often are at the same time among 

 men and domestic animals. 



