MANNER OF FEEDING. 203 



entire time ; but they would not have eaten so much after the 

 first ten or twenty days, which shows that one bushel, half 

 corn, and half oats, is a correct estimate of the quantity each 

 fowl will generally consume. We often see statements in the 

 papers that certain fowls have cost seventy, eighty, or ninety 

 cents, or even one dollar a head, per annum, for keeping ; but 

 these are cases in which their food has been purchased at high 

 rates. 



MANNER OF FEEDING. 



Regularity should always be observed in the hours of feed- 

 ing, also in the quantity of food given. Not surfeit them one 

 day, and starve them the next, but give the fowls their food as 

 regularly as you take your own meals. 



Various inventions have been constructed to feed with facility, 

 and to lessen labor, and at the same time not expose the grain 

 to the depredations of vermin. I will endeavor to describe one 

 of the best and only plan I can recommend. 



In the first place, a square box is made, say eighteen inches 

 square, and one foot high, with a lid hung on hinges. This 

 box is set on legs like those of a plain table, one at each corner. 

 Within the space between the legs, a hopper some two feet long 

 is placed, which connects with the box above, which 'box has 

 no bottom, observe. The hopper is made to converge on each 

 side to a point at the bottom, in which is a hole about an inch 

 in diameter, to allow the grain to pass out into a receiver under, 

 and joining to the said hopper, and some eight inches from the 

 ground. The receiver is of the shape of an inverted hopper, 

 but much more depressed, or its cone being formed by a much 

 more acute angle than the hopper above. On each side of this 

 receiver is a trap door, which is made to open when the fowl 

 hops upon a little ladder that projects from under the receiver, 

 and which is so arranged that the weight of the fowl on the 

 ladder raises the lid to the receiver, and exposes the grain. 

 The fowl eats as much as she desires, hops down, and the lid 

 closes. The fowls have to be trained to feed from these 

 receivers a few days, with the lids open, and fastened up. 



The above described feeder was originally introduced in the 

 "Transactions of the Highland Society," of Scotland, from 

 which I make the following extract : 



It can be made to contain any quantity of grain required, and none 



