POULTRY FOODS 187 



will be still better. The corn meals on the market vary greatly in 

 quality ; a great deal of what is offered for stock feeding is made 

 of inferior or damaged corn. Corn meal is very liable to heat in 

 warm weather. The heating may be stopped by spreading the meal 

 two or three inches thick in a bin or on a clean floor, but if the 

 meal when cold smells musty or sour, it should not be fed to poultry. 



Corn bran and corn middlings. Corn bran has considerably less 

 food value than corn meal.. Corn middlings is richer than meal in 

 both protein and fat, and probably has a slightly greater feeding 

 value. 



Corn and cob meal. Unless a large part of the coarse, fibrous 

 material of the cob is sifted out, corn and cob meal does not make 

 a satisfactory poultry food. As a rule, poultrymen prefer to dilute 

 corn-meal mixtures with wheat bran or finely cut hay. 



Hominy meal. The soft part of the corn kernel remaining after 

 the hard part has been separated in the manufacture of hominy 

 grits is ground into hominy meal. It has about the same analysis 

 as corn meal, and in localities where it can be obtained is often 

 substituted for it, as the more economical of the two foods. 



Gluten meal and gluten feed. Gluten meal is one of the prod- 

 ucts separated from corn in the manufacture of glucose ; gluten 

 feed is a mixture of this with other by-products of the same process. 

 Both are very rich in protein and fat. They are not extensively 

 used for poultry, chiefly, perhaps, because meat meals and scraps 

 have been found so satisfactory in supplementing the supplies of 

 those elements in the ordinary poultry foods. 



Whole oats. When of good quality, whole oats are about equal 

 to wheat in feeding value. The fibrous hull makes them less 

 acceptable to poultry than a smooth grain, and when a choice is 

 offered, they neglect the oats. When kept on an oat diet, how- 

 ever, they eat oats freely, provided they are of good quality. In oat- 

 growing sections, oats are often the only grain fed. Clipped and 

 hulled oats are sometimes used, but do not appear to be more at- 

 tractive to poultry than whole oats of good quality. Birds familiar 

 with other grains show a lack of eagerness for hulled oats and va- 

 rious milled forms of oats ; this indicates that the fibrous hull is 

 not the only feature objectionable to them. It is probable that the 

 objectionable property is the fat, which is as abundant as in corn 



