POULTRY 439 



1. Is any care taken in raising chickens on your farm 

 toward selecting eggs from the best hens for setting? Is 

 care taken to use only the best male birds? 



2. Draw a plan for a suitable nest for a sitting hen, 

 showing covered runway. 



3. Do you make the test for infertile eggs after the 

 hens have been set about a week ? How do you tell whether 

 the egg has started to hatch ? 



5. Feeding Chickens 



Feeding young chickens. For the first forty-eight 

 hours after hatching the young chick needs no feed of any 

 kind. Nature had provided for this period by having the yolk 

 of the egg absorbed into the abdomen of the chick just before 

 it is hatched. This food must be used up before the chick 

 is ready for more. 



The first food given the chicks may be stale bread soaked 

 in milk and squeezed dry; hard boiled eggs chopped fine, 

 shell and all ; or cracked corn, wheat or oats. A good grain 

 ration for chicks is made of equal parts of cracked corn, 

 cracked wheat and cut oats fed five times a day. An excel- 

 lent supplementary ration to hasten growth is the follow- 

 ing : Bran, ten pounds ; shorts, ten pounds ; cornmeal, five 

 pounds ; meat scraps, five pounds ; charcoal, two and one- 

 half pounds; grit, one and one-half pounds. This mixture 

 may either be fed wet or dry. Plenty of sour milk will add 

 greatly to the effectiveness of the ration. Green foods 

 should also be supplied from the first. 



Feeding laying hens. Hens, like other animals, do 

 best on a ration balanced to meet their needs. There is 

 no one best ration, since the necessary food elements can be 

 obtained from many different sources. It is certain, how- 

 ever, that fowls require grain, meat, or milk, mill feeds 

 such as shorts, or bran, green foods, sharp grit, shell and 

 water. 



