33 



or system that he can command success, and that variations from it 

 are almost immediately followed by bad results either in health, growth 

 or egg production, he ought not to conclude that his system was so 

 absolutely perfect or his ration so exactly balanced that any variation 

 from it was at once seen to be wrong. He ought rather to conclude 

 that, if his fowls were so dependent upon an exact ration or system, 

 they were so either because so constitutionally weak that, like dys- 

 peptics, they required a diet adapted to their weaknesses, or that 

 there were wrong conditions which something in his ration or system 

 constantly operated to counteract. 



So the rational way to look at the matter is that, if fowls or chicks 

 can eat and thrive on practically anything offered them in the line of 

 staple poultry foods, without regard to careful balancing of ingred- 

 ients of which they are composed, the stock is healthy and sound, 

 and the general conditions conducive to health; but if good results 

 are secured only by careful dieting and rigid adherence to a "balanced 

 ration," there is weakness or error somewhere that is as likely to cause 

 trouble when disturbed or aggravated by other means as when affected 

 by changes in diet. Healthy poultry, like healthy people, are not 

 "fussy" about their eating, but eat with rehsh all ordinary articles of 

 food, and are not over-particular about the relative proportions of 

 different kinds of food; for the normal digestive system easilj' takes 

 care of any ordinary surplus without discomfort to the fowl, and often 

 with decided benefit to it. 



If the normal, healthy fowl or chick thrives as well on one ordinary 

 good ration as on another (and that it does so is readily demonstrated to 

 any one who compares results fairly), claims of general superiority for 

 any special article of food or mixture of foods are clearly mistaken. 

 The practical significance of this fact is that, understanding it, the 

 poultry keeper can use special foods or systems of feeding to correct 

 some wrong conditions, and can also use whatever available food or 

 system of feeding is most economical or most convenient. 



While, as I have said, dependence upon a certain food or system 

 indicates something wrong outside qf the feeding, if we have conditions 

 that make us dependent on some food or system, we must continue to 

 use it until by locating the trouble and correcting it we can become 

 independent, and use any foods and methods we choose. I had at one 

 time some stock that had a constitutional tendency to cluoiiic loose- 

 ness of the bowels. To check and eradicate this I did two tilings: I 

 began by feeding both the breeding stock and the chicks on dry feed, 

 and by selecting for breeding purposes each year the fowls which 

 showed the least inclination to bowel trouble. In a very few years I 

 had the stock entirely free from the trouble, even when fed the same 

 ration on which the original stock had been always loose. 



But it is in such matters as economy and convenience in feeding 

 that the knowledge of the general equality of results of foods and 



