8 



Wheat, corn and crushed oats are the staple grain feeds, and 

 for animal foods nothing equals sour milk or buttermilk; when 

 meat scrap has to be fed, about 10 per cent, of the mash food 

 is all that may be given with safety. The birds would eat 

 more and might do better for a short period of time, but a 

 reaction is almost sure to follow. Mineral foods are supplied 

 by granulated bone, granulated rock or grit, and oyster shell 

 or old plaster. 



It might be well to give you our method of feeding and then 

 we might discuss the same. During the winter we use about 

 equal parts of whole wheat and corn. This is fed in about 

 6 inches of litter early in the morning, say two handfuls for 

 three birds. At noon the green food is given, and at night all 

 the whole grain they will eat. We keep crushed oats in 

 hoppers constantly before the birds. If the flocks gets lazy 

 we close the hopper for part of the day to make them work. 

 Sour milk is used as drink. Grit, oyster shell and granulated 

 bone are always in little boxes where they can help themselves. 

 When we cannot get sour milk and have to feed beef scrap I 

 rather prefer mixing ground grain, such as middlings, corn 

 meal, oat chop and 10 per cent meat meal, then feeding as a 

 moist mash at midday. Sometimes we add to such a mixture 

 about one-third in bulk of cooked roots. 



The environmental factor of range is overlooked so frequently 

 that I desire to call special attention to it. The following 

 illustrations are two birds of the same breeding. The larger 

 one is grown on free range where there are not more than fifty 

 chickens per acre, and the smaller one in a small city lot where 

 chickens are penned up. The case is extreme, yet at the same 

 time is not uncommon. 



Clean ground, tender green food, clean water and shade are 

 essentials to growing chickens. Ground may be cleaned bj'^ 

 crop rotation, which is undoubtedly the best plan, or it may 

 be kept in fair condition by frequent plowing or digging. The 

 proposition can be put in another form; that is, raise the young 

 stock in the country, where there is an abundance of room and 

 a variety of food, then you may bring them, when well grown, 

 to the city, or the permanent long houses with limited runs. 

 Old fowls can be maintained fairly well on old ground, but 



