No. 4.] POULTRY FEEDING. 417 



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 ingredients 

 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 relish all ordinary articles of 

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

 different kinds of food; for the normal digestive system easily 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 of 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 chronic loose- 

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

 feeding methods for healthy stock is of greatest benefit to those who 

 have it, and should be of most benefit to farmers and gardeners who 

 have at different seasons of the year so many different things which 

 may be used for poultry food, and who often find the method of feed- 

 ing which suits them at one season of the year inconvenient at another. 



