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ever you put litter in a chicken house make certain that the straw is 

 dry, bright, clean, sweet and free of all mustiness. Do not use hay 

 or straw that has heated in curing. We have just gone through an 

 experience at Cornell which is a lesson to us and something that de- 

 serves attention. There is a little mould that is the cause of a disease 

 known as "aspergillosis." This mould develops on mouldy hay and 

 straw. When taken into the poultry house the dust containing this 

 mould gets into the lungs or the intestines of chickens, develops and 

 kills them. We lost last week several hens in two or three nouses, 

 in one case six hens, and many other hens were sick, and yet on .either 

 side of these houses the hens were all right. In every instance the 

 house where they were sick they had been bedded down with a load 

 of straw where the stack had heated. From four days to four weeks 

 old a ground feed mixture is fed dry to the chickens, as follows: 

 Two corn meal, two wheat bran, two wheat middlings, one-half bone 

 meal, one and one-half beef scraps, one rolled oats. This is kept before 

 them all the time. They are now old enough to use some judgment in 

 eating. From four weeks to eight weeks we drop out the oats and 

 feed equal parts of cracked corn and wheat. Feed in litter twice 

 daily. At this time the oat meal is discontinued in the ground feed 

 and alfalfa meal is added, as follows : Two corn meal, two wheat 

 bran, two wheat middlings, one and one-half beef scrap, one alfalfa 

 meal. Moisten with skim milk and feed at noon, also feed dry in 

 hoppers. After eight weeks old the ground feed is as follows, and is 

 fed dry only, and in the outdoor hopper, already alluded to : Four 

 corn meal, two wheat bran, six wheat middlings, one oil meal, one 

 alfalfa, five beef scrap. 



Feeding time. 



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Give charcoal, oyster shell, grit and ground bone at all times. A 

 good many people believe chickens can be raised successfully on chick 

 Leed. Our experience is that we cannot grow big chickens as quickly 

 on cracked grain alone. On the other hand, chickens that have only 

 dry ground feed from the day they are hatched until they are twelve 

 weeks old, do not make a satisfactory weight. Chickens fed on dry 

 ground feed only will eat all the while and so much of their times is 

 spent in trying to get enough of that dry feed that they even fail 

 to eat the grass in their yards. Whereas, chickens in all the other 



