37 



a good range is not often apparent except to those who compare the 

 development of chicks on laud that looks clean, though it shows the 

 wear of chickens on it, and on land which furnishes more liberal range. 

 After fowls are grown they will stand close confinement, but growing 

 chicks should have room, and if limited for room must have special 

 care to compensate. 



The feeding of the chicks after weaning should continue along the 

 Une on which they were started. Unless the land furnishes an un- 

 usual amount of food, it will pay to keep up the four or five feeds a 

 day, until they begin to be indifferent at some of the feedings. Then 

 omit one feed, — the soft feed at noon. When this point is reached 

 the chickens will get along very well with no attention between the 

 time the hard grain is given them in the morning and the time for 

 feeding it in the evening. At both feedings it should be well scattered, 

 and the evening or afternoon feeding should be several hours before 

 sundown to give them ample time to eat a feed of the scattered grain. 

 Then just before dusk give them all the mash they will eat. They will 

 eat quite a hearty meal of this after they have fed to a surfeit on grain, 

 and -ndll make growth proportionate to the quantity of food eaten. 



The methods I have outUned call for nothing expensive in the way 

 of appHances, nor do they call for a great deal of work. There is 

 nothing in the equipment suggested but what any handy farmer can 

 make himself, often from waste lumber or from material purchased at 

 a trifling cost. The prevailing idea is to have things suitable for the 

 purpose to w^hich they are put and convenient for the attendant. 

 This means uniformity in equipment and system in care. By ob- 

 serving these two points, and by studying to keep the chicks as much 

 as possible on land under cultivation or in grass, the farmer can at the 

 same time avoid hea^'y losses of chicks and greatly increase the poultry- 

 carrjnng capacity of his farm. 



