26 



The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 



\)y the value in different ingredients of the various foods, for which purpose we reproduce 

 the following table, which since its publication in the "Poultry Diary" has been frequently copied, 

 but adding hempseed, buckwheat, and potatoes to the list, and re-arranging the various foods 

 in the order of their richness in the nitrogenous or flesh-forming substances. * 



It will be seen that there are several substances often used as food for poultry which by this 

 table are chown to be comparatively worthless. Rice, for instance, contains less than half the 

 flesh or egg-forming material of several other grains, and is useless, except when mixed with milk 

 for the purpose of fattening fowls. Cheap as it is, we would warn every one that it never pays 

 to use rice as the food of laying birds. It will also 'be seen that potatoes form very poor 

 nourishment, and should never be given except combined with other food rich in flesh-formers. 



What, then, should be the staple } First of all we would place ground oats ; not thin, husky 

 horse-meat bruised, but good heavy white oats, such as weigh thirty-six to forty pounds per bushel, 

 and ground up whole, husk and all, as they are ground in Sussex, so as to look almost like flour. 

 The Sussex fowls are the finest, as a whole, in the world ; and this is what they are chiefly fed 

 upoji. The husk is not taken out at all, but is ground up so fine as scarcely to appear ; and fowls 

 prefer this food to almost any other. There is often great difficulty in getting oats thus ground 

 in any other locality, as the millstones require to be specially dressed for producing it ; but on 

 several occasions we have been able to get our own grain, ground up whole sufficiently fine to be 

 liked, though not quite equal to the Sussex samples. Oatmeal, which is the same grain ground 

 after the outer shell or husk has been taken out, is also a most valuable food, but is usually too 

 dear for feeding mere stock poultry. If bought in quantities of five hundredweight at a time, 

 however, it can often be procured from the Glasgow dealers, of very fair quality, so as not to cost 

 above 14s. to i6s. per hundredweight, and is then a remunerative food. Fine sharps, middlings, 

 or "thirds" (it bears all these names, and in Ireland is called "pollard"), which consists of the 

 hner or inside bran of wheat, contains the same amount of gluten, when good, as oatmeal, and 

 is much cheaper, but is by itself too dry and " branny" to be relished by the birds. But mixed 

 in equal quantities with barley-meal, it forms a cheap and most excellent food, and is also suitable 

 for mixing with potatoes or boiled turnips when these are given. Indian meal is too fattening to 



• In the last edition of his " Poultry Book," just published, Mr. Tegetmeier states that the table in its original form was copied 

 by the "Poultry Diary" from a paper prepared by him for a County Agricultural Society. 



