BIOLOliY OF POULTRY KEEPING. II/ 



Actually practical poultry feeding is much more of an art than 

 a science, in the present state of knowledge. While for peda- 

 gogical reasons it seem.s wise in the teaching of poultr}- hus- 

 bandry to spend a considerable amount of time in calculating 

 balanced rations and nutritive ratios it is very doubtful if all 

 such activity has any very real or tangible relation to practical 

 poultry "^eeding. 



Such attempts at a science of poultry feeding would ai^pear 

 to suffer from a serious defect. The assumption is made in 

 calculating a nicely balanced ration that all hens are going to 

 partake of this ration in the same way. But this is very far 

 from the biological actuality. Some individual hens like no 

 grain except corn, and if fed a mixture will eat only corn. 

 Others are very partial to beef scrap, and so on. To anyone 

 w^ho studies the behavior of fowls it is clear that the ration on 

 paper and the ration in the crop are two very dift'erent things. 



The successful feeding of poultry depends upon experience 

 and acquaintance with fowls. The basic biological factor is, 

 once more, individuality. Each individual hen is an independ- 

 ent living thing, possessing well marked likes and dislikes of her 

 own with respect to food. There can be no question that the 

 best results in the way of egg production and meat production 

 would be obtained if a skillful feeder could feed each individual 

 fowl by and for itself. Evidence that this is the case is found 

 in the fact, which is universal wherever poultry is kept, that 

 on the average fowls kept in small flocks, of say under 25 birds 

 each, do relatively much better than larger flocks. The produc- 

 tion and money returns per bird are greater. The fundamental 

 reason for this is that the birds in small flocks get better care 

 as individuals. \Adien a man has only such a small number to 

 take care of he can recognize their individual pecuharities more 

 easily. Furthermore an individual bird stands a better chance 

 of having its peculiar taste gratified in a small than in a large 

 flock. 



So while the biological ideal would be to feed each bird indi- 

 vidually, this is ODviously impossible in practice. With poultry 

 the individual unit of production (the hen") is so small that it 

 must be handled in flocks. The correct principle of manage- 

 ment is to feed and handle a flock in such a way as to aft'ord 

 the maximum opportunity for the expression and gratification 



