60 California Poultry Practice 



Cooking Vegetables. — When vegetables are cooked and fed to 

 hens the digestibility is increased, but the sugar escapes in the water. 

 Now if the water is used to mix up a mash in which the contents are 

 protein, carbohydrates and fats, the sugar from the water is im- 

 pregnating the whole mash, and while the sugar is almost immediately 

 absorbed into the system, it has started the action of the others and 

 each will be taken up in turn to use for either egg making or flesh. 



Feeding the Different Breeds 



And now we come to that one point where so many people make 

 mistakes in feeding. The large breeds, such as Orpingtons, Rocks, 

 Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, Langshans and Cochins, are all of 

 quiet, contented dispositions, satisfied to remain inside a very low 

 fence. It never worries them to be fenced in at all, they eat what 

 you give them and make the best possible use of the same. There- 

 fore, to feed them a lot of food that furnishes motive power, is waste. 

 They are so well feathered that winter weather, even down to zero, 

 would not send them to hunt cover, and certainly no rain storm. 

 When the small fowls are huddling up in corners out of rain or wind, 

 these others are quite comfortable and shelling out eggs. So they 

 do not require so much heat-making food and if it is given to them, 

 as in the case with the other food, they make the best of it, some that 

 are of good laying type, will use it for eggs, others use what they 

 can for flesh, and much of it passes away as ash. 



On the other hand, the Leghorns, Anconas, Minorcas, Andalusians, 

 and all breeds of light weight require more food of a starchy nature, 

 because they are more active. They require more heating foods 

 because the body is smaller and does not generate heat sufficient to 

 withstand cold or wet weather, neither are they so heavily feathered, 

 and all these things must be taken into consideration in feeding. 



