282 POULTRY BREEDING 
hens, that is about 100 hens weighing 5 pounds each, 
would require per day: 
Diy Matte tives aseareeseaelasysase 20 os weed ameedeneaaiea 27.5 pounds 
ABhevicicyecsmuse ar, eoggieserae cancmianemoseeT mamta 1.5 pounds 
PROP arsidisord a avensiaaveinr erate memos eS TERS EOS 3. pounds 
Carbohydrates &: wasn: isisertan sniaciaese: wee cine ckneees 18.75 pounds 
TA td aac SCA CE Sides e Geena wsewed dened aati le 1.75 pounds 
This has a nutritive ratio of 1:4.6. 
As carbohydrates and fat have the same duties to per- 
form in nutrition it is customary to add them together in 
formulating rations. In the foregoing formula the fat 
content is 1.75. This multiplied by 2.25 gives 3.9375. 
For convenience we call this 3.94. This expresses the 
fat in terms of carbohydrates. Adding this to the carbo- 
hydrate content of the ration (18.75) we have 22.69 as 
the carbohydrate content of the ration. 
In order to save time and make it plain an invariable 
rule is followed in describing the nutritive value cf a 
ration. This is to consider the protein content as repre- 
senting unity, making it easy to determine the nutritive 
ratio of any ration and to see at a glance whether it is 
balanced as it should be. To get this ratio we divide the 
carbohydrate content by the protein content. In this 
case we have 22.94 as representing carbohydrates and 5 
as representing protein. Dividing the carbohydrates 
content (22.94) by the protein content (5) we have 4.59, 
so we Say the nutritive ratio is one of protein to 4.59 of 
carbohydrates. In practice we write it thus: 1:4.59, or 
still further to simplify the matter we call the 59 
hundredths six-tenths and write the nutritive ratio thus: 
1:4.6. It is customary to ignore small fractions in com- 
puting feed values in this way. 
When formulating rations for fowls it is customary to 
accept a ration that is anywhere from 1:4.5 to 1:5.5 as 
