A POULTRY COMPENDIUM. 43 



2d. Feed according to the age of fowls. Fowls of 

 different ages require different feeding. A babe needs 

 milk, a strong man meat. Your chicks need one kind 

 of food, your adult fowls another. 



3d. Feed according to surrounding circumstances. Fowls 

 kept in close confinement depend wholly upon what is 

 supplied to them. Fowls which have an extended range 

 can find no small part of their living themselves. The 

 first require obviously a different system of feeding from 

 the second. 



4th. Furnish a variety of food. " Variety is the 

 spice of life," says the old aphorism ; it is certainly nec- 

 essary for the welfare of every living organism. It is 

 not only agreeable to the palate, but is absolutely essen- 

 tial to keep the flame of life burning. A fowl has 

 varied wants ; it has to produce from its food bones, 

 muscles, fat, feathers, and the constituents of eggs. No 

 one food has been discovered which contains all the 

 needed elements in sufificient quantities. 



5 th. Cleanliness in feeding is necessary. " Cleanliness 

 is next to godliness," and you cannot afford to neglect 

 it in feeding. If you do, the health of your flock will 

 be likely to suffer, and loss ensue therefrom. 



6th. Avoid overfeeding and underfeeding. They are 

 the Scylla and Charybdis of the poultry raiser. The 

 first produces disease, the second undermines the foun- 

 dations of life. Feed what your fowls need, and no more. 

 Avoid these rocks, (which are laid down upon the chart, 

 but so indefinitely, that only the experienced mariner 

 knows just where they are), avoid these dangerous rocks, 

 unless you wish to make shipwreck of your enterprise. 



