POULTRY-CRAFT. 95 
oats as readily as in wheat. It is important for the feeder to know the quality 
of the oats he is using. It is not an unusual thing for those who are careless 
about this to feed bushel after bushel of worthless oats—nothing but husks 
—and seeing them left by the fowls, conclude that the fowls are over-fed ; 
then other feeds are reduced, and the fowls, possibly, half-starved before the 
error is detected. «\ very few poultry keepers have reported good results 
from a diet mainly of whole oats. By most they are fed as a light (noon) 
feed, or in a mixture of grains. Good oats are perhaps the best whole grain 
to balance a heavy corn ration. If steamed occasionally they can be fed 
oftener, for fowls eat them more readily; but when a mash is fed regularly, 
cooked grains should not often be given in addition. The feeder can save 
work and add variety by occasionally substituting steamed oats for the 
regular mash. 
HuLLep Oars— make a very good cheaper substitute for oat meal for those 
who like a good proportion of oat meal in a ration for chicks. They may also 
be used in mixtures of grain for old fowls. 
Grounp Oats— (coarse, unsifted), are used in mashes and in cakes for 
chicks. When fed to very young chicks it is better to sift out the hulls. 
Oat Mra and Rotrtep Oats—though sometimes highly recommended 
for young chicks, are little used by poultrymen. A few use one or other of 
them freely for the first week or ten days; and a very few continue their use 
occasionally after that period. They are costly foods. When fed freely oat 
meal often causes bowel disorders. The feeder who is after the most profit will 
hardly think of paying high prices for articles specially prepared for human 
food, when as good results can be (and are) obtained by the use of cheaper 
articles, and of oats in cheaper forms. 
118. Barley —is not as generally kept in stock for poultry food as the 
grains previously mentioned, and is sometimes hard to get where the demand 
for ‘chicken feed” is light. Fowls do not like it as well as wheat. Its 
feeding value, as determined in practical use, and also by analysis, is nearly 
equal to that of wheat. It contains a little more fiber, and is therefore less 
palatable. The hull seems to be the objectionable feature—to the fowls — 
for hulled barley they eat freely. Barley contains a little more bone and 
muscle forming food than wheat, and is usually enough lower in price to be 
a much cheaper food. 
BARLEY SCREENINGS — have a larger proportion of nutriment than well 
developed grains have. 
BarLey Meat — has about the same properties as wheat middlings. 
119. Rye.— The general condemnation of rye as a poultry food seems to 
be based on very limited experiences in feeding it. In some parts of Europe 
it is the ‘* staff of life,” just as wheat is here and in England, and is used much 
