98 POULTR?Y-CRAFT. 
Fisu Scraps and DesiccaTepD FisH — are, néar the sea coast, staple 
articles of animal food for poultry. Fish products impart a rather strong odor 
to eggs and flesh, and are often on that account objectionable. 
CLams — are frequently fed to fowls; either raw, pounded up — shell and 
all — or cooked in the mash. 
129. Eggs.— Infertile and very stale eggs are commonly used as poultry 
food (and are sometimes too abundant either for the credit of the poultry 
keeper or the good of the chicks, to which they are oftenest fed). The usual 
method is to hard boil them,.chop fine and feed, either alone or with bread or 
cracker crumbs, to little chicks. A better way is to break them — shell and 
all, into the mash or the batter for the johnnycake; or soft boil, break and 
thicken with meal. 
130. Vegetable Foods.— Nearly all common vegetables are eagerly 
eaten by fowls. Green vegetables and roots contain little nutriment as 
compared with grain—from 78 to 96 per cent of their bulk being water. 
With the exception of potatoes, they are hardly more than relishes in winter, 
but in summer are an important part of the ration. 
PotaToEs (WHITE) and SwEET PoTAToEs — which contain the most dry 
matter, are very carbonaceous, hence should be fed sparingly — better not at 
all to fowls which get much corn. 
Ontons — have a tonié and medicinal value. Fed raw, they impart their 
taste to the flesh and eggs of fowls. When cooked they can be fed more 
freely* without affecting the flavor of eggs or meat. The best way to feed 
onions is to slice them in a slaw cutter, and boil with the hay or vegetables for 
the mash; cut up fine in this way they are quickly and thoroughly cooked. 
The profitableness of feeding vegetables depends much on their cost. To 
buy them at the prices they usually bring for human food, does not pay, for 
as good results can be had by using green grass in summer, and clover or 
alfalfa hay in winter. Vegetables that can be grown cheaply, as cabbages, 
mangels, etc., and waste vegetables of all kinds, can generally be bought at 
prices so low as to admit of feeding enough of them to give the ration variety ; 
but, if they cannot, fowls which have plenty of good hay will not suffer for 
lack of them. 
131. Hay.— The Rep and WnitE Covers, and ALFALFA,— not over- 
ripe, well cured, make the cheapest green foods for winter feeding. Finely 
cut hay can be fed as a separate feed, either dry or steamed; but it is better to 
feed it cooked in a mash. Where alfalfa is sold, baled, a common practice of 
poultrymen is to put a bale under a shed or in the scratching floor, the wires 
* NoTE.— Five pounds of onions daily to every one hundred hens is feeding onions 
Jreely,— gives them all the onions they care to eat—and this amount of cooked onions 
can be fed without affecting the flavor of the products. 
