5i2 Profitable Poultry Keeping. 



is most injurious, for the saying, "What is one man's meat 

 is another man's poison," holds good so far as fowls are con- 

 cerned, as much as it does for human beings. Feeding upon 

 bad or unsuitable food must always be very harmful, for, as 

 the food is given to repair the waste of the system which 

 goes on daily, and the body in its various parts is really 

 renewed by the food eaten, it will be seen that this bad food 

 natur.illy brings on diseases, or injures the system by failing 

 to supply those elements that are necessary to it. Eating 

 to repletion by fowls is generally due to want of system in 

 feeding, or the giving of food that is tempting to the appetite 

 — probably because of its being rich in its nature — and 

 this means that the food will have certain qualities or 

 elements in excess, which will, in their turn, develop other 

 qualities in the birds, and .thus may be positively injurious 

 instead of beneficial. There is, perhaps, more harm done by 

 the giving of rich and unsuitable food than in any other way, 

 and many diseases at one time foreign to fowls have been 

 thus made prevalent. How much food should be given has 

 already been dealt with, in the chapter on " The selection of 

 stock birds, " and we need not repeat it here. 



It will be seen that one object in giving food, is to supply 

 the daily waste that goes on in the system, for, if the matter 

 thus eliminated is hot replaced, the bird will soon die from 

 exhaustion. The first thing, therefore, is to supply this 

 waste, but if only this is done, the bird will be just kept 

 alive, no more. As fowls must be regarded as producing 

 machines, they have to be supplied with the materials 

 necessary for production, or it cannot take place, and we must 

 have regard to the elements needed for composing whatever 

 is produced, if we wish to do it with the greatest ease, and 

 with the least wear and tear to the fowl. But in addition to 

 this, we must not forget the conditions under which the 

 fowls are kept, for, the activity of the birds, the amount of 



