FOODS AND FEEDING 
While the writer neither uses nor recommends 
the free use of mashes for breeding birds, many 
Use of Mashes good poultrymen do. While hens 
inFeeding often will lay more eggs when fed 
freely on soft food than when fed mostly on dry 
grains, I do not believe the condition either a 
natural or a strictly healthful one. While there 
are no objections to feeding mashes to hens that 
are being forced for heavy egg production—in 
fact, that is the most profitable way to feed stock 
kept for eggs and eggs alone—still the breeder 
who wants strong, rugged breeding birds, fertile, 
hatchable eggs, and vigorous, lifeful chicks, had 
better feed mashes comparatively infrequently— 
say, once or twice a week—because dry-feeding 
is more in harmony with Nature. 
Birds that are being forced for heavy egg pro- 
duction, and which will be discarded after the first 
or second season, may be fed a mash every day— 
or even two mashes a day—during the season of 
highest prices for eggs. Breeders who are more 
solicitous for the constitutions of their fowls, and 
who want them to remain profitable for two or 
three years, should confine themselves to no more 
than four or five mashes a week. The prominent 
poultrymen who believe in mashes do not feed them 
to their breeding birds more than two or three times 
a week, and many only once a week. In general, 
my advice to the beginner would be to feed mashes 
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