AMERICAN POULTRY CULTURE 
no oftener than absolutely necessary in order to 
work up the table scraps or other waste materials. 
Aside from their value in this connection, wet 
mashes have nothing for which I think they should 
be recommended to a beginner, for in unskilled 
hands they often produce looseness of the bowels 
and other light ailments which may get the begin- 
ner in a good bit of trouble before he can correct 
matters. 
The best time to feed the mash, whether morn- 
ing or evening, is a mooted question. There is a 
potent objection to soft food at either time. If 
a mash is fed in the morning the hen will, of 
course, greedily consume all she wants in just a 
minute or two, almost without moving out of her 
tracks, and then, her appetite being satisfied, she 
has no incentive to rustle around further, but be- 
comes inactive and lazy and goes back on the 
roost or seeks a quiet corner where she may doze 
undisturbedly. The objection to a mash in the 
evening is that it is so readily assimilated, that 
the digestive organs become empty before morning 
and bodily heat is not maintained. The latter 
objection is perhaps the less potent, and most 
poultrymen who use mashes feed them in the even- 
ing. Another good way is to feed the soft food 
in the morning, but give the fowls only about 
half as much as they would desire, and then supple- 
ment this with a few handfuls of small grains and 
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