THE SEASONS AS AFFECTING POULTRY 
has the same effect as cold quarters. The water 
with which the mash is mixed up should be sufhi- 
ciently hot to thoroughly warm the food. Care 
‘should be taken, however, to not have it too hot, 
or injury to the birds’ crops will result, and 
that would be worse than cold food. Lukewarm 
is about right. All grain should be thoroughly 
warmed before feeding. This is especially true of 
corn, which gets as cold as ice during cold weather. 
Put your hand in a panful of shelled corn, and 
then imagine the effect that this painfully-cold stuff 
would have on the bodily warmth of the bird that 
consumed it. All the drinking water should be 
warmed. To be sure, with ordinary drinking ves- 
sels it is impossible to keep the water warm for 
more than an hour or two, but by using stoneware 
fountains (which retain the heat longer than any 
other kind) and supplying fresh warm water two 
or three times a day one can get along quite well. 
One should not imagine, however, that because 
he warms their food and water he can house his 
fowls in any old place and still have good results. 
Neither can one dose up his fowls with cayenne 
pepper, hot mashes, etc., and have this super- 
abundance of inward heat make up for a lack of 
outward comfort. 
Variety in feeding is more than desirable at any 
time, and in the winter time it is positively necessary 
if maximum results are to be secured, for at this 
225 
