POULTRY FEEDS AND FEEDING 



PREPARATION OF FEEDS 



The object of preparing feeds is to make them more 

 digestible, to improve the palatability, or to permit the 

 mixing of well-liked feeds with others not so well rel- 

 ished. It undoubtedly pays to cut up forage crops as the 

 poultry will then eat them much more quickly and with 

 very little waste. Cooking feed, instead of improving it, 

 lowers its digestibility. It has been found that it does not 

 pay to steam roughage for stock or to cook feed for hogs, 

 although the latter has been done very extensively in the 

 past. The only feeds for poultry which it pays to cook 

 are garbage, potatoes, field beans and soy beans. Where 

 the garbage is perfectly fresh and there is no question 

 concerning its condition it does not pay to boil or cook 

 this feed in any way, the object of cooking being to kill 

 any disease germs and all bacteria which cause decompo- 

 sition. 



Potatoes need cooking to soften them and make them 

 suitable for the fowls to eat. Field beans should be 

 cooked to make them soft, as fowls will not eat uncooked 

 beans freely. Warming or steaming the mash may be 

 advantageous in winter as it tends to make it more palat- 

 able and better relished. It is especially necessary that 

 feed for animals which are being fattened or are only to 

 be kept a few weeks before being marketed, should be 

 highly palatable and in some cases it may pay to cook 

 such feed in order to make the chickens consume more 

 of the ration. The poultry packing companies who fat- 

 ten chickens commercially do not cook the feed at all. 



114 



