POULTRY FEEDS AND FEEDING 



dry mash and fed in a separate hopper, so that the 

 chickens can eat all of this they desire. If the beef scrap 

 is to be fed separately it is advisable to wait until the 

 chicks are lO days old, although many poultrymen put 

 the beef scrap before the young chickens from the first 

 without bad results. 



Chickens confined to small yards should always be 

 supplied with green feed, such as lettuce, sprouted oats, 

 alfalfa, or clover, but the best place to raise chickens suc- 

 cessfully is on a good range where no extra green feed 

 is required. Fine charcoal, grit and oyster shell should 

 be kept before the chickens at all times, and cracked or 

 ground bone may be fed where the chickens are kept in 

 small bare yards, but the latter feed is not necessary for 

 chickens that have a good range. 



The amount of feed required to grow chickens depends 

 very largely on what success one has in rearing the 

 chicks as the amount of feed required per chicken is quite 

 different if 5 per cent of the chickens die than if 25 per 

 cent of them die before maturity. This makes it difficult 

 to give accurate figures on this subject but records kept 

 at the Connecticut Experiment Station show that it took 

 17 pounds of feed to grow Rhode Island Red chickens to 

 24 weeks, and 37 pounds to grow them up to 32 weeks. 

 Leghorns at this same station took 20 pounds of feed to 

 grow them to 24 weeks of age. Barred Plymouth Rocks 

 at the Canadian Experiment Station at Ottawa ate 5 5/10 

 pounds of feed up to 10 weeks and 19.75 pounds up to 

 20 weeks of age. 



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