SUCCESS WITH POULTRY 



55 



$100 woith of feed can be readily converted into $300 worth 

 of eggs in a month's time. Hotels and restaurants in cities 

 are ever ready to buy, or to contract for eggs that are guar- 

 anteed to be fresh. In any city a person can work up a pri- 

 vate traae at so much a dozen the year around. In Quiney, 

 a western city oi 40,000 people, well-to-do citizens willingly 

 pay twenty cents a dozen twelve mouths in the year for eggs 

 guaranteed by responsible poultrymon to be fresh laid. 

 Down east they as willingly contract to pay thirty cents the 

 year round. 



FEEDING FOR WINTEK LAYING. 



Herewith is presented the plan of feeding followed on 

 one of the leading egg farms of the country. 



"We can make a fowl pay us a net profit of $2.50 to $3.00 

 a year, and so can anybody who goes to work right. The 

 whole secret lies in that oft-repeated rule: "Hatch the 

 chicks in April, keep them grotfing so the pullets will lay 

 by October, and then keep them laying." 



There's no magic about it, no "sleight of hand," but 

 that plain, sinmple rule lived up to, and everythiAg made to 

 , ^bend to it or revolve around it. It doesn't do -to let the 

 hatching go till May or June because other work needs to be 

 done. If other work runs up against the hatching season or 

 chicken work, so much the worse for the other work, for^ 

 chickens on our farm have the right of way. 



An important item in our creed is that the old stock 

 must be sold off each summer and pullets raised to take its 

 place. By doing this the price reoeived for the old stock 

 ^ swells the total receipts, as the pullets cost nothing to raise 

 —the cockerels hatched with them sell for enough to pay for 

 the food of both themselves and the pullets. 



Pour mornings in the week we feed a mash made up of 

 about one-third cooked vegetables mashed fine, or out clover 

 cooked by being brought to a, boiling heat in water, an equal 

 amount of hot water added, a teaspoonful of salt to a buck- 

 etful; then cayenne pepper one day, then powdered charcoal 

 one day, and into this is stirred mixed meal until the mash 

 is as stiff as a strong arm can make it. 



■This mixed-meal with us consists of one part each corn- 

 meal, fine middlings, bran, ground oats, and animal meal or 

 green bone, a scoop or dipper of each being. dipped in turn 

 into a bag and poured from" the bag into the meal barrel 

 from which it is dipped into the mash. We consider the 

 thorough mixing of these meals a considerable factor in 

 making, a good mash. 



When we have cut fresh bone in abundance we omit the 

 animal meal from the mixture, ordinarily we have only 

 about half-rations of cut bone to go round, so use regularly 

 half the amount of the mash to make up the deficiency. 



The foundation of the mash is the cooked vegetables, 

 which may be refuse potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, onions, 

 (anything in the vegetable line), and into the pot goes the 

 table waste, etc., and the potato, squash and apple parings 

 from the kitchen. The potatoes, or beets, etc., are washed 

 before putting on to cook, and the mess when boiled is sweet 

 and savory. 



This mash, our readers will notice, oontahas a great va- 

 riety of tood elements, and this variety is quite an important 

 factor. A fowl needs a variety of food to supply her various 

 - physical needs, and give her a surplus out of which to make 

 eggs, and this "variety" of foods we believe we best can at- 

 tain in the manner described above. An additional advant- 

 age is that a tonic or stimulant can be added if desired; we 

 sometimes use a teaspoonful of tincture of iron for the poul- 

 try food, and sometimes add a handful of linseed meal or 



cottonseed meal; but the latter are somewhat fattening (as 

 well as stimulating), and those who feed their fowls well for 

 eggs must beware of too fattening foods. 



This morning mash is fed in troughs large enough so 

 that all of the fifteen fowls in a pen can get about it at one 

 time, another important factor, because if the trough is 

 small some of the birds have to stand back and wait for 

 second table, and when there phance does come there 'a noth- 

 in left for them. With a trough four feet long by six inches 

 wide, there is plenty of room, and if a biddy is driven away 

 •from one place she runs around and goes to eating at an- 

 other, and thus all get a share. 



Our fowls have exercise grounds in summer in yards 

 125x12 feet, which gives them a grass run (with growing 

 grass always in the growing season), and they will take 

 ample exercise in pleasant weather. To keep them out of 

 doors the noon feed of whole barley (or buckwheat) and 

 night feed (before sunset) of wheat is scattered upon the 

 graveled space immediately in front of the .houses. Each 

 family of fifteen has a pen within the house twelve feet 

 square, or 144 square feet of floor space, which gives about 

 ten sc(uare feet per fowl. The floor is of earth, covered about 

 six inches deep with screened gravel. On the gravel the 

 grain is scattered in stormy weather in spring, summer and 

 early fall, when we want the birds to stay indoors. When 

 cold weather approaches, exercise must be stimulated, and 

 we cover the pen floors four to six inches deep with chopped 

 meadow hay, or chopped straw, into which the grain is scat- 

 tered, and the biddies have to dig it out. Some poultrymen 

 use dry leaves for pen litter; chaff from' a threshing mill 

 would be most excellent (nothing could be better), and we 

 have found one or two cases where common cornstalks were 

 used. With.us straw and meadow hay are most easily ob- 

 tained and we use these. What the scratching material is, 

 is of far less importance than that the scratching material 

 be there. 



Whole wheat is the best grain food for fowls, whole bar- 

 ley is the next best, and buckwheat next. Corn comes last, 

 and should be used only at night and in small quantities, 

 when eggs are sought' for. We make barley or buckwheat 

 the noon feed for five days' a week, and wheat the night 

 feed five or six days in the week. We do not make the mash 

 on Sunday, because we want to reduce the work to its lowest 

 limit on that day, doing no more than the regular feedings 

 and waterings, and collecting the eggs. 



Monday we feed oats (or barley), wheat, corn. 



Tuesday we feed mash, barley (or buckwheat), wheat. 



Wednesday we feed mash, cut'bone, -wheat. 



Thursday we feed oats, barley, wieat (or corn). 



Friday we feed mash, barley, wheat. 



Saturday we feed mash, cut bone, wheat. 



Sunday we feed mash, barley (or buckwheat), wheat. 



Two feeds 'of cut bone each week, one or two of whole 

 oats, and one or two of whole corn (according to the sea- 

 son), give variety to our ration, and to that is added whole 

 cabbages hung in the pens in cold weather to tempt picking 

 them to get green food; or turnips, or beets, or carrots are 

 split in halves and placed in pens to be picked to pieces and 

 eaten. 



Ground oyster shells and mica crystal grit are always 

 accessible, and fresh water, replenished three tim^s a day 

 (warm in winter), and the water pans are carefully rinsed 

 every day. 



One variation from this program we propose making 

 this" winter, and that is a slightly lighter feed of mash in the 

 morni^"(t7 making it a breakfast rather than a full meal, and 



