FEEDS AND FEEDING I4E 



the cockerels early from the pullets and give them the- 

 range of- a yard and clean, airy quarters. Ground bar- 

 ley or oats, with one-third corn meal mixed up with 

 skimmilk makes a splendid growing and fattening 

 food. Two weeks before killing pen them up and feed. 

 with corn and corn meal. Give pure fresh water and- 

 keep before them a box of sharp grit. 



Crate fattening and cramming are practiced some- 

 by experts and by those who wish to produce fowls of 

 high table quality. Although the cramming machine 

 in the hands of an expert will probably give the best 

 results in finished product, small coops for fattening- 

 chickens will be found the most profitable by most 

 chicken raisers. These coops are used very largely in 

 England and have been adopted successfully by the 

 Canadian government. They are built of lath and 

 one-inch-square pieces for the framework. Each part 

 is two feet long, sixteen inche's wide and twenty- 

 inches high, which experiments have shown to be the 

 best size. 



The coops are placed out of doors in the shade, 

 either under trees or in an open shed, but in severe- 

 weather should be placed in a closed building. A small 

 V-shaped trough is used to hold the feed, and water is- 

 supplied in a cup, which may be fastened to the slats. 

 Young chickens from four to six months of age are 

 commonly used for fattening. About four are placed, 

 in a coop, where they are fed three times daily, as 

 much as they will eat of ground grain, chiefly oats. At 

 or near the end of this period of fattening, which lasts 

 from four to six weeks, a little tallow is added to the- 

 feed, which at all times is mixed with skimmilk. The 

 Ontario agricultural college in a test with different 

 rations for' fattening poultry, found that a mixture of 

 two parts corn meal, two parts ground buckwheat and 



