CARE AND FOOD 



59 



the fowl lives while she produces the eggs, and the waste 

 material. 



We cannot manage to obtain this combination in grains 

 alone, but have to feed meat and vegetable matter in con- 

 junction with the grain to balance our ration. 



How to do this with corn, wheat, oats and barley, with 

 beef scrap, potatoes, cabbage and mangle wurzel beets, is 

 what nine-tenths of those who are getting a living from hens 

 care to know. Let me tell you in a nutshell how to do it. 



A Morning Mash 



Take twenty pounds of corn, twenty pounds of wheat 

 bran, twenty pounds first-class oats and ten pounds of bar- 

 ley and have it ground into a fine meal. To this add twenty 

 pounds of best ground beef scrap or dried blood. Mix the 

 whole well and use it for the morning mash. Pour scalding 

 water on it at night and keep it covered until morning. If 

 it is then wet and soggy add wheat bran until it is a warm 

 crumbly mash. Give to the birds what they will eat up 

 clean. Its warming influence will send the females to the 



nest and nine-tenths of the eggs will be secured before noon. 



Hang cabbages and mangle wurzel beets up in the coops 

 to provide the vegetable substance for the fowls and to give 

 them something to work on during the day. 



It is an excellent thing to throw a handful of millet seed 

 into the scratching material in their open sheds to keep 

 them busy until nearly 4 o'clock, then open your dry-mash 

 feed boxes which should be filled with a mixture of cracked 

 corn, oats and barley and let them fill their crops for the 

 night. Keep before them all the time charcoal, grit and 

 seashells so they may help themselves as they please. 



In the absence of cabbage and beets in the winter time, 

 give steamed alfalfa or clover meal; in the summer when the 

 birds have the run of the fields they get all the vegetable 

 matter they need and if there are not too many of them to 

 the acre they get a large share of the necessary animal food, 

 in the shape of worms and insects, and you can, therefore, 

 feed less of the ground scraps. 



Give the birds plenty of fresh air, free from direct drafts, 

 and success will reward your labor and care. 



THE REARING OF CHICKS IS CONSIDERED 



BY PROF. BROWN IN THIS ARTICLE, GIVING AN ENGLISHMAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN AND 

 CANADIAN POULTRY PLANTS AND POULTRY METHODS— PLANS OF BROODING, WITH SUGGESTIONS 



EDWARD BROWN, F. L. S. 



HON. SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL POULTRY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN 

 AND IRELAND, LECTURER ON AVICULTURE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, READING, ENGLAND 



[NOTE: — Prof. Brown visited the United States and Canada for the purpose of inspecting well known poultry plants 

 and investigating American and Canadian poultry methods. In this article, written exclusively for the Reliable Poultry 

 'Journal, he tells of what he saw and learned and mjikes comparison with English or European methods employed in the 

 successful production of poultry and eggs along practical lines. — Editor.] 



THE method of rearing chickens by natural means is 

 the same all the world over, and if we were content 

 with that system, which probably would be the 

 case if it were capable of meeting modern requirements, very 

 little would need to be said. We could permit the hens to 

 exercise their functions of hatching and rearing just as they 

 thought fit, and would not need to take either the trouble 

 or care involved when we introduce artificial methods. The 

 fact is we cannot improve upon Nature, but unfortunately 

 natural methods do not meet modern conditions. 



It is an arguable point whether we are altogether wise 

 in making demands upon poultry which it was not intended 

 they should meet, but there 

 is the fact. So far as this 

 aspect of the question is 

 concerned I saw nothing in 

 America which was at all 

 new nor did I expect to 

 see anything. Perhaps 

 there were slight differences 

 to be found here and there 

 in the arrangements for 

 rearing the chickens in the 

 shape of coops and in the 

 systems of feeding, but 

 generally speaking there 

 was nothing that we have 

 not also followed in Europe, 

 and tried with equal success. 

 It was pretty evident, 

 however, that taking the 

 country as a whole, prob- 

 ably the natural meth- 

 ods are less employed 



BROODER AT READING COLLEGE FARM, ENGLAND 



in America than is the case in older countries. The spirit 

 of Americans to which I have already referred is to try new 

 methods, but even in the States I found that the old ways 

 were still followed, and in the lower part of Rhode Island it 

 was a revelation after all that had been said with regard to 

 American poultry-keeping to find the farmers of that section 

 depending almost entirely upon hens for hatching and rearing. 

 So far as I could learn there are very few incubators or brood- 

 ers employed there, and I think that they are scarcely needed. 

 The race of fowls which they keep, the Rhode Island Red, is 

 an excellent sitter and mother. Hatching is merely to secure 

 perpetuation of the race of egg layers, and there is no need 



to bring out the chickens 

 very early. Hence the 

 fowls kept serve all require- 

 ments, and when that is so 

 there is no reason why the 

 owners should alter their 

 methods. Of course this 

 system has its limitations. 

 I am inclined to think, 

 and there was plenty of 

 proof in America to justify 

 me in the belief, that the 

 experience which we have 

 had is also duplicated on 

 your side, namely, that 

 increased fecundity of hens 

 tends to the reduction of 

 the maternal instinct. I 

 was told that Rhode Island 

 Reds do not average more 

 than 100 eggs per annum. 

 Probably it would be found 



