22 POULTRY FEJEDING AND I'ATTENING 



adding a little salt and molasses, one quart of water in 

 which a large heaping teaspoonful of saleratus has been 

 dissolved, then thicken all with the excelsior meal to 

 a little thicker batter than your wife does for corn cakes. 

 Bake in shallow pans till thoroughly cooked. We be- 

 lieve a well-appointed kitchen and brick oven pays, and 

 in the baking of this food enough for a week can be 

 cooked at a time." 



Wright's "Practical Poultry Keeper" says : "With 

 regard to feeding, if the question be asked what is the 

 best food for chickens, irrespective of price, the answer 

 must decidedly be oatmeal. After the first meal of 

 bread crumbs and egg, no food is equal to it, if coarsely 

 ground and only moistened so much as to remain 

 crumbly. The price of oatmeal is, however, so high as 

 to forbid its use in general, except for valuable breeds; 

 but we should still advise it for the first week in order 

 to lay a good foundation." 



We are obliged to differ with Mr. Wright as to 

 oatmeal being an expensive food for chicks. It cer- 

 tainly looks expensive to pay six dollars a barrel (three 

 cents a pound) for oatmeal for chicken food, but it 

 spends so well, goes so far, that we have found it an 

 economical food. We used fifty dollars' worth last year, 

 practically ten cents per chick raised, and it made two- 

 fifths of their food from shell to laying maturity. 

 Considered simply as a food ration, it is economical, 

 but when we consider that "good foundation" which it 

 makes, it becomes even more desirable. A good founda- 

 tion in the chick means eggs in the basket the next fall 

 and winter; hence oatmeal is a cheap food, in the best 

 sense of the term. 



For the first six weeks I feed five times a day, or 

 about once in two and one-half hours, and after the 

 chicks are six weeks old I feed four times a day. 



