110 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING 



feeding period, which continued for twenty-eight days, 

 gained twice as much as birds in other trials whicli 

 were 160 days old at the beginning of the test, which 

 in this case lasted but twenty-one days. 



The main requirements for economical gain seem 

 to be the partial confinement of young fowls and feeding 

 them twice daily on a suitable mixture of ground feed. 



Home Method — I have fattened for market this 

 season over 100 cockerels and have settled on this method 

 as best. They are confined two weeks in a coop or pen, 

 given plenty of room and air, but where drafts cannot 

 strike them. Low roosts are provided, a dust bath, 

 though I have never seen them use it, and boxes of grit 

 and oyster shells. I make low benches of overturned 

 soap boxes, on which I place their pans of food and 

 milk, that they may not readily be soiled or spilled. — 

 [Clarissa Potter, Maine.^ 



To Fatten Poultry QuicMy — The following direc- 

 tions are sold by a concern which advertises them as a 

 method to fatten poultry, especially turkeys, in "four 

 or five days," BoilerT rice is the standard remedy for 

 bowel troubles of turkeys, but as a regular fattening 

 ration would prove expensive compared with corn. 

 Sometimes slightly damaged rice, rice powder, sago or 

 tapioca can be bought cheap. "Set rice over the fire 

 with skimmed milk, only as much as will serve once. 

 Let it boil until the rice is quite swelled out; you may 

 add a teaspoonful or two of sugar, but it will do well 

 without. Feed them three times a day in common 

 pans; give them only as much as will quite fill them, 

 at once." The addition of sugar, molasses, tallow, etc., 

 to the soft feed hastens fattening, but does not 

 ordinarily pay unless these materials can be bought for 

 about the price per pound of grain. Milk is of great 

 ' 'ilue fed with soft feed, and is worth more fed to 

 fattening fowls than to pigs or calves. 



