172 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
helps more than allowing them to rear a brood of chickens in the 
summer. 
“« As soon as the cooler weather approaches the older hens should 
be fed twice a day, not more. The morning meal may consist of 
barley meal 2 parts, toppings or coarse thirds 1 part, bran 1 part. 
On alternate days this may be moistened with liquor consisting of 
equal parts of blood and water, and mixed with about three parts 
of steamed clover hay, which is chopped fine, and added with its 
liquor ; if preferred, green bone or desiccated meat may be sub- 
stituted for blood and water. Where possible, the soft food 
should be cooked or steamed, or, failing this, it may be mixed with 
boiling water, but the clover hay must be cooked, as it would other- 
wise be indigestible. At this meal adult fowls should receive only 
a small quantity, not sufficient to induce indolence, and they 
will at once commence searching for other food. Soft food should 
be given in troughs, but grain may be scattered on the ground 
where it is free from excrement. The evening meal may consist 
of wheat (small but good), barley, oats or buckwheat, and 
in very severe weather, when the birds have commenced lay- 
ing, one-fifth of the meal may consist of cracked maize. An 
occasional feed of kibbled blue peas will not be amiss in cool 
weather. 
“In the case of pullets approaching their first season of laying 
the same methods of feeding should be adopted, except that they 
may have a full feed of soft food in the morning instead of a half- 
ration. Young stock of every kind are more active, require a 
larger quantity of nutriment, and display much less tendency to 
lay on fat than do older birds. For these reasons they generally 
commence laying earlier, but to meet the demand upon the system 
they should be supplied more freely with food. It is true that 
they eagerly search for natural food, but, as they are still growing, 
the risk of a check would be considerable if they were insufficiently 
fed, and it is necessary to provide against any danger of this 
kind. 
«When the ground is locked up by frost or covered with snow, 
and little natural food is procurable, the morning feed must be 
