86 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



souring before digesting. An intense craving for something 

 developed, the chicks ate a large amount of sharp, fine grit — 

 exactly as a hen might — and this cut their bowels and caused 

 the passing of blood. Chicks will eat dirt, sawdust and any- 

 thing they can get under such conditions, and eating sawdust 

 has caused the loss of many a flock of chicks without the 

 owner ever discovering the cause. 



A good chick-feed fed by an experienced poultryman, who 

 understands how to feed it, is a very good method of feeding 

 baby chicks. Many poultrymen never acquire the knack of 

 this, as they either starve the chick or over-feed them and 

 ruin the chicks' digestion. When this is done it is very hard 

 to get the chicks in condition again. It is very unwise to 

 starve them; they must have enough to eat, but they must 

 be hungry. They must be fed enough chick-feed so that 

 they are satisfied, but not so much as to keep them from 

 being hungry at the next feeding time. Remember this is 

 no starvation method, and you do not have to be so particular 

 when the chicks' digestion is good. 



The chick-feed must be of the best quality, an inferior 

 quality will kill them quickly. 



Knowing how difficult it is for some persons to feed the 

 right amount of chick-feed to chicks, we will now start a 

 second lot of chicks on a mash and use the same chick-feed 

 we used before. As bran is used a good deal in feeding 

 chicks, we compose our mash of six parts of bran (Bluestem), 

 one part of corn-meal, one-half part of middlings and one- 

 half part of fine ground oats. We keep this mash before the 

 chicks at all times. We feed a small quantity of chick-feed 

 five times a day. Our chicks do fairly well for a time, but 

 bowel-trouble develops among them, and we lose a few each 

 day. As we have no certain rule to go by in feeding the 

 grain chick-feed, we increase the amount a little each day, 



