FEEDING POULTRY 351 
first tray is at the bottom and the oats are ready to feed. The oat 
sprouts should be four to five inches high when fed. 
Three things are necessary to sprout grains successfully: (1) A 
temperature of not less than 70 degrees; (2) moisture; (3) good 
ventilation. The temperature must usually be secured by artificial 
heat. Moisture is supplied by wetting the trays every day with 
warm water from a sprinkling pot. Cracks must be left between 
the boards in the bottom of the trays so that surplus water will 
drain away and not rot the oats. Until the sprouts begin to show 
in a tray, the oats should be raked over each time they are wetted to 
insure an even distribution of moisture. Raking after the sprouts 
appear will break them off. Plenty of moisture is of prime impor- 
tance for good quick growth. 
A number of kinds of lamp-heated sprouting cabinets are manu- 
factured, and racks of trays can be made and kept in a warm room 
or in a cellar with a furnace. To prevent mold, the flats should be 
thoroughly scrubbed and washed with a 5 per cent solution of 
formaldehyde each time they are emptied. 
Mangels or stock beets are excellent for winter feeding and in 
some localities, like the South and Southwest, can be left in the 
ground all winter and harvested as needed. In feeding the mangel 
it can be split into big pieces and a piece rammed on a nail about a 
foot from the ground in each pen, for the birds to pick at, or it may 
be run through a root cutter and fed in a moist mash. 
Pumpkins are split up and fed raw, seeds and all. .. 
Cabbage is usually stored in pits or cellars and taken out as 
needed. It makes a very succulent winter green feed, but is not so 
easy to grow and keep as mangels, nor is it as economical a feed. 
Raw potatoes are not relished by the fowls and are therefore 
generally boiled and mixed with the mash: 
Steamed clover and alfalfa hay do not compare with the other 
feeds mentioned either in succulence or palatability. As a protein 
feed containing considerable crude fiber to be used in connection 
with concentrated fat-forming feeds, like corn or other grain, such 
feeds are very good. Alfalfa meal mixed in a dry mash has prac- 
tically no value as a green feed. 
Charcoal acts as a blood purifier and as a preventive of indiges- 
tion by absorbing poisonous gases. One pound to forty pounds of 
mash is about the right amouuat to feed when added to the mash, 
or it may he fed separately in self-feeding hoppers. 
Salt in small quantities seems to increase the palatability of the 
