190 



MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



Answer — An alfalfa patch is a good 

 thing to have for poultry, but if you 

 cannot have either clover or alfalfa, 

 plant for the little chickens, lettuce, and 

 for the older ones, kale, swisschard, cab- 

 bage, beets, etc. These in the order in 

 which I have mentioned them are the 

 best foods that I know of. You, of 

 course, must judge what will grow best 

 in your section. Alfalfa meal is a very 

 fair substitute for green food, but of 

 course does not come up to the crisp, 

 succulent, fresh-growing greens. 



Lack Green Food — I have three pens 

 of White Plymouth Rocks and what 

 bothers me is I only get from four to 

 six eggs from them. They all look fine. 

 I think they are rather fat. As to feed, 

 I give them a small handful of grain in 

 the morning in deep straw, either 

 wheat or barley; about eleven a dry 

 mash — eight quarts bran, four quarts 

 middlings and nearly a quart of beef 

 scraps ; at night I give them the dry 

 grain again. Once in a while a table- 

 spoonful of pepper in their mash. They 

 are not troubled with lice or mites, and 

 have grit, oyster shell and coal before 

 them all the time ; also good clean wa- 

 ter. Can you advise me how to feed 

 them so as to get them down to busi- 

 ness? — J. B. 



Answer — What your hens lack is 

 green food. At least one-third of a 

 hen's food should be green — clover, al- 

 falfa or some succulent vegetables. They 

 cannot do well upon the absolutely dry 

 food you are giving them. Add the 

 green to your present ration and you 

 should get eggs. 



MiEEET Seed — Can you tell me what 

 makes my chickens that are from ten 

 weeks to three months old, droopy? Is 

 millet seed good for little chicks for the 

 first two or three weeks? I mean mil- 

 let seed alone. — Mrs. P. E. N. 



Answer — When chickens are droopy 

 it is a sign that they may have either 

 lice, worms or indigestion. If you are 

 feeding millet seed, that may account 

 for it. Millet seed is very hard, round 

 and slippery, and passes through the giz- 

 zard and intestines without being di- 

 gested, and I have known of several 

 chickens dying from it. A little used 

 in their food may not hurt them, but an 

 exclusive diet of millet is certain to 

 cause trouble. 



Skim Miek — Will you kindly inform 

 me whether skim milk is a good food 

 for young pullets or laying hens? 

 Which is best, sweet, clabber or curd? 

 Is there danger of feeding too much 

 curd or skim milk? Is curd of more 

 value to young stock or to laying hens? 

 I have a bunch of ten-weeks-old pullets 

 that I am feeding clabber and bran 

 mixed until it makes a crumbly mash. 

 Is it a fattening or muscle or bone mak- 

 ing ration? How would it do to feed 

 to laying stock? I give skim milk to 

 my laying hens in troughs which set in 

 the sun. Will that kill disease germs 

 or not?— L. E. E. 



Answer — Skim milk is one of the best 

 foods for chickens or hens at any stage 

 of their lives. It can be fed either 

 sweet, clabber or curd. By curd I mean 

 cooked. If you cook it, be careful not 

 to heat it above 100 degrees, or it will 

 become tough and indigestible. There 

 is no danger of feeding too much skim 

 milk or clabber to fowls. The crumbly 

 mash is good feed, but you would suc- 

 ceed just as well by giving them the 

 bran dry and letting them drink or eat 

 the milk as they want it. It is a good 

 bone, muscle and egg making ration. I 

 give my fowls all the milk I can spare, 

 pouring it into troughs and leaving it 

 till they eat it. The sun does not seem 

 to affect it badly when it is pure milk, 

 but if bran were mixed with it, the sun 

 might make it ferment and then it would 

 disagree with them. 



Sorghum Seed— Will you tell me the 

 value of sorghum seed for poultry? Is 

 it fat producing or an egg food, and how 

 would it do for turkeys? — C. B. C. 



Answer — Sorghum seed, broom corn 

 seed and Egyptian corn have almost 

 the same nutritive value. They can be 

 fed to both chickens and turkeys with 

 the same satisfactory results. One year 

 when on the farm I had several tons of 

 broom corn seed which was left where 

 the threshers worked and the fowls had 

 free access to it and the green-growing 

 wheat ; they got through the moult early 

 and layed all winter, eggs galore. I 

 never saw better laying, and the turkeys 

 did well on it. Professor Jaffa in his 

 most valuable bulletin (Fermer's bulle- 

 tin 164) on poultry feeding, gives us the 

 nutritive value of broom corn and of 

 sorghum seed as both the same — 1 :8.4 ; 

 of Egyption corn, 1 :8.6 ; Sorghum seed 

 is more fattening than wheat and less 



