RATIONS AND METHODS OF FEEDING 233 



between (a), (6), and (d) are insignificant. The large consumption of grit by those 

 fed on (a) — that is, hens among which mortality was high, owing to faulty mash 

 — is in accord with what has often been observed. The large and equal con- 

 sumption of grit and shell by the hens fed on ration (c) is significant. Grit, Shell, 

 and meat scraps were given them in hoppers. For everything else they had to 

 scratch. There is a question as to whether the grit and shell were all consumed 

 or a considerable part merely pulled out of the hoppers, as hens are often seen 

 to do in expectation of finding something more palatable among the contents 

 of the hopper. 



27. Crate-fattening raiio7is. {a) To make yellow flesh : corn meal, 3 parts ; 

 red-dog flour, | part, mixed with milk to consistency of cement, (b) For white 

 flesh ; pearl oat dust, 2 parts ; buckwheat flour, 2 parts ; barley meal, I part ; 

 white corn meal, I part, mixed with milk. 



When color of flesh is immaterial, crate fatteners use, as one says, " almost 

 anything we can mix." The proportions of ingredients are of less importance 

 than the consistency of the food. Many mix the food some hours before feed- 

 ing, in order that fermentation may begin before the birds eat it, and so the 

 process of digestion be advanced. 



RATIONS FOR TURKEYS, PEAFOWLS, GUINEAS, AND PHEASANTS 



All gallinaceous birds in domestication may be fed on the same rations as 

 chickens and fowls on range, the number and times of feeding and the quan- 

 tities of food being adapted to the habits of the birds and to the conditions. 

 The young of these other kinds are commonly considered more difficult to 

 feed and to grow than chickens. This is true only so far as concerns growing 

 them under like conditions. Fowls, as we have seen, are, generally speaking, 

 thoroughly domesticated, which accounts in part for the fact that the others 

 are not ; for as far as fowls, ducks, and geese preempt foraging ground near 

 the homestead and its outbuildings, they force the less domestic poultry to 

 range farther away and in a measure prevent their complete domestication. 

 Instances of all the other gallinaceous poultry becoming as tame as many 

 fowls and thriving under the same conditions are numerous enough to indi- 

 cate that if they could get, in close contact with man, the range conditions that 

 they prefer or need, they would ultimately become very tame. It may reasonably 

 be assumed that under such conditions they would gradually become as well 

 adapted to conditions of life in closer contact with man as do fowls, ducks, and 

 geese. Under existing conditions it is, on the whole, of advantage to man 

 that several valuable kinds of poultry prefer to live a little aloof from the 

 others and from him, and so utilize food and give such service as they may on 

 land outside the range of the others. 



Given conditions adapted to their dispositions and habits of life, the feeding 

 of these birds does not differ at all from the feeding of fowls under similar 

 conditions. Given conditions which fret them, and feeding them becomes dif- 

 ficult, — a matter of delicacies and dieting, — not because the ordinary food is 



