THE FEEDS 347 



Milk {Shim). — Skim milk is a valuable poultry feed. 

 Philips' reports that Leghorn pullets consumed an average 

 of about 93 pounds of skim milk a year. This amounts to 

 nearly five tons or 1171 gallons for each 100 hens. He further 

 found that when all the milk the pullets would drink, as 

 indicated above, costing 30 cents per hundred pounds, was 

 added to a ration consisting entirely of grains, it gave a 

 return of $2.04. At 30 cents per hundred skim milk is slightly 

 more expensive to feed than meat scraps at $2.50 per hundred 

 pounds. 



Stewart and Atwood^ found as the result of several tests 

 that the feeding of 802 quarts of skim milk resulted in an 

 increased egg production of 702 eggs, where the rations of 

 two groups of birds were exactly the same with the exception 

 of the milk. 



Anderson' found that the addition of skim milk to a 

 ration increased the consumption of other food. Nixon* 

 found that during the first eight weeks Leghorn chicks 

 grew faster when sour skim milk was used for moistening 

 the mash than when the mash was fed without milk. The 

 feed value in this case was $6.60 per 100 pounds. Sour 

 skim milk was found to have no harmful effect on the 

 chicks, even when fed from the first meal. 



Milk may be fed either sweet or sour, but is to be preferred 

 sour. Shaw^ reports that milk-sugar cannot be digested by 

 birds, but that when this sugar is converted into lactic acid 

 by the souring process it is digestible. "Our experiments 

 show that not only is lactose not digested (by the chick), 

 but it acts as an irritant to the gastro-intestinal tract." 

 According to Rettger, Kirkpatrick, and Jones,^ "sour milk 

 has a most favorable influence on growth and vigor" and 

 "is an important agent in the reduction of mortality from all 

 causes." 



Milk may be used to moisten mashes, or given the fowls to 

 drink. In the latter case particular care must'be taken of the 



1 Purdue Bulletin No. 182. ' West Virginia Bulletin No. 102. 



' Indiana Bulletin No. 71. ■" Cornell Bulletin No. 327. 



' American Journal of Physiology, vol. xxx, No. 7. 

 « Storrs Bulletin No. 77. 



