38S 



Experiments in Fattening Turkeys. [oct., 



the best results. These birds were all of the same strain and 

 breed, having been bred from a 38-lb. cock and 21-lb. hens, and 

 being in very fine condition after the stubble feeding, they were 

 excellent subjects for experimental purposes. I had put them 

 on the stubbles of two fifteen-acre fields of barley and oats when 

 these crops had been gathered in about the middle ot September, 

 and they were housed in portable wooden buildings in the fields. 

 For several weeks they found all the food which was necessary 

 for them, in the loose corn combined with the grasses, weeds, 

 seeds, and similar foods which they would naturally pick up 

 from ground which had recently grown a crop of corn, and had 

 not been used by animals or poultry for a considerable time. 



When the supply of scattered grain began to diminish and 

 the turkeys were hard set to find as great a quantity as they 

 required, they were fed by hand once a day. This feeding 

 commenced about the middle of October, when the birds had 

 been supporting themselves on the stubbles at little or no cost 

 for nearly a month, and had improved so much in strength, size* 

 and health that one would not know them for the same birds 

 which had been turned from the farmyard to the stubbles only 

 four weeks before. This feed was given in the evening, which 

 is the best time to feed young turkeys at range in stubbles 

 when one meal per day only is required. It consisted of a mash 

 made of three parts boiled potatoes, one part middlings, one part 

 bran, and one part maize meal, wet with skim milk. The use of 

 one part barley-meal and one part ground oats in the mash 

 would have been preferable, but the grinding season for these 

 corns had not opened, and there was none in stock from the 

 previous year. 



The birds improved rapidly under this treatment, which was 

 continued until they had consumed almost all the scattered grain, 

 and the occasional kernels which they could still discover were 

 found only by diligent searching, and were of little value in 

 sustaining them. In the first week of November it became 

 necessary to feed them three meals per day. Although there was 

 little or no feeding now in the stubbles, they were allowed to 

 remain there for the sake of the run, so that they might grow 

 as large in frame as possible. The three meals which were fed, 

 consisted of mash as before, with barley-meal and ground oats 



