I906.] 



Animal Food for Poultry. 



Prepared Animal Foods, — There are now in the market very 

 many prepared animal foods which may be fed with profit to 

 poultry, when fresh animal food of the kinds described cannot 

 be easily or cheaply procured. These prepared foods are sold 

 under various trade names, and come to the poultry-keeper con- 

 veniently made up in sacks, and in the form of meal or scraps. 

 Convenience in procuring and handling these foods has led 

 many poultry-keepers to give up feeding cut bone and fresh 

 meat to poultry. Their composition, however, varies greatly, 

 and, before using them largely, poultry-keepers would be well 

 advised to get a sample analysed. It is only those which 

 have a large proportion of digestible matter and which are rich 

 in protein that are worth buying at the prices asked. 



Feeding, — Owing to the small daily allowance which it is 

 advisable to feed each fowl, it is apparent that concentrated 

 foods ought not to be fed separately, because the stronger 

 birds of the flock would obtain more than their fair share, and 

 on the whole the best way of feeding meat is in the mash. 

 Mash is usually made up in the evening for the next morning's 

 use, and when the different kinds of meal have been mixed 

 nothing is easier than to add the proper allowance of cut bone, 

 meat meal, or other animal food. The only animal food that 

 may be fed separately is dry beef scrap. Many poultry-keepers 

 now feed their fowls entirely on dry stuffs, placing a sack of 

 mixed corn in a hopper which feeds them automatically, and 

 a sack of dried beef scraps in another hopper, and the fowls are 

 allowed to balance their own ration. 



Fowls kept in confined runs should have an ample supply of 

 animal food. This is not only necessary in order that they may 

 lay a good number of eggs but also to prevent egg eating and 

 feather pulling. These depraved habits are usually indulged in 

 by fowls which are confined and fed on too carbonaceous a diet. 

 In such conditions, fowls have an insatiable craving for animal 

 food, or, in other words, for more protein, and they strive to 

 satisfy the desire by eating their own eggs and plucking out 

 and swallowing the feathers from each other's bodies. The 

 habit, once acquired, is difficult to cure, but it will be avoided 

 if- fowls are fed liberally on animal foods. 



H, DE COURCY. 



