Poultry Feeding. 



365 



lay on any of the above foods, but need only be given two soft 

 feeds daily instead of three as heretofore. 



Whole wheat, oats, barley or maize should not be given to 

 young birds until they are at least twelve weeks old. No 

 mention of cooked rice has as yet been made, for the reason that 

 birds brought up as here advised very rarely show signs of 

 diarrhoea, or scour, as it is sometimes called. If, however, it be 

 very cold, or there be a sudden change of weather, scour will 

 sometimes attack the birds. It can nearly always be stopped 

 by putting camphor in their drinking water, and by giving them 

 one meal of well-boiled rice strained as dry as possible. If the 

 " scour" still continues give them, after an interval of forty-eight 

 hours, a second meal of boiled rice to which add two drops of 

 chlorodyne for every bird which is sick ; but be sure that it is 

 very evenly mixed. 



There is no better tonic for use during cold raw weather than 

 the following mixture. Any chemist can make it up. It is 

 compounded of half fluid ounce sulphuric acid, half pound green 

 copperas, dissolved in one gallon of hot water. The dose for 

 chicks is one table-spoonful of the mixture to every gallon of 

 drinking water, and double that amount to grown fowls, ducks, 

 geese or turkeys, but it should not be given more frequently 

 than twice a week. 



It should be kept in glass or stone jars and labelled "Poison." 



Fattening. 



When chicks reach the age of fourteen weeks they are, or 

 should be, strong enough to be put up for fattening, but back- 

 ward ones should be allowed another week or two at liberty 

 before being shut up. 



Fattening pens can be easily made out of ordinary packing 

 cases from which the top and one side have been taken, or from 

 ordinary hen coops. They should be put upon legs not less 

 than two feet high, and the bottoms of the coops or boxes 

 should be made of one-and-a-half inch slats (slating lathes do 

 excellently) nailed across so as to allow about two inches be- 

 tween each slat. 



The bottom will then appear as in Fig. I. 



The front of the pen will be similar to that of an ordinary 



