1909. 
THE RURAL N E W-YORKER 
8 156 
RYE FOR POULTRY. 
C. G. asks, on page 784, why rye is 
never mentioned as a food for poultry. 
It is mentioned now and then, but not 
as often, in my opinion, as it ought to 
be. Some say that fowls don't like it, 
and will not eat it unless they are 
forced to do so by hunger. Anyone can 
easily test this statement and find out 
if it is true. Others say that rye is an 
unwholesome grain for fowls, because it 
is sometimes attacked by a fungous 
growth, and may then poison the animal 
or bird that eats it, producing a disease 
called ergotism. This kind of objection 
might be offered against the use of hay 
or straw as litter for poultry, because 
these are sometimes moldy, and may 
give rise to a serious disease known as 
aspergillosis. I have a notion that a 
great many people are using rye as food 
for poultry without being aware of it. 
No doubt it enters into many of the 
scratch foods that are sold by the deal¬ 
ers. My own experience with the use 
of rye has extended over several years. 
I have found that little chicks will not 
eat it at all, and some full-grown fowls 
will not touch it if they can get any¬ 
thing else. On the other hand, many 
fowls seem to take it willingly when it 
is mixed with other grains, and some 
appear to be very fond of it. Fowls 
have their preferences for different ar¬ 
ticles of food, just as human beings do. 
Many of them decline to eat buckwheat, 
and many will not eat dry oats if there 
is anything else to be had. Good sound 
rye in moderate quantity may safely be 
added to the daily ration of fowls, and 
it will serve to give variety as well as 
nutriment to the diet. In these days of 
high prices for grain an additional in¬ 
gredient at a cheaper price is worth con¬ 
sideration. WM. R. FISHER. 
Monroe Co., Pa. 
THE PREVENTION OF GAPES. 
The gape disease has long been one 
of the worst diseases of young chicks. 
While the fatalities directly traceable 
to gapes are not very great, they are 
considerable; and the losses due to the 
checking of growth and to deaths from 
some other disease made possible by 
lowered vitality are much greater. The 
very large area where the disease is 
found and its exceeding prevalence 
have led to the devising of numerous 
methods for its control. Until within 
the last few years these methods have 
been confined to cures, sure and other¬ 
wise. Experience with these cures has 
shown that they are of some value for 
saving an occasional chick; but as 
methods of controlling the disease 
they are useless. In the last few years, 
attention has been turned more and 
more to prevention as a method of con¬ 
trol. This is certainly the more ration¬ 
al and more promising of the two 
methods. It differs from the cure 
method in demanding absolutely that 
no gape-worms or gape-worm eggs 
shall gain entrance to the body of the 
chick until the chick shall be large 
enough not to *be bothered with them. 
This is the one essential of the meth¬ 
od. There are two general plans of 
bringing about this essential. The first 
is that of keeping the chicks off the 
ground; the second is that of raising 
them on a sterilized patch of ground. 
The first of these plans, that of rais¬ 
ing chicks on a floor, has been before 
poultry raisers' for several years, and 
has been pretty thoroughly tried. It 
has been found that, while inconveni¬ 
ent, it does work, and work satisfactor¬ 
ily, provided the one essential be kept 
in mind. If this plan be adopted, it 
is absolutely essential that the young 
chicks be kept off the ground at all 
times, and that the floor be free from 
infection. Merely feeding on a floor 
will in no wise prevent the disease. 
This is the point which entails the in¬ 
convenience, because the expense of 
providing floor room is large, and the 
care necessary is greater than that re¬ 
quired where chicks have a run on the 
ground. 
The second plan of gape prevention 
is that of raising chicks on a patch of 
disinfected ground. A portion of 
ground, preferably facing the south, 
and well drained, is fenced off with 
one-half inch mesh wire fencing. Any 
coops, brooders, etc., are put in, usu¬ 
ally on the north side. The whole 
(coops, soil, and everything) is now 
treated to a thorough application of 
some coal tar dip or other disinfectant. 
A satisfactory and convenient way of 
making the coal tar dip application is 
as follows: Put about a pint of the 
pure dip in a gallon of water, stir thor¬ 
oughly _ and annly to the soil with a 
sprinkling can or spray pump until 
every bit of the surface of the ground 
has been moistened with the mixture. 
Repeat once after about five days. 
Don't neglect to treat the fixtures also, 
at least once. After disinfection the 
chicks are raised on the patch disin¬ 
fected. 1 he important things to watch in 
using this plan are to be sure that the 
disinfection is very thorough and to keep 
the chicks confined to the enclosed area 
continually until they are large enough 
not to be annoyed by the disease. A 
careful chicken raiser who tried this 
plan last year reported that only one 
case of gapes appeared and that this 
was in a chick which he knew had es¬ 
caped for a time from the enclosure. 
The aim of this plan, as may readily 
be seen, is to secure at the same time 
freedom from gapes and the advant¬ 
ages of an outdoor run. About the 
only drawback worth mentioning is the 
poor growth of vegetation on the treat¬ 
ed area. This need not be a serious 
one, however, as green food is very 
easy to supply in the Spring. 
Indiana. c. a. ludwig. 
A PROBLEM IN CORN FEEDING. 
I am up against a problem in feeding. 
I ha y e a herd of 20 cows, am milking 10 
u m ' One of tho otllers has a young 
cull by her side, and three are due to 
come fresh in September and October. We 
are having a severe drought and the pas¬ 
tures are all dried up. I am feeding them 
li"ld corn, a big wagonload every day. The 
corn is silked out and has large ears hut 
not much corn, although it is getting better 
every day. I weighed one day what I con¬ 
sidered an average load, and had 805 
pounds of corn. At that rate I am feed¬ 
ing three tons per week. If I feed grain 
at the price it is now, to give them any¬ 
thing of a feed would cost me $1.50 per 
day, and I would have to have an increase 
of more than 40 fpiarts of milk to make 
it pay. I know well enough that I would 
not get it. in spite of what I am feeding 
them they are slowly shrinking in their 
milk. Can anyone give any suggestion 
about feeding, and can some one tell me 
the money value of the corn that I am 
feeding them ? h. C. 
Erie Co., Pa. 
This seems to be a question which 
must be answered by experience in prac¬ 
tical feeding. Every dairyman who pro¬ 
duces market milk is confronted with a 
similar problem every year, and upon 
its intelligent solution depends, to 6. 
great extent, whether we will produce 
milk at a profit or whether it will be 
produced at a loss. H. C. does not state 
how long his 16 cows have been milked 
since they became fresh, how much milk 
he is producing nor what he is receiv¬ 
ing for it, except that “it would take 
more than 40 quarts of milk to pay for 
feed to the amount of $1.50.” We must 
figure, then, that he receives about 3 Y> 
cents a quart, which is the wholesale 
price in New York State at the present 
time, and we will assume that his 16 
cows freshened in March and that they 
are good average cows, giving at the 
present time about 100 quarts of milk a 
day without feeding any grain. If they 
have been milked less than six months, 
they may give a little more. The ques¬ 
tion is, will it pay to feed these cows 
grain? By using a good, well-balanced 
ration these cows could have been kept 
up to at least 175 quarts of milk per 
day. The grain would cost 11 cents per 
day for each cow, or, in other words, 
he would have practically five quarts of 
milk from each cow at a cost of a little 
over two cents per quart. 
One thing is certain. If it pays to 
keep cows at all for milk production, it 
pays to feed them well, and they can¬ 
not be called well-fed at this season of 
the year without a good grain ration 
in addition to the corn fodder. I can¬ 
not answer the question in regard to the 
money value of corn fodder, as it de¬ 
pends upon so many varying conditions. 
However, corn fodder is not at its best 
until the ears arc well developed and 
the kernels partly glazed. Cows will not 
eat corn at this stage of development 
without waste unless it is cut or 
shredded. It is not always convenient 
to cut corn every day during the Fall, 
and even if it were it is expensive work 
compared with filling a silo, when it 
can all be done at one operation. 
Therefore, to get the most milk for the 
least labor and expense out of the corn 
crop it must all be made into silage at 
the proper time, and then used as re¬ 
quired at any season of the year. Cows 
will do much better on good silage than 
when fed the whole cornstalks direct 
from the field without cutting. After 
cows have shrunk in their milk it is 
doubtful if it would pay in the milk 
produced to start feeding grain to any 
great extent, but it would pay to feed 
enough so that the cows will go into 
Winter quarters in good condition if 
it pays to produce milk at all at the 
present prices of feed. The time to be¬ 
gin feeding grain is just before the 
cows begin to shrink in their milk, as it 
is impossible to bring them back to their 
normal flow after they have been allowed 
to shrink and lose flesh from a lack of 
sufficient food. c. s. greene. 
HOW TO 
ONEY 
730 TIMES A YEAR 
If you own milch coavs you are doubtless milking some of 
them twice a day every day in the year. 
If you are doing this without a De Laval cream separator 
to save all the butter-fat in its best possible condition and at 
same time have the sweet warm skim milk for calves and pigs 
you are losing money exactly 730 times a year. 
That is the simple truth about the De Laval cream separator. 
Anyone can comprehend it. Other cream separators accomplish 
but a part of AVhat it wi 11 do and do not last nearly-as long. 
Every time milk is run through a De Laval separator it saves 
time and money for the user. There are no ifs or ands about 
it. And the saving is enough to in a few months time pay the 
cost of the separator, with the machine still good for fifteen or 
twenty years. 
There Avas never a better time or season for any cow owner 
to purchase a De Laval cream separator than right uoav. 
Prosperity was never greater in a dairying way. Butter values 
were never higher. The losses from any other manner of 
handling milk never amounted to so much. Moreover such 
losses are always greatest when the coavs have been longest 
in lactation and the cream is hardest to separate. 
Just think of a loss of from ten cents to a dollar, according 
to number of cows and circumstances, tAvice a day every day 
in the year, and what the saving of it amounts to in the course 
of a year, let alone for the fifteen to tAventy years life of the 
separator. 
Are you willing to let such a loss go on ? If not why not 
send for a De Laval catalogue, or 1 letter still try a De Laval 
separator in your oavh dairy. Either is free to you for the 
asking, from the local agent or the Company directly. 
THE DE LAVAL SEPARATOR CO 
(ienerai Offices: 
165 BROADWAY, 
NEW YORK. 
173-177 William Street 
MONTREAL 
14 A 1C IMunokss street 
WINNIPEG 
1016 Wkhtkun Avenue 
SEATTLE 
