Vol. LXIX. No. 4044 NEW \ORFC, APRIL 30, 1910 weekly, $i.oo per year. 
THE DRY MASH AND THE FOOD HOPPERS. 
More About the Lazy Man’s Method. 
I was much interested in the article of A. F. Hunter 
on dry mash feeding,' page 077. I would like very much 
lo know the composition of Mr. Hunter’s dry mash, and 
what kind of hoppers, if any special manufacture, he uses, 
New York. w. R. s. 
Several letters of similar tenor have been for¬ 
warded to me, and all of them can be answered 
in this. I buy a commercial dry-mash mixture 
ready mixed, which 1 believe is better, and more 
economical, than to buy sundry bags and part- 
bags of half a dozen different meals, and mix 
them myself. I believe this reasoning holds 
good for everyone who is not in the 
business on a considerable scale, and it 
applies alike to all the foods I feed. If 
I were keeping several hundred fowls, 
and could buy grains and meals in ton 
and half-ton lots, I could save money 
by doing my own mixing. When, how¬ 
ever, a man has to buy 100 pounds of 
this, 50 pounds of that, and 10 pounds 
of the other, he is buying at retail and 
has to pay the dealer’s profit; I can buy 
the ready-mixed foods to better advan¬ 
tage, and save my time. There are a 
dozen good mixtures on the market, and 
competition compels their being sold at 
close figures. I buy a commercial chick 
food for the very first feeds of the baby 
chicks, adding about 10 per cent, of 
rolled oats to it, adding, also a little of 
“chick size” grit. The next step is the 
intermediate chick food and growing 
food, the latter being a mixture of meals 
and bran with a little fine beef scraps in; 
after maturity the ration is ready- 
mixed dry mash, the latter in the hop¬ 
pers. 
As stated above, there are several good 
brands of ready-mixed foods on the 
market, sold by dealers in poultry sup¬ 
plies. If a man prefers to do his own 
mixing the prescriptions made up at the 
Maine Agricultural Experiment Station 
can hardly be improved upon. Their 
dry-mash mixture is as follows: 200 
pounds good wheat bran, 100 pounds 
cornmeal, 100 pounds middlings (or 
“Red Dog” flour), 100 pounds gluten 
meal or brewers’ grains, 100 pounds lin¬ 
seed meal and 100 pounds beef scrap. 
These materials are spread on the floor, 
in layers, one above another, and shov¬ 
eled together until thoroughly mixed, 
then kept in stock for supplying the 
trough. I believe this dry mash is a 
bit too forcing, and have recommended 
that the linseed meal be omitted. As evidence that 
it is forcing, the Maine Station people report getting 
Plymouth Rock pullets to laying maturity at four 
months and 10 to 20 days, and they lose several pul¬ 
lets in every hundred before the first year is up. I 
believe it is better to go a bit slower, and recommend 
cutting out the linseed meal from the mixture. 
The Maine Station scratching food consists of four 
quarts of screened cracked corn, two quarts of wheat 
and two quarts of oats for each 100 hens (Plymouth 
Rocks) daily. The commercial foods, which 1 prefer, 
have several different seeds and grains additional, 
such as buckwheat, sunflower seeds, Kaffir corn, etc., 
in small quantities. These give greater variety to the 
ration. One brand of chick food, with the making of 
which I have some acquaintance, consists of 11 dif¬ 
ferent grains and seeds; no man is likely to have 
more than a third as much variety in his ration, 
where he does his own mixing, and his homemade 
mixture is less well balanced. 
The dry mash for my laying stocks is put before the 
birds in galvanized iron hoppers, and those hoppers 
are on sale by. all progressive poultry supplies dealers. 
These are the best indoors hoppers I have ever seen. 
The outdoors hoppers, for feeding the growing chicks, 
we make ourselves, and designed the hopper from 
several different ones we have tried. The basic idea 
of it I got from a hopper shown in what is (I believe), 
the first poultry book published in America, Cock's 
“American Poultry Book,” published by Harper & 
Brothers in 1843. It is interesting to learn that hop¬ 
per feeding was practised so long ago; of course only 
whole grain was fed at that time. The bottom and 
ends of the hopper are made of inch boards, cut to 
the pattern shown in the cross-section. Fig. 206, page 
517. In the illustration the partitions are shown as if 
made of five-eighths inch box boards, but, as a matter 
of fact, ours are made of a good roofing material 
which we had on hand. When the ends had been 
nailed to the bottom of the first hopper we began 
looking over our lumber for pieces of which to make 
the partitions, and the thought came, “Why cannot 
we make them of some thin material, and thus save 
space?” We had some strips and end pieces of roof¬ 
ing left over, and quickly saw that we could make the 
partitions of that very easily. To make the middle 
partition a piece was cut to fit into the space, half¬ 
inch strips of the box-board cut to tack the roofing 
on to, then the strips were firmly nailed to bottom 
and ends of hopper, holding it firmly in place; two 
laths nailed together along the top edge, one each side, 
made the ridge pole of the hopper. The front par¬ 
titions of the two hopper spaces were made of roofing, 
in a similar manner, excepting that a lath along the 
bottom edge was planed smooth, so the chicks would 
not scratch their heads against the roughness. The 
lath gave the needed stiffness to the lower edge, so 
long as there was no grain inside, but when a half 
bushel of grain was poured in the front buckled out¬ 
ward somewhat; a bit of eight-inch wire was cut 
about four inches long, so as to reach the lath front 
of edge of partition and leave an inch of length to 
turn down over the edge of the hopper, 
where two wire staples secured it. The 
outer end rested in a socket in the lath. 
This wire held the outward thrust of 
the grain, and the hopper spaces were 
complete. The slats along the outer front 
are of planed lath, set two inches apart, 
and the hopper is substantially like the 
one shown in Cock’s book, except that it 
is wider and made double. Really, it is 
two hoppers in one, and a decided ad¬ 
vantage in this is that the wind does not 
blow through the trough, blowing out the 
dry mash, as was found to be a fault 
with the Maine Station hopper. 
In the drawing showing a cross-sec¬ 
tion of the hopper it should be noted 
that the throat of the dry-mash side is 
an inch wider than the throat of the 
grain side, the central partition being set 
over a half-inch from the exact centre 
to gain the needed extra width there; 
dry grain Hows more readily than mixed 
dry meals, and the latter need more 
throat space to prevent clogging. We 
have found, too, that the dry grain (lows 
a bit too frcel> with a two-inch space be¬ 
tween the edge of the front of hopper 
and bottom, so will make the grain side 
a half-inch longer in others we may 
build, reducing the throat space to one 
and one-halt" inches. Otherwise we shall 
continue to follow plan shown in Fig. 206. 
It should also be noted that there is a 
slanting lip, made of a planed lath, along 
the front of the trough; this is to pre¬ 
vent the grain being thrown out by the 
birds drawing the beak toward them, 
as they do in pecking. A little grain 
will probably be thrown out, anyway, 
but the birds will eat it from the ground 
and practically none is wasted. We one 
time noticed three pullets eating from 
the trough, and two at the same time 
eating from the ground beside them. 
The roof of the hopper projects four inches beyond 
the edges of the trough, which is sufficient protection 
from wetting with most rains; if a driving rain does 
wet the food a little no harm is done, as the chicks 
eat it up quickly. A hook and screw-eye at each end 
secures the roof against the lifting of the winds; the 
roof should always be thus secured. With such a food 
hopper set a little in front of each coop, containing a 
colony of about 50 chicks, and filling the hoppers once 
a week, there is little labor in caring for the growing 
youngsters. The cockerels are taken out of the colon¬ 
ies when they weigh about 3(4 pounds and shut up in 
fattening pens, leaving the 25 to 30 pullets to come to 
laying maturity out of range. The plans outlined 
above may be adapted to individual requirements. 
Massachusetts. a. f. hunter. 
•THE DRY MASH FEEDING HOPPER IN ACTION. Fig. 197. 
DRY MASH PIOPPER OPENED UP. Fig. 198. 
