PROFITABLE EGG FARMING. 
oats and barley, ground fine as flour if we can 
induce the miller to reduce it to that fineness, 
feed it dry and continue the beef scraps. This 
mixture has given us fatter chickens than we 
have ever been able to produce by any other 
system. 
A mixed lot of cockerels is about as uncom¬ 
fortable a set of individuals as is ever gotten 
together, and this is the only system by which 
each bird can be fed singly. Here each one 
goes to the hopper and eats as long as he has 
plenty of saliva, then lpoves aw^y allowing the 
weaker brother to come up and fi&ke his turn. 
They must necessarily eat slowly because they 
can swallow only a small amount of this dry 
mixture at one time,.anti thus all have an equal 
opportunity. ' . 
Food Is Digested Naturally. 
Here the digestion of the fobd begins in the 
mouth. If the crop of one of^fiese birds is cut 
open, in place of file sburppartlv fermented 
food that is found in a mash-fecbchicken, we 
find the grain as sweet as ever, but smelling as 
though partly cooked, no fermentation of any 
kind, and we think the crop now does the work 
nature intended for it. Your mash-fed chicken 
gets up in the morning, waits around an hour 
or two until the pleasure of the feeder brings 
around a pail of hot or cold mash, which is 
placed on boards, troughs or other devices, and 
a wild scramble begins. Each one gulps what 
he can reach; the weaker get a little, and the 
stronger the bulk of the food. If the mash is hot 
it raises the temperature of the bird above nor¬ 
mal and sweat is started, which is anything but 
what it should be, laying the foundation for colds 
and roup. The food goes through the crop 
with very little change, except fermentation, 
direct to the gizzard, and the entire work of the 
digestive system is thrown upon the gizzard 
and the intestines; whereas the crop should 
have done quite a little towards softening and 
partly digesting it. 
With the chickens on range, this hopper of 
food awaits them immediately they are off the 
perch in the morning and they then start upon 
the day’s hunt over the fields for the bugs, 
worms, grasshoppers and grass, which go to 
make life one sweet dream for poultry. At any 
time during the day that their appetites dictate, 
they can call at the coop and get a supply of 
such grain and meat food as they desire, and eat 
it unmolested in a very gentlemanly and lady¬ 
like manner. Much more uniform gains result; 
the younger and weaker chick thrives as well as 
the larger and stronger, summer chickens grow 
practically as well as the spring hatched, and 
bowel trouble is a thing unheard of from the 
shell to maturity; if the proper heat is main¬ 
tained in the brooders and the grain and beef 
scraps used are of the first quality. 
The cooking of food, some say, makes it more 
digestible, which we have no doubt is true, but 
the question arises as to what particular portion 
of the food it makes more digestible. Of course 
the starch is more easily assimilated, but the 
protein is not, and we think here is where the 
mischief arises from cooked food. The simple 
scalding of a mash makes no chemical change. 
You might as well mix it with cold water as hot, 
chemists tell us. The books say, mix the mash 
as dry as you can mix it. If it is to be mixed as 
dry as you can mix it, why not leave the water 
out entirely, surely it is much easier to mix dry 
than wet. “But,” you say, “fowls won’t eat 
it.” This is true, they will not eat it for one or 
two feeds, if brought up on the wet ration, but- 
brought up properly they eat it freely and it 
never stands before them sour; the last spoonful 
in the hopper is as sweet as the first and each 
bird gets its proper share. 
Getting Strong, Fertile Eggs. 
When the pullets go to the laying houses, they 
are fed cracked corn, wheat, oats and barley; 
fifty per cent, however is corn. A hopper of 
beef scraps is still kept before them but we now 
add a hopper of dry bran. The whole grain is 
fed in litter three times per day. Birds are 
kept scratching for all their grain, but they have 
cabbages to eat constantly before them. If 
cabbages are not plenty we use cut clover, 
scalded to soften it, fed in deep troughs. We 
have used with good success a dry mash con¬ 
sisting of twenty-five per cent, corn meal, 
twenty-five per cent, beef scraps and fifty per 
cent, bran, fed dry in boxes during the morning, 
giving what they will eat up by noon, when we 
give a light feed of whole grain, with another full 
feeding at night. Hard grain is fed in litter as 
previously noted, and while this ration is a little 
cheaper than the other, the dealers usually put 
the poorest grade of corn which they purchase 
into their meal, and results are not always as 
satisfactory as we could wish for this reason. 
A good egg yield will result from this ration if the 
ground grain and beef scraps are of good quality. 
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