New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 193 
The mixed grain was composed of two parts corn meal, two 
parts wheat bran, one part wheat middlings and one part linseed 
meal, and is calculated at twenty dollars per ton. The wheat is 
rated at one dollar per. bushel, the skim-milk at twenty-five cents 
per hundred pounds, the clover forage at two dollars per ton, and 
meat scraps at two and one-half cents per pound. 
With one pen the average cost of food for every pound increase 
in weight during the whole time was 5.66 cents. For the other 
the cost of increase for all but the last two weeks was 5.36 cents 
and during these two weeks 5.63 cents. The cost per pound gain 
in weight for each period will be found in the tables. In one pen 
chicks averaging 2.4 pounds weight at 104 weeks of age 
were grown at a cost for food of 5.31 cents per pound, or an 
average of 12.7 cents apiece. In the other pen chicks averaging 
2.4 pounds at 113 weeks of age cost for food 5.36 cents per pound, 
or 12.9 cents apiece. This cost of production of course includes 
the cost of feeding the hen during the first few weeks. These 
results are not so good as are those sometimes reported by incu- 
bator manufacturers, but they are obtained by methods that are 
well understood and in use among farmers. Although these chicks 
were rather closely confined they were kept freer from lice than, 
unfortunately, are the chicks as a rule on farms. 
Under ordinary conditions, chicks ought to be hatched, making 
a fair allowance for value of eggs and food for sitting hens, at a 
cost of less than five cents apiece. The highest cost per pound: 
gain during any week, while growing chicks to three and oue-half 
pounds average weight, was less than seven cents, and the cost 
averaged much less than six cents. At the prices generally 
obtained for chicks of this and lesser weights, the growth was cer- 
tainly a profitable one. With chicks having the liberty of the 
fields it seems reasonable to expect a still cheaper production of — 
meat, and it would appear that a profitable use for some of the 
skim-milk of the farm would be in the growing of chicks for home 
use or for the market. 
_ An unlimited supply of sweet skim-milk can apparently be given 
to chickens with advantage, but sour milk must be fed with cau- 
tion. Where sour milk only is available it is best to coagulate 
thoroughly by moderate heating, and feed only the curd, straining 
out as much of the whey as possible. 
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