Wet Food And Mashes

Wet foods and mashes claim but little attention of late on our farm for the reason that dry foods have proven of so much better value. However, we do not discard the feeding of mashes altogether because I find an occasional feed of mash is highly relished by the chicks. But our main feeding consists of dry, well balanced grains. The hopper method of feeding chicks of all ages has become so satisfactory we seldom ever feed any other way except the young growing chicks. I am thoroughly convinced an occasional feed of well prepared mash is good, but if it is fed to an excess it will result in more or less harm, hence, we never feed it except occasionally for a change. I must confess that possibly some have contracted somewhat of an exaggerated idea of the value of the automatic hopper feeding. The writer has given through the press his experience in feeding fowls with the automatic feeders, but I am quite sure, (judging from the tone of many letters we have received recently asking various questions upon the subject), some have conceived quite an exaggerated idea of the value of feeding with automatic feeders. I will say briefly that the secret of feeding with the use of automatic feeders is that you establish a sure method for liberal exercise which is very valuable for confined fowls. Of course they save feed and are valuable in many ways, but I like to feed chicks otherwise, and give an occasional feed of mash. Last season I don't think we fed a single feed of wet food to our chicks, and while they did quite well on an exclusive dry grain ration, yet I am confident I can detect a marked improvement in the growth and development of our chicks this season over our chicks last year with an exclusive dry grain ration.

I am quite confident, after chicks are two weeks of age you can feed a mash at least once a week with best results. I am not an advocate of the old sloppy cornmeal mash, fed to the exclusion of everything else, but an occasional feed of cornmeal, wheat, bran, table scraps, meat scraps, seasoned with pepper; a mash of this kind fed once a week to chicks will develop and mature them faster than otherwise, I am quite sure. There are many feeds chicks will do well on. Yet you must use good judgment in feeding various articles. A well balanced ^ grain ration is the best ration known for chicks— I say in the main, grain is without a peer— but I know from experience that a mash food intelligently prepared and fed once a week will prove of great value in the growth of young fowls. And for laying hens it has a place. The general principles and results are the same. I am quite certain many have an exaggerated idea about the hopper method of feeding, especially with those that are inclined to be troubled with a touch of laziness. The hopper feeders are all good and should be on every farm, and if you will try an occasional mash, you will find it profitable.— J. C. Clipp, Saltillo, Ind.

HOW I CARE FOR BREEDING STOCK

Above all give them a good shelter, a house boarded up tight on the north, east and west, with plenty of ventilation without drafts. I prefer to leave the south open and screen the same with one-inch mesh chicken wire. Place roosts on a level to keep the chickens from all trying to roost on the highest pole; put drop boards underneath to catch the droppings, and plenty of good, roomy nests underneath the drop boards. Now provide some dry place where you can put four or five inches of clean straw or leaves for them to scratch in, and throw all grain into the litter. Keep grit, ground oyster shells and charcoal before them all the time. Provide green food in some form for them all the time, winter and summer. Sow winter turf oats and rye in September and dwarf Essex rape in March and April. Turnips, beets, cabbage, lettuce, all arc good for them. Sprouted oats make an ideal green food. Provide meat in some form, such as beef scraps, or lean beef ground, about once a week. I prefer to feed wheat in the morning, heavy oats at noon and corn at night. (Feed the corn only in cold weather.) I feed a dry mash in hopper, or moisten it so it is crumbly and give them one feed of it every other day. The mash is composed as follows : 209 pounds wheat bran, 100 pounds corn meal, 100 pounds middlings or seconds, 100 pounds beef scraps, 100 pounds short cut alfalfa or meal, 100 pounds ground oats, boiled turnips, potato peelings and all the table scraps thickened with the mash is good for them. Do not feed green bone if you want fertility. If your stock is strong and vigorous you will get fertility with this feeding. Of course you must provide fresh drinking water three times a day, and scald drinking vessels out once a week. To force laying when you do not need fertility, feed as above, and feed green cut bone twice a week. A good grade of mixed scratch feed will do in the place of wheat, oats and corn, if you will add one sack of good, sound wheat to four of the mixed grain. — D. E. Macgowan, Cherry Red Poultry Yards, Memphis, Tenn.

INCUBATION ON THE FARM

Should the farmer use an incubator? That all depends upon how many eggs he wants to hatch and how thoroughly he is going to do the work. An ordinary number of eggs would better be left to the hen; and an incubator not properly managed is worse than none. An incubator may be profitably used where you want to keep your hens laying, or when you desire to make a hatch out of season and have no broody hens, or when you want to sell small chicks or raise fryers and broilers in large numbers. Somebody says an incubator won't break its eggs or go off and leave them like a hen. Maybe so, but I know of one incubator that lately hatched only four eggs out of one hundred and fifty. But it wasn't the incubator's fault. Some chicken people are always introducing new blood into their flocks. Better take more care in keeping pure that which you already have. Do this by culling out all imperfect specimens. Keep fine charcoal around the coops and in the little chick runs. You have no idea how much the birds will consume and how it helps their digestion. There is little diarrhea where the chicks eat charcoal. Very few farmers take care of poultry manure as they should. Every hen produces at least 50 cents worth a year. This manure will make 60 cents worth of vegetables and grass. Therefore the manure from 300 hens will add $180 to their egg and poultry product of $420 a year, making in all $600 a year for a flock of 300 hens. Some families live on much less than that sum.

APOPLEXY IN CHICKENS

Apoplexy in poultry usually comes from over-feeding on starchy foods and can rarely be cured. If the bird is very valuable, proceed as follows: Open the large vein under the wing, and hold the bird's head under a cold water tap for a minute or two; if it shows signs of recovery feed it sparingly for a few days on soft, light food and give five grains of bromide of potassium each day. Roup may be apparently cured, but it cannot be entirely eradicated from the system. It is apt to break out again, and also be transmitted to the young. Under no circumstances should fowls ever be used in the breeding pen that ever suffered from contagion in any form. A writer some years ago truthfully said that more is lost to the producer of dressed poultry, eggs, butter, vegetables and fruit, through sending them to market in improper condition, than would be required to pay the national debt.