POULTRY NOTES.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 376, 23 July 1903, Page 5

POULTRY NOTES.

HOW & WHAT TO FJEKD. (Culled from the "Australian Hen.") ■ It is hard to feed too much green food to poultry. Clean water put in a dirty trough is a poor subterfuge. Give the evening meal early enough for the birds to get their fill before dark. We can afford to be a bit liberal with the food this weather—even if feed is high. The best substitute for green food apart from clover hay, is good green lucereoe bay, chaffed and steamed over night and mixed with morning's mash.

If you have not already done so you should get a patch of barley, wheat or oats, planted for green stuff later on. A regular feeding time is important. You should aim to feed at about the same times each day; then the fowls will expect their food to time, will not i wait around for it all day long, and when they get it it will do them a maximum amount of good. Very often the . first question an amateur asks a fancier, is " How do you feed?" Aod he asks the same question of every fancier, and chops and changes so much that success in its fullest measure is next to impossible. Now the most valuable advice the fancier can give in answer to that query is to put two more questions, ' How do you feed ?" nnd "Do you get fairly good results ? If so stick to it." A fairly good ration, gradually improved as experience suggests, will give better results than any amount of experimental shots at a perfect system. How much grit will a fowl consume ? Several days ago (says a writer in " American Poultry Journal") we gave two quirts of grit and oyster shell to about thirty chickens, and they .consumed it all in one day. This question was asked us by another breeder, who said his fowls appeared to eat nearly as much grit as corn. This shows the necessity for a plentiful supply. What we would term overfeeding, is not so much giving the birds as much food as they will eat, but given too much at a time and allowing the bird to over gorge itself, in which case it will probably mope around idly till the next feed comes. On the other hand, the hea that is kept a little hungry will go round searching, getting the muchneeded exercise at the s*me time as she gathers - her food. If the scratching pen (as it should) yields up some thing, however li-tie, at any time the hen scratches for she will spend most of her time between there and the next box, and whi'e she may and probably does consume more food in a d-iy than the ' geivjer," she will not become overfat liko her on account of the energy she has to spend to get it. For* liberal egg yield we must feed liberally, esp cialfy in the winter months, but we must f<»ed in such a manner that the food does not jro to fat instead of eggs.