FEEDING POULTRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2116, 4 December 1880, Page 2

FEEDING POULTRY.

The direct profit or loss with stock of any kind whatever, comes from the feeding resorted to. If proper food has been given, at regular intervals in sufficient quantity, profit is the natural result, while bap-hazard management results disastrously. In the feeding and management of poultry, there is more lax discipline than with any other kind of stock. There is far too much corn, in its different forms, fed to breeding poultry, and to layers, to secure the best results, for corn has a great tendency to produce fat, which is not desirable where plenty of eggs are expected, the fat forming so thickly on and around the ovaries and other organs as to effectually prevent the fowls from laying. In cold weather warmth and heat is necessary, and feeding corn moderately to the laying hens is not eo objectionable as it is during the warm summer months, while over fat fowls are more liable to disease and ailments than those only in good condition. Far the laying fowl no better food can be given for a principle diet than good, sound, wide wheat, though it must not be given in the same quantities es corn. Screenings are not at all objectionable, provided they are not musty or spoiled, though the price at which they are usually sold makes them more expensive than good wheat, for the simple reason that scarcely one half of the screenings is wheat cr will be consumed by the poultry, the greater part being cheat, cockle, weed seeds, Ac. For the fattening of poultry corn is the very best and cheapest food which can ba given to accomplish it. To secure the greatest profit from the poultry, it is economy in the end to keep the birds growing rapidly j from the start, and a couple of weeks befora they are marketed have them penned np anjt fed principally on soft food, such as scaldea corn meal, well boiled mush, oat meal (it the meal can be gotten cheaply), &a. h feeding twice a day at first and towards tho last three times, only what they will eat np ( with an appetite, snd confining the birds In & , darkened room, giving them light only at. feeding times.—“ Maryland Former.’* ■