Farmer. Feeding and Watering Poultry.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2084, 14 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Farmer. Feeding and Watering Poultry.

Fiedino and watering poultry are (says Mr. Henry Stewart) generally much neglected bj ihoeo who k«ep fowl". The active foraging of fowls, and their patient and uncomplaining habits, tend to encourage neg'ect on the part of. their owner*, and they consequently suffer more from this caus* than from any other to which they are cu 1 ja ted. Fowls possess a tery active phyii al organisation. Their digestive apparatus works with surprising rapidity. Ao ounce of corn is swallowed early in the morning, and in twe hoars the crop, which is a part of the stomach, is empty, and the food is in process of conversion into an rgg which is laid within 24 hoars. The egg product of a good hen in a year— and the most of it is laid in the six spring and summer months— amounts to about 17 lbs , or three times the weight of the fowl. To perform all this a hen requires a high and rigorous organisation, and this she naturally possesses, for the temperature of a bird's blood runs from 10$ deg. to 110 deg., which is about 10 f eg. more than that of any quadruped. This excessive temperature and great activity of the reproductive organs causes a correspondingly large consumption of food, and water is included in the term food. The rapid digestion of food in a fowl's stomach calls for an almost continuous supply. Regularity of supply is of the greatest importance whop the consumption is to rapid. If the supply is not regular there is a groat loss. There is not only waste of energy but a waste of time in restoring this wasto of power, and it is on this account that so many fowls merely live along and do not produce eggs as freely as is expected, although the quantity of food is suppoied to be quite liberal. The system of sending the fowls to roost with a full belly and keeping them all day hungering and thirsting for food, is to blnme for much of the shortcomings of the h«ns. Tuo quantity of food required by an animal is estimated as about '\ per c«nt. of the lire weight daily. This merely supports life ; all increase of weight, or any prod not whatever, must be supplied by an extra allowance, so thai -0 hens weighing 100 poanda would seed three pints of solid nutritious food daily to live, and do no more. This is equal to three-twentieths of a pint fora hen. (Twotwentieths, or one tonth of a pint, or about one and one-half ounce of food, is, then, re quired every day for the production of eggs, ibe total daily food requirements being onefourth of a pint, and this is tho established rule, from long experience, among poultry keeper?. One quart of corn or other grain for eight hens is the regular daily allowance given in at least two meals, and it has been found that a flock of hens, when supplied with a constant provision of grain before them, will consume this quantity and no more, in addition to what small things in the fhapo of flif« and other insects, grasp, do., they may pick up. liat it has been observed by all feeders of animals that not only is the neceisary healthful appetite for food maintained, but digestion and assimilation— which is conversion of food into blood, flesh, and animal produots— are greatly aided by a diversity of food, and, moreover, that a certain ratio must exist between the carbonsceous elements of the food, as starch and fat, and the nitrogenous elements, as albumen, g'uten, Ac. This ratio should be about five of the former to one of tho latter, and there are few foods which are made up precisely in these proportions. Indian corn, for instanoe, contains too much staroh and oil, while flesh contains too muoh albumen aud fibrin. Wheat, on the other hand, contains almsst the identical elements that blood and flesh contain, with the needed carbon to sustain the animal heat, so that if one grain food be selected it should bo wheat. This, however, would be open to tho other objection that one single food soon becomes distasteful and the appetite is oioyed. Moreover, leathers and eggs contain much sulphur, and the egg shells are made of lime, and these, of course, must be supplied in the food. It is, therefore, necessary to be more particular in the eeleotion of food for hens than for any other animals, and they cannot have too great a diversity of it. Indian corn, wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat, turnips, cabbage, •nimsl flesh, broken bones, gr*cs, clover, all need to be supplied ; while insects, seeds of weeds, and particularly mnßtard and rape, or other foods which are rich in sulphur, are all required in order to supply the indispensable needs of a flock of hens that are expected to lay eggs. And the daily allowance should bo so regulated that at least one-quarter of a pint of the grain should be given every 21 hours. Finally, as 77 r > per cent, of a ben, or an egg, is water, and as the hen grinds her own food in the gbzard (a part of her multiple stomaob) by the help of coarse gravel, an abundant supply of pure water and of gravel must be provided for her, or the csnnot properly perform her natural functions and satisfy her owner.