ECONOMIES IN POULTRY FEEDING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCV, Issue 10920, 31 March 1896, Page 3

ECONOMIES IN POULTRY FEEDING.

(Specially written for the “ Canterbury Times.” ) Mariot-Didieux, in his book “ Traite de Gallinoculture,” has repeated the experiments made during the last century on fowl-feeding by the celebrated Frenchman Reaumur; but both those authorities arc deceiving themselves, and the unpractical rearers, when they quote annual accounts based upon the quantity of a particular food eaten in the course of their experiments. To say, as they do, that 3000 fowls would cost only 2s lOd annually if fed with oats, or only half that cost if fed with, buckwheat, or less than la 5d if. a mixture o! bran and slaughterhouse blood is continually given, are so many absurdities.

The. writer has made all the experiments mentioned. The quantities stipulated were found perfectly accurate, and the cost exact according to the very high prices ruling the corn market at the time of Mariot-Didieux’s experiments iu Franco, but the conclusions were entirely different. Fowls require, like other animals, variety in food. The quantity of grain varies with the races and the size of the bird, with the season, the weather, and with the state of the grain—raw, boiled or soaked. Besides that, gravel, green food, soft food, meat, worms, itc., have to be provided daily, or at least occasionally. Therefore the annual cost of feeding can- be given only when perfect accounts are kept, both of quantities and value of every food eaten. Repeated experiments with raw grain prove that the following statements may bo accepted as an axiom by poultry rearers: Whatever the nature of the grain, the same measure is found sufficient for the same fowl every day. The important conclusion of such experiments is, that we may chooso the sort of grain which happens to be the cheapest for the time being. As soon, for instance, as wheat and barley become too expensive, the writer has used oats, without the slightest disadvantage. This proves the corollary, that the quantity overrules the quality and the weight of the grain.

It is admitted that all animals thrive best on what they relish most. In poultry roaring that saying has done a lot of harm; it is the reason why many private people do hot have eggs in winter, for they give their fowls wheat all the year round, instead of giving it only 'during the cold season when fowls require such stimulant. It is a known fact that .hotels and boarding-houses make bad layers of the best breeds, simply because the birds have daily too much kitchen refuse and stimulants, which does not even fatten the fowls when the stuff is too soft and, greasy, as such food generally is. • When Reaumur says, for instance, that there is an economy of two-fifths in the quantity of wheat or barley eaten, after it has swollen by boiling he is correct, but he is entirely wrong when he says that .here is no advantage in boiling oats, for fowls will swallow the same quantity of both boiled and raw oats. In fact, a fixed number of fowls will eat either four pints of raw oats or the seven pints that the same quantity will fill after being boiled. If that scientist had investigated further he would have seen that the drop* pings of fowls fed with raw grain contain a lot of grain which have passed undigested through the fowls, with a quantity of husk.- When such droppings are dried over one fifth of the raw stuff can be reconstituted. ■ When the grain has been boiled, or only soaked for twenty-four hours, no visible trace can be found in the droppings; all the material has been properly digested without waste. The economy is manifest, the risk of disease is reduced, for the fowls are not so much tempted to' scratch droppings to extricate grains which may have passed through diseased fowls. For adult fowls and sitters especially the soaking is recommended against gorged crops, but it is not .advisable to use it for chickens under five weeks old.

In conclusion, with boiled wheat or barley the economy goes as far as threefifths,but the fowls do not thrive well; they will not eat eagerly. In fact the boiling of any kind of grain changes its composition and texture far more than the soaking ; therefore it is advisable to steep all the grain for twenty-four hours in cold water, then drain it and put in the troughs. The average economy is only 33 per cent, or one-third of the raw quantity, but the birds thrive splendidly.