THE POULTRY YARD.

Northern Advocate, 26 April 1921, Page 4

THE POULTRY YARD.

I HOW TO FEED FOWLS. I Use the best procurable grain and bran and pollard- While sonic find |it convenient to give the mash at ! night (a very old method, oy the i way), the usual practice is to give lit in the morning - , and the time should be at a regular stated hour, and on no account at irregular times. Fowls and poultry in general are creatures of habit. If they are accustomed to mash at 8 o'clock '.n the morning and are kept waiting for half an hour or so they fret, and you lose many prospective eggs- On no account should mash be thrown on the ground. Yet this is a very comm-on habit with the ordinary owner- Most of the experienced breeders use proper troughs or pans. When wet mash is thrown on the ground it\ is certain to become contaminated .with filth or disease r;-erms. Make sufficient meat meal ,?oup to moisten the morning's mash, using net more than one ounce of ' meatmeal for six or seven hens at this time of year, and half the quan-.l tity in the flush of the laying season. Add salt at the rate of one tablespoonful for 100 fowls (a small saltspoonful—flat, not heaped—for 7to 10). Pour this on the bran, stir and allow to swail for a few minutes- Now add, of chaffed green ■ food twice the bulk of bran, mix well, and dry off with twice the bulk of pollard as bran, and dry off to a crumbly mass. Give as much as the birds will cat in say 20 minutes. This is a cold weafher mash- In the summer you use three times as much green food. At mid-day give the in chaffed green food well sprinkled with pollard. At about 4 p.'m.,

at this time, of year, feed good* wheat at rate of a handful per hen in a clean scratching litter. If the birds are thin you may give them a light feed of mash at mid-day- See that they have a grit~tin under , cover, in which' put a mixture of hard grit, gi'i, r.nd fine charcoal. Fresh watei; twice a day in clean receptr.cler niu?t b|? the vale. On no account us a egg foods, spices and such hnvmfal nostrums. Frov'.de green food daily. Skimmed milk on dairy farms can be fed to fowls. Crushed maize can be fed spar- ( ingly in cold weather. i' A good .way to make sure that ' there are no red mites about is to examine the porches at night. One of the chief weaknesses in farm poultry-keeping is boarding too ! many old-age pensioners. Don't forget that a change of food or quarters Will' invariably cause the pullet to go into moult at this season of the year. Deep open-front houses, without draughts, containing ampie litter for the birds to scratch in are essential to winter egg-pvoductfon.

•Fowls relish green food the whole yee.r round- Remember, it reduces the grain account.