FEEDING PROBLEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20099, 9 November 1928, Page 6

FEEDING PROBLEMS.

DRY AND SOFT FOODSTUFFS. A well known poultry authority says: — "A comparison between dry and soft foodstuffs, and a natural diet should mako it very evident to anyone that tho adoption of a system of feeding chickens with dry foodstuffs rather exclusively is a grave mistake In dry foodstuffs there is about 86 per cent, of solid matter, and m no natural diet is there ever more than 48 per cent., and tho average is far less. An excess of solid matter overtaxes tho kidneys, and also <ho digestive organs, and sooner or later, if there is a continued excess in tho diet of any creature, the kidneys and other organs become overloaded with waste matter and diseased, and in all cases the creatine becomes prematurely need. In dry foodstuffs there is not an average of 12 per cent of flesh-forming elements in tho solids. As a matter of fact, it is not possible to employ more than a very small proportion of drv foodstuffs, and to feed a suitable and properly balanced diet to chickens, or to poultry, and the future usefulness of stock poultry depends upon the chickens being suitably fed. '1 hough it is not possible to employ more than a very small percentage of dry foodstuffs, and to feed a suitable and properly balanced diet to chickens, on the contrary it is an easy matter to employ soft foodstuffs, and to feed with a suilnble and properly balanced diet. Tt is the case that there is a little more trouble in feeding with food that has to be prenared. overfeeding with drv foodstuffs, and this has led to the ready adoption of a dry system of feeding by many keepers of poultry, but such a system must in the long run prove disastrous to stock fed on such erroneous lines, and prove most troublesome find •worrying."