NOTES AND NOTIONS FOR THE NOVICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18091, 26 February 1927, Page 28

NOTES AND NOTIONS FOR THE NOVICE.

BALANCED RATIONS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF GREEN FOOD. Gone are t-he elates when one grain was deemed equal in value to another as a poultry food. This is the day of balanced, rations, when the constituent parts of every grain and grass aie known, and the chemist has decided what the ideal food for every beast in the field, and even the humble barndoor hen. Much has been learnedly ■written on the topic, but, put briefly, the composition of food is made up of albuminoids or flesh-formers, fats or oils, and carbo-hydrates. All poultry foods also contain a certain amount of water. Bran, for instance, contains 14 per cent.—-the chemist alone knows how, and anyone who has ever tried to eat bran will wonder where it is—salts or minerals, and husk or fibre. There are exceptions to this latter, as neither rice nor potatoes contain any husk. Broadly, however, food is subdivided into three parts, and the aim of the feeder should be to obtain a certain nutritive ratio between them. It is generally agreed that the proportion of albuminoids should be 1:5, and so when a portion of the food is deficient in the former the lack should be made up in other ways. Thus, fowls led largely on maize, which contains only 10 per cent, of albuminoids, need plenty of animal food, which, of course, are very rich in albuminoids. Many years ago, before the era of scientific feeding, an agricultural societv-, now defunct, offered a prize for the farmer who made the best profit out of his fowls. Ihe prize was won b^ 7- a competitor who led his fowls entirely on maize, and this seemed rather puzzling. It was not at first discernible how the fowls thrived on maize and nothing else twelve months in the year; but the reason was that they had a free range, and picked up a large amount

of animal food. Unconsciously, there fore, they “balanced” the maize, and approached nearer the ideal food than one would have imagined. \ diet of maize and unlimited green bones has also been found successful in the United States. The drawback, of maize is not so much its lack of albuminoids-—that, as we can see, can be corrected, and wheat is little better off in that particular respect—but its excess of starch, which has the effect of depositing layers of yellow fat round the liver and internal organs. Plenty of exercise is the best cure for this; hence fowls of an active disposition, like Leghorns, and with a free range, can best carry oil a maize

diet. Asiatics are accused of being specially prone to liver disease if led on maize; but this merely means that with their lethargic habits they do not walk off the effects of the maize in the same way as more active breeds do. Rice is little better than dry starch, and a very bad chicken food, unless it is boiled in milk. When given to ducklings, as readers possibly know, greaves are always added to the saucepan, thus supplying the deficiency. Potatoes are rich in carbo-hydrates, and for the rest contain 50 per cent, of water. They go best with bran, which contains 15 per cent, of albuminoids. The best food of all would be oats but for the husk, and hence the nearest to the ideal food is oatmeal or ground oats. A food which would be of great value to the poultrykeeper, could he obtain it cheaply, 'is sunflower seeds. It is rich in albuminoids and fats—a somewhat rare commination—and fowls arc very fond of the grain. But, though a mixture of grain gives us the nearest approach to the ideal food, it is not veil to feed the same mixture the year round, howls wouid find it as monotonous as we would mutton chops 365 days in the year. It is enough for the ordinary poultrykeeper to bear in mind the constituent parts of the grain he is using. Powls will weary of oats, and the excess of husk may trouble them. Wheat and buckwheat make a good change. Barney has very much the same constitu-

ent parts as maize, and is not a grain which should be much used. In a state of nature an important proportion of a fowl’s diet consists of green food. In captivity it has to depend for its green ration, equally with its corn and meal, on its owner. Some poultry-keepers have very imperfect ideas as to the kind of green food a fowl needs; so long as there is grass, more or less green, available for it, they think that enough. But only young and tender blades of grass are eatable—rank, overgrown herbage is no good—and thus poultry often starve lor green food when, apparently, there is some of a kind available. Those who keep fowls on earth runs should take care the birds have a plentiful supply of grass and garden greens. Grass clippings, if the grass is young, should always be thrown into the fowlrun, and weeds of all kinds. When dry weather conics, and the earth is hard, some fresh-dug tufts of grass should be given them—they eat the grass and scratch the sod lo pieces in search of worms, giving themselves employment as well as food. The value of garden greens for the poultry yard is not always realised. Some of us give them greens for a treftt—as a sort of extra; but green food is. in its wav, as important as corn and meal. Without it fowls go amiss, become anaemic, and cease to lay. White comb is almost always caused by lack of green loud. Liver

disease often begins from the same cause. When there is a garden available, a certain portion should be devoted to the cultivation stuff - not all cabbages, but various kinds. Lettuces are greatly liked by. fowls, and all root tops. The stuff should, in all cases, be given quite fresh. In Sussex the value of nettles for fowls is known, and the weed utilised—it lias medicinal and cooling properties, and is valuable in hot weather. The tops are boiled and then given to the fowls, and the water they are boiled in used for mixing the soft food. Another weed poultry enjoy are dandelion leaves—they are often gathered for turkey chicks, but ordinary chickens will equally appreciate them. Green food should be given regularly. A surfeit of it produces diarrhoea, especially if the supply previously ha» been scanty. One point sometimes forgotten is that green stuff can be given cooked as well as raw. This i the way clover is given in the United States, and breeders there speak high!-' of it as an cgg-producing food. All roots, too, can be boiled and given mashed in soft food.