Fowls at liberty usually pick up enough grit except where the land is deficient in sand and gravel Where gravel is scarce grit must be supplied. Besides, ordinary grit, it is desirable to supply other material for forming the egg shells. Grain does not contain sufficient lime for great egg layers. Oyster and other sea shells are largely used, since they are very readily dissolved in the gizzard. Lack of lime or other shell material in the ration often leads to the egg-eating habit among hens. Charcoal is useful as a bowel regulator. Many poultry keepers keep it constantly before the hens. Salt in moderation aids digestion. An ounce or two daily is sufficient for 100 hens. Pepper, which acts as a stimulant, should be fed sparingly. Vigorous hens do not need it. Fowls enjoy wet mash more than dry, but dry mash saves labor, since enough may be put in the hopper to last a week. When fed wet at least one feeding must be given daily. Since fowls eat wet mash more greedily than dry, more care must be exercised to avoid over-feeding. Where skim milk is available the ration may be cheapened by using it to wet the mash. Bran and middlings may be made to take large quantities of milk, and thus to balance and cheapen the ration. When skillfully fed, wet mash should give better results in egg yield than dry.
Backyard heritage chickens eating kitchen food waste. The reddish-brown chickens are Rhode Island Reds.
Lack of green food is sure to affect egg production unfavorably. Flocks at range secure abundant green food, but flocks in yards and in winter quarters must be supplied. It may be fed without stint at all times. Among the best feeds are clover, alfalfa, grass, vetches, pea vines, rape, rye, mangels, kale, cabbages, sugar beets, turnips - in fact, anything and everything the hens will eat. During the winter cabbage is especially useful. Root crops are also good. The leaves and broken heads from the hay mow may be steamed if desired. Alfalfa and clover give good flavor and quality to eggs.
Animal food of some sort is desirable to maintain fowls in vigorous health and productivity. Probably no one thing has done more to increase profits than feeding animal food. Chickens when at liberty during summer secure abundant animal food in the form of bugs and worms. Something to take the place of this feed is necessary, especially when snow is on the ground. Lean meat is the best form to feed. It furnishes ample protein. The presence of a little fat does no harm and may be an advantage. Fresh meat scrap from the butcher is an excellent egg maker.
Skim milk is a good substitute for animal feed if given liberally, but it is not concentrated enough. When used as a drink hens will not take enough to supply their demand for animal feed. Milk is well used for mixing the wet mashes by feeding it clabbered, and best in the form of cottage cheese, which is a particularly good form when well made. The most convenient form of animal food is beef scrap, a by-product of the packing houses. It has been boiled and dried and contains meat and bone in varying proportions. It should always be light colored, have a meaty flavor and be rather oily to the touch. When boiling water is added to it, it should smell like fresh meat. If a putrid odor is given off it should not be fed.
A roomy scratching shed covered with 8 to 12 inches of straw is splendid for exercise. This straw should be dry and whole grain should be scattered in it. There will be no waste; the fowls will find the last kernel. The aim is to feed enough at a time without having to feed too often, so as to keep the hens busy most of the day. When too much feed is given at a time the fowls soon become satisfied and will stop eating. It is not essential to keep fowls scratching all the time. The more active breeds do nearly as well when fed from hoppers. When given a yard and a floor they will take sufficient exercise whether forced to scratch or not. For the larger, less active breeds, however, it is necessary to force exercise. Idleness ruins both health and egg production. No breed of fowls is injured by having exercise and most breeds profit decidedly.
Properly constructed poultry houses will not need special ventilation. But for good egg production there must be abundant fresh, dry air to remove dampness given off from the fowls' breath and from droppings. No way has been found so satisfactory as to have the house rather open on the front and tight on all other sides and the roof. The opening should be covered with burlap or other material to check draft and keep out snow and rain. Such houses may be somewhat cooler than houses more tightly closed, but the air will be pure, and pure air is far more important than warmth. This does not, however, mean that warmth is not also good.
No ventilating system compares in good results with one open at the front, but where one must be put in, it is best to have the vent near the floor with a tight box leading through the upper part of the house and through the roof. The inflow of air should enter near the bottom on the outside and be conducted to the ceiling so that it will be comparatively warm before it enters the house. Thus drafts will be reduced to a minimum and yet there will be sufficient circulation of air to remove moisture and impurities. Under no circumstances should a ventilating system be given preference over the more natural diffusion system already mentioned. The difficulties of making the thing work increase as the temperatures inside and outside approach each other, and also as the openings in the house increase.
Where fowls are kept in considerable number two plans are common - the colony plan and the long-house plan. The colony affords good range. The houses are exceedingly convenient for placing in orchards and fields, where by the aid of hoppers and drinking fountains the flock may be encouraged to take care of itself to a large extent. After the chicks reach a fair size and the hen has left them, roosts should be placed in the house.
These may be built in any style and shape. It is best to have the ceiling rather low. This favors warmth, because the fowls can keep the temperature comfortable if sufficient numbers are kept together. For permanent houses foundation walls should extend below the frost line and high enough to prevent the inflow of water during wet weather. Have the foundation rat proof and strong enough to support the building economically. Brick, stone, or concrete foundations are best as a rule. Floors should be smooth, hard, easy to clean, dry and durable. Unless ground is naturally dry it should be drained. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon securing dryness. A tight wall is essential.
The styles and arrangements of pens are legion. The open scratching shed is favored by many, since it provides space for the fowls to exercise in spite of any kind of weather. All sorts of modifications are found. Its chief advantage is that the fowls may go from house to shed, or the reverse, and thus feel more at liberty than if confined closely. They are also less likely to become excited if they have a means of escape when they want to get away from an attendant. Everything that makes for comfort should be secured when possible. The scratching pen is considered essential to good health of the fowls because it insures exercise and the fowls are not confined in too warm a room while they are busy.
Nests may be made of any kind of material, style or character. Preferably they should be darkened and placed in secluded parts of the house or yard. A favorite place for them is beneath the roosting platform. Where egg eating is discovered the dark nest is one of the best ways to eliminate the habit. Trap nests show which hens are the layers and which the drones. Where one is breeding for egg production they are a necessity.
More than 90 percent of the chickens sold as broilers come from poultry produced on egg farms, fancy yards and general farms where they are a by-product and must be got rid of quickly to prevent loss. Cockerels may pay more than the cost of feeding, but unless they can have free range they are not likely to pay the whole cost of their production, counting the value of the eggs, the cost of hatching and the labor and the feed, up to the time of their being marketed. Unless one has facilities for fattening and thus disposing of his cockerels as roasters or capons, it would be more economical to sell the broilers as soon as they are of marketable size.
A commercial meat chicken production house in Florida, USA
What is known in the market as a roaster is a fairly matured fowl large enough, either alone or with another roaster, to supply a family dinner. These fowls are most profitably raised by being allowed free range of the stubble fields, pastures, meadows and orchards, where they pick up a large share of their living between the time that they can leave the brooder or the mother hen and the time they are sold. Frequently they are fattened for two weeks or so before going to market so as to add a pound or more to their weight. They are more profitable than broilers raised in the ordinary way on the farm. It is a much disputed question whether pullets or hens do best as layers. Many poultrymen claim that pullets are superior, and, therefore, the more profitable, but there is nothing decided on this subject. Many egg farmers get excellent egg yields from hens two to four years old - fully as good as from pullets. Because of this fact, it is evident there is much in the method of management and in the breeding. For this reason a hen should not be sold so long as she lays well. A hen on the nest is worth two pullets in the field. In winter quarters and fed for eggs three special meals a day are desirable. For breakfast give a combination of several grains scattered deep in a loose litter. At noon give a mash, wet or dry, and with or without alfalfa and meat meal. For supper give grain in the scratching litter, feeding enough so that there will be some left for the fowls to begin on in the early morning when they come off the roosts. Layers of the egg type will consume about three ounces daily of the grain mixture, or about 18 pounds to each 100 fowls. Of the noon mash about five quarts will be required for each 100 fowls. It will take from 15 to 20 minutes for that number to clean up this quantity. If meat scrap is not included in the mash place in hoppers as a steady dish. Some green food should be fed each day. A ration recommended by one of the leading poultry schools for winter egg production is as follows : For grain, a mixture of 100 pounds of cracked corn, 100 pounds of wheat and 50 pounds of oats fed in deep litter sparingly in the morning and freely at night. Mash is fed in the afternoon in hoppers. The mash mixture consists of the following: 60 pounds of wheat middlings, 60 pounds of corn meal, 50 pounds of beef scrap, 30 pounds of wheat bran, 10 pounds of alfalfa meal, 10 pounds of linseed oil meal and a half pound of salt.
How to feed and what to feed chickens.
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