Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1867-12-11


ALLOWING POULTRY TO FEED THEMSELVES.
When fowls have access to grain all the
time we see them eat in the morning only
few kernels at a time, and after an hour or so
they will take few kernels more, and thus
they pass the entire day by eating little at
time, and very often.
The philosophy Of their eating 80 frequently
and but little at a time, is the food has a suf-
ficient time to become softened in the crop be-
fore it passes into the gizzard and it has suffi-
cient time to be thoroughly ground and diges-
ted whereas, when fowls are not allowed to
have access to their food, but are fed once or
twice day, they become very hungry, and
swallow as much as their crops will hold at
one feeding Now for several hours no food
will be sufficiently soitened to pass into the
gizzard, consequently their grist mill must
stand idle. Now the moistened grain swells
and distends the crop OF the fowl, and it feels
| by no means comfortable. Shortly all the food
in the crop is in the proper condition to be
ground, and the result is that it is forced
! through the gizzard with so much rapidly
that it is not half ground and, therefore, can ,
not lie half digested and if it is not half di-
gested. of course not half the nutriment, or
| egg producing material can be extracted from
it. Nor is this the greatest draw back atten-
ding feeding fowls only once or twice day
When fowl fills its crop at one feeding before
the food can possibly get out of it, it begins
to heat up, and arrangement and indigest ion
follow, very much as is the case when we fill
our stomachs as full as they can be crammed.
The way TO feed fowls, and particularly
those that are laying or being fattened, is to
allow them to have free access to food at all
times In this way they can always supply the
demands OF their stomachs and grinding APP
psratus, exactly as food is needed and the y
will fatten more rapidly, or lay more eggs, and
consume much less food than they will eat
twice day.
My practice now is, and always has been,
to allow my fowls to have free access to corn
in the ear all the time, both summer and win
ter. OF course they are obliged to shell it for
themselves. Occasionally we feed them screen
ings, and when we have no screenings, we take
peck or so of wheat, and as much buck wheat
oats, barley or rye, and mingle them all to-
gether, and mix the grain witAsome chaf, so
that they will not be as liable to consume al
much OF it at once as If 1t were clear grain
| When we have an abundance Of milk, we place
a vessel containing it where they can find it al
any time. In warm weather, after it has be.
come loppered, they will consume, during the
day, much more of it than one would suppose
and milk is as good to fatten poultry and max,
chickens grow, as it is for pigs; and it is on,
Of the very best kinds of food for any kind o
poultry, when they are laying.-[S s. Edward,
Todd.
think that the different kinds Of food Civ
en- to young chickens has nothing to do with
their having the gspes. Chickens raised at al
old settled place, are very liable to gapes-
are sure t. have it il chickens have been breC
there a number Of years. have had ehicken
have it badly in my yard, and put brood gu
in the woods where none have been, and no
one will have il, and yet they were by tn,
same cock and from the same hens. hay,
raised hundreds Of them in the woods, ant
never yet saw one of them cape, but were a.
thrifty as partridges.
Ducks, goslings and turkeys will have tn,
gspes more or less, if raised altogether in
yard, and | never yet saw one have it il per
United to have good range indeed it ia use
less to attempt to raise turkeys in large mum
bers without large range.
A few years ago lady told me that all o
her young chicks had died Of gaps, and that al
Irish woman living in shanty in the wood
had raised several hundred. and all of then
were Matched out Of eggs that she had sol,
her, none Of them having the gapes. l toll,