The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-10-24
U;,,er Food for Poultry

We have before alluded in the col
umps of the Farmer to the Importance
of supplying fowls with animal tood.
There is even greater need OF attenIlon
being paid to this during the later
moaths of the fall and through the
winter, than in the summer months;
because the fowls can then, IN Il meas
ure, obtain their own supply by catch
ing winged insects, and picking up
worms. When scarcity occurs, they
will scratch the ground and unearth
anything that may be below the sur
face, be it worm or seed, as every gar
dener knows to his sorrow.
But in the winter all such operations
are suspended. The insects burrow
deep and the earth freezes over them,
or else they perish outright. The hens
are thenceforth put on an allowance of
corn, having less change in the matter
of food than State prison convlctS en-
ioy, Now hens will eat corn and thrive
on it, to a certain extent, when they
can get nothing else to devOur. They
NAV keep fat, and prepare themselves
to be devoured at Christmas, but they
will lay very few eggs, and are liable
to become unhealthy.
To insure good supply of eggs dur
ing the winter, we must feed our hens
with materials that contain good sup
ply of those substances from which eggs
are formed. Fresh meat chopped fine,
bits of fish, rinds of cheese, and such
like things saved from the table to-day,
will come back to the table in due
time, in the form of new laid eggs.
That the poultry may remain healthy
during the winter, they should Occa
sionally be fed with vegetables. Boiled
cabbage is good and the same may be
said of potatoes aud carrots. Too many
farmers reverse the food that should
be fed to hogs and poultry. They give
the hogs all the warm, cooked leavings
from the table, and furnish the hens
with breakfast, dinner, and supper from
the corn. crib. The opposite rule would
be the better one, for both hen and hog,
Hens like q variety of food, and Ia
the winter when they are kept In close
quarters, and their digestion Is accord
inglv impaired, from want of eXercls",
they require some cooked food. One
winter when eggs were scarce and high
we obtained from dozen young Brah-
mas all the eggs we wanted for pies and
puddings as we'll as for serving up
''fried or on the half SHE'LL" and this is
how We did it: we gave the hens, once
day, good meal of hash, much such
an article as is prepared for the table,
only made of less choice material; we
took cooked meat, boiled potatoes and
onions, chopped them together and sea-
soned with pepper. Such dish is not
costly one-livers and scraps of meat
rejected on the table, potatoes and
onions TOO small to use, and little fat
that would go into soap grease, will,
when chopped and warmed up, make a
savory dish for the fowls in tho hen
merry.
In preparing for obtaining eggs we
must not forget that the eggs will re-
Uuire shells. For this end we should
Law suitable amount of bones, or else
should pulveriZe such as are IN the
meat we are daily cooking, and keep
this where it will not become covered
with filth. Besides this, the fowls
should have, from time t. time, some
coarse, sharp sand or gravel, to serve
the place of teeth.