The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-03-03
THE FARM AND HOME.
EXTREME NOTIONS REGARDING
FOOD FOR POULTRY.
Fowls Need Variety OF Fooas-Shall
the Hogs Be Hinged Yellow and
White Corn-S.ock Notes
AMI Home Hints.

In these days when it is quite the
fashion with a certain class OF poultry
writer's to ''cry down. the use of corn
for poultry food. It is quite refresh
ing to come across a streak of common
sense like that in Myron Sumner Per-
kins' article when he says that poultry
require an abundance and variety OF
all three classes of food, viz. animal.
vegetable and mineral in order to
maintain healthful and profitable ex-
istence." The trouble with a good
many poultry keepers. writes Fannie
Field. and poultry writer's. too. is they
get cranky-run to extremes The
man who gets a notion that corn is
not just tbs thing for hens. and there
fore feeds no corn, is just about as far
out Of the way as the one who feeds
corn about all the time, and the
poultry keeper who makes vegetables
and clover hay the chief food, is quite
as wild as the one who keeps his fowls
confined to a steady diet of meat
scraps and wheat bran. If you will
keep Brother Perkins advice in mind
consider that fowls like and must
have some variety, and be 'mejum"
in your feeding of anything, you will
find poultry keeping much more profit
able than you would if you were to
follow the advice of those who believe
in feeding the same kind of food about
365 days in year.
Better than the pressed beef scraps.
is the animal meal'' which is pre-
pared and sold for poultry food. This
animal meal is dry and mealy-all
ready to be mixed. with the mash,
while the pressed scraps must be
chopped and soaked.
Fowls do seem TO like cabbage bet
ter than any other green food you can
give them in winter but never could
see the sense in hanging the cabbage
head up partly out of reach so as to
compel the fowls to jump for it. Give
them exercise" OF course it does;
but when you think it over does it
seems as if that were the best way for
the fowls to take exercise? Is Jump
ing up and down the way a hen takes
exercise when she can suit herself?
Not much; she rambles around and
scratches. Then put the cabbage
where the fowl can get it without
jumping tor it. and furnish exercise
by scattering some of their grain
among litter, or by giving them d
bundle Of unthreshed grain to scratch
over.
Hens are awfully aggravating
some of them. We have four or i've
obstinate pullets that will not roost
under cover. We have coaxed. ar
gued, entreated, commanded, threat
ened, and night after night shut them
up. but all to no purpose. They will
stay under cover just as long as they
are shut in. and no longer. 1t does
not look we'll for poultry writer who
lectures other people about letting
their poultry roost in trees to allow
even four misguided pullets to roost
on tree right beside the public road.
but my patience has given out and
those pullets may roost there until
this time next year for all that I care
or shall do to prevent them. 1 can
stand it if they can. The meanest
most exasperating part of the affair is
that those pullets are laying right
along at rate that ought to shame
those that roost under cover And
while l am about it may as well tell you
that they have a square meal OF whole
corn seven nights every week.
One of the Ohio Farmer readers
wants to know if lin order to be con-
sidered a standard bird a fowl must
come up to the standard description
for that breedP" Certainly not The
standard describes perfect bird-sets
mark for breeders to aim at but the
perfect bird has not yet been exhib-
tied. By standard Bird is meant
one that is not disqualified by defects
that are mentioned under the head of
disqualitications