Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09
RAISING FEED FOR POULTRY.
It Saves Money, Time and Bother
Dangers in Purchased Feed.
From the New York Tribune


One Of the serious problems of poultry
raising is the food supply. The average
farmer or small poultryman may not con-
slider the question of feed very important,
but when his flock increases until 1t num-
bers hundreds or possibly thousands he will
find that not only the cost of feed, but the
labor and worry of getting it. are quite a
drain upon his purse, his time and his en-
ergy. Some may be favorably situated for
purchasing feed and others may have every
facility for raising it, but most poultrymen
are taxed severely either to buy or raise it.
The idea that a chicken does not eat much
Is put before amateurs and novices but it
Is well to tell all beginners fairly at the
outset that poultry feed is scarce and high
priced. With this idea in mind the would
be poultryman will be more likely to make
plans relating to his feed supply, and he
Will be less likely to meet with embarrass-
ment and disappointment later on.
1t looks easy and simple enough to go to
town or to send to town and buy outright
little corn, wheat, oats, bran, buckwheat
or other feed. But when you have several
hundred fowls you find that 1t takes more
than little to keep them properly Feed
costs money, and half the time the kind of
feed you want is difficult to obtain even II
you have the money. Many poultryman
is feeding this very day corn when he pre-
fers wheat, or vice versa, simply because
his local market is out of the kind of
grain he most needs. And often when he
can find what he wants in warehouses and
elevators he must pay much mora than il
Is worth on the market. But this is not
all. He must take what he can get. pay
what they ask and be satisfied with the
most inferior quality. 'Boughten' feed
may be light, sour, trashy. dirty and dis
eased. few years ago one of my neigh
bors lost most of his fowls by cholera or
some similar disease. Another neighbor
soon began to lose his fowls by the same
Illness Investigation proved that the sec
ond neighbor had been buying corn of the
first neighbor. and inasmuch as the fowls
of the first had free access to the corn
crib, nearly every ear OF corn in that crib
was more or less contaminated and carried
the germs of disease.
How often have found feathers in oats
or wheat that l have purchased How
often have found lice or nits upon these
feathers! Even this season when I could
not account for the lice, upon fowls in new
buildings l found that the delivery wagon
that brought my grain was coated on the
bottom with lousy feathers and that it was
used with rack to haul poultry from the
farms to the market. Surely this was an
unpleasant discovery. but it fully account
ed for the presence of vermin upon my
chickens When the bags of grain were
drawn from the wagon whole handsful of
feathers were raked off and left uron the
ground. l do not believe 1t Is one-haIf the
trouble to keep vermn and disease from
ones premises If he raises his own feed as
1t is If he buys it. l could write an hour
and tell story after story about the trou-
BILE have had with "boughten" feed The
dealer has no respect for the poultry bust
ness; he thinks anything is good enough
for chickens. and unless you look out he
VIII have saved up a lot of moldy or I'M
salable stuff. The disadvantages of buying
feed can be summed up:
You pay high price, you buy what you
don't want, you get inferior quality, you
BUY disease germs and yermin Won have
strange men and strange horses about your
yards and you waste a great deal Of time
going and coming. Therefore, would
strongly urge these who think of going
into chickens to make plans for going into
feed first. Unless you can raise the most
of your feed or are unusually well located
for buying 1t you will find the poultry bust
ness disappointment. Plan for feed as
well as for fowls. Raise your own feed and
control your own grounds. Raising your
trouble.
Nothing in these lines should be con-
strued as against the practice that most
successful poultrymen have of buying
chick food scraps, bone and other pre-
pared feeds These are all useful and
there are times when almost every chicken
man Will need to buy them. Some of them
are really excellent preparati TONS most of
them are clean and sometimes 1t Is cheaper
to buy them than TO stop in the midst Of
busy season to manufacture them at home.
But when 1t comes to the general supply
OF food for large flock OF fowls 1t Is usual
ly better TO raise 1t than to buy It, Two
acres or wheat. two acres of corn, two
the same of sunfowers Will Just about feed
1000 fowls one winter. and II leaves you
straw forage, scratching material and
roughage enough to pay for the labor of
raising 1t, and you have the land for range
Just when you need II.