Soaked Food For Chicks

Soaked stale bread collects in the bowels and forms a hard mass, resembling a cartridge for a revolver, and is like stone; this obstructs the passage and wil not move. The chick droops around a few days and then dies. Several such cases came under onr notice the past two years. Stale soaked bread fonned a large part of their daily food. On adjoining farms where bread was not used no cases occurred. We mean in chicks and young turkeys, says The Poultry News. The Fanciers' Journal, commenting on the foregoing, says: "More chicks are sent to an. early grave by 'soakod food than anything olse. A chicken likes granulated foods best, and coarsely ground wheat, corn and oats are relished by even very young chicks. Cracked rice, worth about 3% cents per pound, can be used in the mixture occasionally. With dry food ;he chicks require plenty of drink. A 'avorite food in use by some poultrymen s a bread made of bran one-third, jround oats one-third and cornmeal one;hird, mixed with milk and baked hard. This bread is broken or ground up coarsely and fed dry." It is a popular belief that hard boiled eggs furnish the best possible feed for newly hatched chicks. The Southern Fancier takes exceptions to this general rule and says: "We do not hesitate to denounce all such epicurean dishes as hard boiled eggs, milk toast, etc., and strongly advocate the simplest diet obainable. For young chicks we know of nothing better than cornmeal cooked nto what is commonly known as johnny cake. This at first, and afterward wheat and cracked corn."