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Show mm' USES FOR DIFFERENT FCWLS Poultry, Other Than Chlcksns, Have Important Place in Increasing Needed Food Supply. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) The hen. first and last, Is the main dependence for increasing the supply of white meat and eggs, but she requires re-quires the aid of turkeys, guineas, geese, and ducks, just as, on a dairy farm, the cow requires the aid of pigs, sheep, and goats. The setting of the standard at 100 hens per farm is safe, but no such arbitrary standard can be set for the other kinds of poultry. The small farm, with grain fields of neighboring farms in proximity to tha barn and doorynrd, would, perhaps, be better without turkeys. The farm through which no streams ruu and which lias no large pond would perhaps per-haps be better without ducks. But the circumscribed farm on which turkeys tur-keys would he a disadvantage may be well supplied with streams and ponds so that ducks would be unusually profitable, and the farm that has no streams and ponds may have large range for turkeys. Each farm family will have to determine for itself what poultry can be profitably kept in addition ad-dition to 100 hens, bearing in mind always that an adequate number should be kept of all the kinds for which free range can be found. Turkeys, ranging farther afield, prey upon insect forms that escape the hens. From the time the young are old enough to begin foraging for themselves, perhaps early in June, until un-til near frost, turkeys take the bulk of their food from field insects, devouring de-vouring millions of grasshoppers and other injurious forms in meadow and pasture. In regions where wooded areas are still fairly extensive, mast is an important Item in the diet of the turkey. When the insect stores begin be-gin to fail, the mast larders are beginning be-ginning to be filler!. Feeding on acorns, chestnuts, beech, nuts, and the like, turkeys will go a long way toward fattening themselves for the Thanksgiving Thanks-giving or Christmas market and will not require much feeding 'of corn or Other grain to finish them. Generally speaking, turkeys will Tequire a larger feeding of grain than 'Chickens to fit them for market, but, as they utilize forms of waste that liens ' and their broods would not Teach, the keeping of a fair number of turkeys is good economy. Guinea fowls utilize still other kinds of waste that would escape both hens and turkeys. Taking a wider range than chickens and yet not quite so wide as turkeys, keeping largely to thickets and weed patches, and committing com-mitting fewer depredations against field and garden than either chickens or turkeys, requiring little feeding at any time, being prolific layers, during their season of eggs that are thought by many to have a richer and finer flavor even than hen eggs, the guinea fowl is an economic necessity on any farm where a serious effort is made to convert all waste Into meat and eggs. Geese hold still another sector in the. line of the poultry army that makes war against waste. They touch Hanks with the chickens in utilizing waste grain about stables and feeding pens. In a larger measure than chick- j ens or any other' kind of poultry, they are grazing stock, taking their living in large part from the ordinary grasses of the pastures. The one kind of poultry of questionable question-able economic status on farms is the pigeon. Almost exclusively a grain eater, the pigeon renders no notable service as a conserver of waste, except ex-cept it might be shattered grain in the fields, and that in larg measure would be taken up by other poultry and by pigs. The pigeon has its econ imic place In the scheme of urban poultry production, but, except In isolated instances in-stances where conditions are peculiarly peculiar-ly favorable, its production on general farms may not be desirable. |