FEEDING HORSE CHESTNUTS AND ELDERBERRIES TO POULTRY

Abstract

THE commercial poultry keeper, faced with an J. acute shortage of concentrate feeding stuffs, has been compelled to exercise considerable ingenuity in finding suitable supplements to eke out his food allocation and so maintain a reasonable proportion of his pre-war numbers of stock. The same problem, although to a lesser degree, has confronted the domestic poultry keeper, who is allocated sufficient meal to furnish approximately half the daily food requirements of his birds. Thus a person qualifying for rations for only four birds requires an additional half-pound of dry food substance in order to provide a satisfactory daily ration for this number of stock. It is estimated1 that the daily amount of edible waste in the average small English household is approximately one pound of fresh substance, or approximately four ounces of dry matter. The further daily requirement of four ounces of palatable and nutritive dry matter must, therefore, be derived from other sources. The poultry Press, adopting the principle that no potential food source, however small in quantity relative to needs, should be despised, has frequently suggested the nutritive possibilities of natural food materials and requested youth movements and other voluntary services to collect acorns, horse chestnuts and beech mast for stock feed.