At first it might seem that too much was claimed for alfalfa if written of as a specially valuable adjunct in poultry raising. The poultry industry of the United States is making wonderful advances, and the volume of its returns is enormous; the figures are well-nigh incredible. One of the handicaps is disease. Poultry men are a unit in saying that where alfalfa in any form can be supplied to poultry disease is almost unknown. Fowls like it green, and whether allowed the run of the field or it is given to them daily they eat it greedily and thrive. Many farmers say emphatically that the hens lay more and larger eggs when allowed alfalfa in any form. Its nitrogen contributes to the albumen of the eggs and to the growth of the young chickens.
MAY INFLUENCE EGG FERTILITY
Scientific tests of feeding alfalfa to poultry have not been made, but, no doubt, will be in the near future. If it is found that the eggs are larger when the hens are given alfalfa, it may also be found that the percentage of fertility is greater. For years the complaint has been made by farmers and poultrymen that there are too many infertile eggs. The financial losses are great if a fourth or third of the eggs used for incubation prove infertile. It would seem that the same elements that contribute to the growth of the hatched chicken should also add to the vitality of the embryo, increasing the percentage of fertility and adding to the vigor of the newly hatched chick.
AIDS IN PREPARING FOR MARKET
The growth of young chickens is greatly aided by alfalfa. One man reports an experiment with five hundred capons, hatched early in March, that averaged in December nearly eight pounds and sold in the city market at nineteen cents per pound. They were given the run of a patch of alfalfa for a time and ate little other feed. Later they were put in the yards and fed with alfalfa cut into short lengths, with a little grain; still later alfalfa meal was added, with a little wheat. Then, finally, alfalfa hay was cut and steamed and added to the ration. The cost of maintenance and fattening must have been small compared with the large returns.
This item is from the Harper, Kansas, Sentinel: A subscriber tells us that the mites and chicken lice were completely driven out of his barn and hen house, as soon as he had alfalfa hay put in his barn and used it in the house for nests. He says that before the hay was cut, it was impossible to keep a horse in the barn or to have a hen hatch a nest of eggs, but neither mites nor lice can be found now. This is a new use for alfalfa, but if it does the work, it will be lots cheaper than buying poisonous decoctions and spraying pumps to get rid of lice and mites, the greatest pests to poultry raisers.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Alfalfa Food Preparation
The growing appreciation of alfalfa as a stock and dairy food and the expense of baling and shipping it as hay, the loss of leaves, and the liability to heat and mold unless well cured, have led to the manufacture from it of several food preparations. These in some cases are made by simply grinding into a meal, and in others by mixing the meal with molasses, or a variety of food products, and assumed condiments and appetizers.
The Colorado station in a feeding test concluded that the ground alfalfa was not an economical feed for fattening pigs. With cut alfalfa hay costing $8 a ton and ground alfalfa $16 a ton the cost of producing one hundred pounds of gain with the former was $2.62 and with the alfalfa meal $3.12. With corn and cut alfalfa hay fed in equal parts by weight the cost of producing one hundred pounds of gain was $2.72. With corn and alfalfa meal fed in equal parts by weight the cost was $3.96. It is not improbable, however, that better results would have been obtained if a less proportion of ground or cut alfalfa had been fed. It is also probable that the hog’s grinding machinery is better adapted to his digestive apparatus than is any other.