*

AZUL

x

AGEMEN

oN

e &

xT

D

=a
S
A
sto
="
= 5
x
ote

N

NEW AND PRACTICAL WORKS
POWER &%
y Eee AMATEURS MANU AS

Cnecitis Mating of Thoroweh-bred Fowl.

By I. K. FELCH, Naricx, Mass.
Published in Sept. 1877. PRICH, 75 cents.

Breeding Ani.

i me OF C0 —
Aimcuae Copgrintt Da...
aI Shelt iy

mit haste |) UN YPED STATES OF AMERICA.

so MATING

—OF—

fowls, Turkeys, Geege and Ducks,

being a second volume to the AMATEUR’S MANUAL, and to say that I have
the assistance of J. Y. BICKNELL in the Turkey and aquatic Givin is
enough to ensure the information as valuable.

It will be a book of valuable reading matter for all lovers of Poultry,
and will soon be ready for distribution. Price 50 cents.

MANUAL
mentioned

wlll

I by =
a a IN
a ish AN it Allg
Ean

SS

ee

FRELCH’S POULTRY-HOUSE,

HENRY F.

NATICK, MASS.

THE

BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT

POULTRY:
THOROUGH ERI HOR PRACTICAL USE

BY

uy

we
Vv fk. fa OL,
a NATICK, MASS.

aw, "OF ‘CONDS
— : OP Y RIG peas

™
> £807 f.
3 he 4

HYDE PARK: /.234
PRESS OF THE NORFOLK COUNTY GAZETTE.
1877.

Copyrighted by
PAGS EE BIC EF,
1877.

(2g4 add bade

— eS

INC UBATORs

AND THE

ARTIFICIAL REARING OF CHICKENS.

That poultry husbandry has become one of the
largest of our productive industries, is now quite
: generally appreciated and admitted.

Its capabilities, however, have not yet been
dreamed of, for when the artificial hatching and
rearing of chickens in large numbers have: been
proved practicable to the people generally, there is
actually no limit to the extension of this industry.
The demand for early chickens among the hotels,
restaurants and wealthy families of our large cities
is immense, and it is constantly growing. The
supply is entirely inadequate even at the highest
prices, and the field for remunerative labor in this

4 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

direction is very broad. There are thousands of
persons of limited means, who, provided they were —
supplied with a perfectly reliable incubator, could at
a very small outlay of capital and labor add to their
means very materially and surely. Such labor as
would be required in this industry would be of the
very lightest, and could be performed easily by
women and even children. In fact, we know of
nothing else among the varied interests of rural life
that could be made so available to all as the artificial
rearing of domestic poultry. In addition to its use
in hatching chickens for market purposes simply, an
incubator is a prime necessity to the fancier and
pouiterer. |

Who has not desired to a out his chickens early,
yet has been disappointed either by the lack of sit-
ting hens, or by the method of sitting of those he
had secured. Who has not lost many clutches of
egos from his choicest birds; eggs that to him were
almost priceless, because he had no incubating hen
or machine to receive them at the critical time.

In our opinion the autumn exhibitions and sales
might be vastly enriched by great numbers of early
hatched, well developed birds, provided a perfectly
practicable and reliable incubator were available.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 5

It is not our intention to devote much space to a
review of all that has been done in the way of
artificial incubation abroad and at home. Neither
is it our design to describe the many clap-trap
machines that have been invented and sold in this
country to the great disgust of the buyers. We
venture to say there are more worthless incubators
scattered throughout the country, packed away in
garrets or cellars, and held by their disappointed
owners as so much trash than there are of all other
condemned machines.

That such is the case, proves there is a want for a
good and reliable incubator among all classes, and
it also proves that such has not yet been supplied.

The fact is, no incubator is of any value what-
ever, unless it contains within itself every principle,
every phase, and every condition that nature fur-
nishes for the incubation of the egg and the suc-
cesstul hatching of the chick.

In order that such an incubator should be created
it is first necessary that the egg and the embryo
should be studied in all the stages and wants of its
existence.

_ The egg is one of the most beautiful of created
things. It is, although apparently so simple, won-
derfully complicated yet entirely complete.

6 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

To the careless observer it consists of but two
elements within the shell, the yolk and the surround-
ing albumen. Yet the careful student finds within
these a multiplicity of features and conditions quite
beyond the vision of the ordinary experimenter.

Now to study an egg requires a trained hand and
eye. It also requires in the student, a knowledge of
anatomy and a skillful manipulation of the microscope.

As the embryo chick advances in growth and
perfection, it is necessary that every phase and re-
quirement of its embryohood should be studied and
understood. :

Professors Huxley, Agassiz, Foster, Balfour,
Bischoff, Dollinger, and Karl Ernst Von Baer,
have devoted years to the study of the egg, and to
their scientific labors we owe most of our knowledge
of embryology. |

Their studies were confined entirely to the phy-
siological life of the chick, and none of them pur-
sued their labors to an utilitarian end; that is, they
worked as scientists, not as inventors.

We have said that no incubator is of any value
unless it contains within itself every condition that
nature furnishes for the successful hatching of the
chick. As a rational deduction from this, no one

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 7

can invent a successful incubator, unless he fully
understands what those essential conditions are.

It is very rarely that a scientist is a practical or
mechanical inventor; the requirements of the two
are so radically opposite, that they are not, as a rule,
combined in the same individual ; fortunately there
are exceptions to this rule.

Among the many incubators that we have exam-
ined, we take great pleasure in naming that invented
by Mr. Edward A. Samuels of Waltham, Mass.

‘This gentleman is well known throughout the
country as a naturalist, and one of his books, the
Ornithology and Odlogy of New England, is regard-
ed as standard authority. For many years he has
been a close student of nature, and his schooling in
this direction would apparently fit him for a study
of any of the phenomena of animated life.

Some eight years ago he commenced the study of
the egg and the chick, and to facilitate his work, he
made an artificial incubator. It was of course a
rude affair, but it would hatch seventy-five per cent.
of the fertilized eggs placed within it.

The idea at that time, of inventing a machine for
general use, never, we believe, occurred to him. In
fact, until recently, he has made no effort in this

<<<
i
—

\

THE ECLIPSE SELF-REGULATING INCUBATOR,
EDWARD A. SAMUELS, Patetites aid Manufacturer,
WALTHAM, MASS.
Fig. 1 gives an illustration of the front and the boiler end. Thé doors:

open down to permit the drawing out of the egg drawers. The battery,
clock werk and lamp in actual use are arranged as here shown.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 9

line whatever, and we believe, we were among the
very first to suggest it to him. In compliance with
this hint, Mr. Samuels has, in the course of his
studies and experiments to perfect a machine practi-
cable for common use, used many thousands of
eggs, and constructed almost innumerable forms of
incubators; the result is ke has elaborated a machine
that is perfectly reliable and practical, and withal
one that follows nature as closely as can be done.

In an incubator it is essential, first, that it shall
maintain automatically a uniform heat, which shall be
so controllable that it may be regulated, or rather
self-varying, according to the advancement made by

the chick. Second, it shall furnish its own ventila-
tion and moisture.

These are absolutely all the essentials in a ma-
chine to be successful.

To ascertain the requisite degree of heat, Mr.
Samuels took numerous observations of the temper-
ature of the upper surface of the egg beneath
sitting hens, three times daily through their whole
terms of incubation.

His thermometer was one of the most sensitive
obtainable, and though the hens were sitting under
various conditions, the average heat in the different

10 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

specimens was about the same, and was greatest at
the commencement of incubation and least at the
close. A fact, by the way, quite in conflict with
the theory held by many persons both in this coun-
try and in Europe. s

The proper degree of heat ascertained, it was
necessary first to secure a uniform circulation and
distribution of it above the eggs. All who have had
any experience with incubators know their heat is not
radiated uniformly upon the eggs, those in the mid-
dle being quite hot, while those on the edges are
almost cold, too cool in fact to permit their
hatching. |

In order to secure the proper uniformity, a great
many forms were made, tested, and cast aside until
at length the best form was arrived at. All this
required a large outlay of time and money, but
nothing was permitted to stand in the way.

After the right degree and uniformity of heat
were attained, it was necessary that it should be
made controllable automatically, or so self-regula-
ting, as to follow the various needs of the embryo
chick ; that is to say, it was to be so made that it
would not only regulate its heat automatically for
the time being, but it would follow the process of

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 11

incubation, giving less and less heat as the time
drew near for the chick to be hatched.

After many disheartening trials, he, by the com-
bination of a small electric battery and a clock-work,
finally succeeded in securing this important result.
The moment the temperature within the incubator
reaches a certain point, an electric circuit is closed
by an ingenious pyrometer attachment, and this
operates on an electro magnet, the armature of which
instantaneously moves to the magnet ; in thus mov-
ing it releases the escapement of a clock movement,
causing a ventilator to open and the flame of the
lamp which furnishes the heat to be reduced to the
minimum point. When the heat in the incubator is
sufficiently reduced, the electric current is broken,
the ventilator closes, and the lamp again burns up
brightly. This is absolutely automatic, and it is
strictly reliable.

To secure the proper ventilation and moisture,
Mr. Samuels tried many plans, rejecting all until a
successful one was obtained.

To show how thoroughly the work has been done
we will give as an illustration, a single incident. He
had perfected his incubator, as he at one time sup-
posed, had secured a perfectly automatic control of

12. Breeding and Management of Poultry,

it, and the heat and moisture were of the proper
degree, yet the chicks did not hatch in anything
like the proper percentage. A few came out, but
most of them died after the fifth day of incubation.
At that time perfect ventilation of the eggs had not
seemed requisite, and it was only after proving be-
yond a doubt that it was at and after this stage of
the embryo’s existence that pure air should be sup-
pled in proper quantities, that an entirely new
model was tried and adopted.

The blood of the embryo chick is oxygenated
through the myriads of pores in the shell of the
egg; the sitting hen often rises to turn her eggs,
and whenever she moves fresh air has access through
her feathers to the embryos beneath her. Mr. Sam-
uels tested chemically, the air in one of the incuba-
tors, (such as I have said he discarded, ) full of eggs,
and found carbonic acid gas in deleterious quantities ;
the embryos had died from imperfect aeration of —
their blood... |. °

The apparatus.that-he has at last perfected is, as
we before stated, automatic, and it is so perfect in
its working that he has hatched recently as high as
eighty-five per cent. of the fertile eggs placed in
it. We may therefore call it a success.

TOR,

NCUBA

TING |

REGULA

THE ECLIPSE SELF-

Side View.

>

2

Fig,

r,

Patentee and Manufactuz2

3

EDWARD A, SAMUELS

MASS.

WALTHAM,

14 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

It is as we understand now patented, and the
manufacture of it has commenced. It can be sold,
as we are informed, for $60.00 for an incubator
large enough to contain three hundred eggs.

This price, as it includes the incubator, battery,
pyrometer, lamp, and everything complete, is very
low, and as it is within the reach of all we predict
for it a large sale.

The labor and supervision required in running it
are quite limited. The clock work needs winding
up once in two or three days, three turns of the key
being sufficient. The lamp needs filling once in
twenty-four hours. The battery requires once in a
fortnight or so, the addition of a gill of water accord-
ing to the evaporation. There is no turning or
sprinkling of the eggs needed. |

It may be readily seen from this that the care
required, is hardly greater than would be necessary
in managing a single sitting hen, and we doubt if
there is any possibility of anything like a successful
incubator being invented that would call for less
attention.

That the successful hatching of chickens artificially
has been proved beyond a doubt, and that they may
be reared in large numbers in a limited space with-

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 15

out the assistance of mother hens, Mr. Samuels, and
many others have also demonstrated.

To raise the many chickens hatched in his incuba-
tors in the course of his experiments, Mr. Samuels
constructed a house 90x15 feet in dimensions, and
of a height of nine feet at the front and five feet at
the rear. It faces the south, and the front and two
ends are of glass, the roof a lean-to shingled, and
the back clapboarded.

In this house he placed a green-house boiler large.
enough to heat it,and he adjusted the hot water
pipes which were four inches in diameter so that the
young chickens could brood beneath them. Of
course the pipes were wrapped with blanketing, or
other woolen material, and above them was fixed a
board covering from which were pendant strips of
buffalo skin or woolen cloth for the chickens to
creep under. When they were brooding beneath
the pipes they were as warm and comfortable as
they could possibly be beneath a hen. The cost of
house, boiler, and everything complete was about
$500.00 The proper degree of heat being thus
provided, all they required was absolute cleanliness,
a variety of food, a good space of clean gravelly
sand for their walk, and there was no difficulty in

@

16 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

raising many hundreds in the dead of winter, in the
small area we have named. |

An absolute necessity to chicks reared thus is that
one meal a day, of green food, should be furuished.
To supply this he sowed cats and winter rye in @
part of his chicken house, and as fast as it was used
another seeding was made.

In this house Mr. Samuels had at one time seven
hundred chickens of all ages, from those just hatched,
up to pullets laying and even wanting to sit.

When we state that these chickens were brought
up in flocks of 30 or 40, in pens 6x15 feet to each
flock; that they had never been out of these pens,
and that they were in perfect health, we think it is
shown conclusively that the thing is practicable and
that any one may do it under the same conditions.

All poulterers have heard of the mammoth estab-
lishment of Mr. Baker in New Jersey in which
thousands of chickens are reared artificially for the ©
early market, and many are acquainted with the
methods practiced in England and Contimental
Europe. Now it is not every one who has the —
means or the inclination for entering into the busi-
hess on these large scales, and we would say here
that the thing is practicable in as small a way as one

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 17

wishes. All that the chickens require is to be kept
absolutely clean, that they shall have a warm place
to brood in whenever they wish, and their food shall
be nutritious and varied.

We have known of instances where hundreds of
chickens have been reared during a winter when the
only brooding facilities afforded them consisted of
several wooden boxes lined with flannel or woolen
carpet or old buffalo skin, the boxes being placed
near a stove at night, and in severe weather. There
are many farmers who rear all their spring cbick-
ens in this way, and some of them sell several
hundreds of dollars worth every year. There is
absolutely no obstacle to the successful prosecu-
‘tion of this work, provided always that the chickens
are given the proper treatment. Jf they have
warmth, cleanliness, freedom from vermin, gravelly
sand to run on, a variety of food and a daily supply
of either chopped grass, oats, cabbage or lettuce, they
may be raised in any number desired. These con-
ditions are absolutely essential.

There can never be an artificial mother invented
that will equal the mother hen, and when we con-
sider the many failures of the hen to hatch her egos
in the early part of the season, we can see of what

18 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

value such an incubator as we have described will
be, for it makes every hen, inclined to sit, of far
more than double her original value, for she can be
furnished chicks to rear of double the number she
would be able to hatch, and in eases of failure to
hatch, a full brood of twenty to thirty chicks can be
supplied for her to rear. There is no artifical heat
to compare with the breast and feathers of the hen.

In leaving this chapter of our subject we offer in
substance our Essay before the Massachusetts State
Board of Agriculture. It is our idea of practical
poultry keeping, and we believe that if its instrue-
.tions are heeded, no better guide to the Farmers
and Poulterers of the land, can be given. The
colonization system as therein advised will be found
the best one to follow, and it adapts itself to the
small or large operator alike.

PART It.

ee

MAGNITUDE AND MANAGEMENT;

AND

DISCUSSION OF THE BOARD UPON THE
s SAME.

ALTHOUGH the poultry interest of the nation has
been considered of minor importance, yet when we
investigate, we find the egg and poultry product to
be much larger than any other agricultural product
or industry, and we become amazed at the amount
of wealth annually accumulated by practical poultry
keeping.

The census for 1870 informs us that the cotton
crop was 3,011,996 bales; the corn crop, 761,000,-
000 bushels; the wheat crop, 288,000,000 bushels ;
the value of all the cattle, sheep, and swine slaugh-
tered or sold to be slaughtered was $398,956,376 ;

20 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

the hay crop, 28,000,000 tons, valued at $14 (a
high estimate), was $84,000,000.

The assertion that the egg and poultry produce of
the States exceeds either of these large products, is
met with derision; yet it is true, and the produce
finds no rival save in the entire meat and dairy pro-
duct conibined.

Compute the nine millions of families in the States
as consuming but two dozen eggs per week, and
($20) twenty dollars’ worth of poultry per year,
and we have (computing eggs at twenty-five cents
per dozen,) over $405,000,000. Nor is this all.
Large as it is, to it must be added the consumption
by the saloons, restaurants, confectionery establish-
ments, our thousands of hotels, together with the
medicinal and chemical and exportation demand,
which will swell the amount to not less than five
hundred millions of dollars as the annual product of
the United States; an interest worthy of our consid-
erate investigation. When we commence to make
figures, we become surprised at their magnitude ; and
that you may not underrate the hotel consumption,
we will say that a New York innkeeper offers sixty
cents per dozen for three hundred dozen of eggs
per day, if he can find the party who will guarantee

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 21

their delivery fresh; and this is for the demand of
three hotels only. The consumption of meat to
each guest per day at the Grand Pacific, the pro-
prietor of the hotel informs us, is $2.50, and two-
thirds of that amount is for poultry and game.
Another item should be considered in this connec-
tion, and that is, thousands of prairie farmers, who
live so remote as to make the running of meat-
wagons unprofitable, are obliged to rely on their
farms for fresh meat, and it is a fact that two-thirds
of it is poultry and eggs. It is the custom with
them in early winter to kill and pack in snow and
ice the supplies of poultry for home use. This,
with the richer third of the population who consume
far more than the estimate offered, will more than
make up for the poor of our Eastern cities, who
consider poultry a luxury and seldom indulge in its
yse. With these items as data, we claim our estimate
of five hundred millions to be far less, rather than more
than the actual yearly product, which as we have said,
makes the industry of poultry breeding and keeping
one of the largest in which our farmers are interest-
ed. Like in comparison as the giant oak to its acorn
origin, is this large product, made up from the small
collections from the small flocks of fowls seen about

22 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

the door of the hamlet and the farmhouse, in num-
bers of 12, 20, 30, and 50, and where a larger
number is seen so rarely that they become the
exception. These flocks pay a large profit on their
cost of production, as may be seen by consulting the’
different societies’ reports. In 1858, we see that
thirty-eight fowls, kept in small yards, under un-
favorable circumstances, with a market at thirty-
eight cents for corn, sixteen and two-thirds cents for
eggs, and fifteen cents per pound for poultry, yielded
a net profit of $1.38 per head. In 1861, Mr. Mans-
field’s experiment with one hundred hens, having a
free range of the farm, consuming but ninety-three
bushels of corn or its equivalent, produced one hun-
dred and forty-seven eggs each (no chickens being
raised that year), and yielded a net profit on egg

alone, of $1.35 per head; to which, had the value
of the guano been added, the figures would have_
reached the sum of $1.60. These, and other state-
ments, are to be found in the Middlesex South
Society’s reports, of $2, $2.25, and $2.50 per head
profit per annum; and last, but not least, the banner
statement of Mr. Whitman in 1873. With fifty-one
Leghorns, which laid two hundred and seven eggs
each, which he sold for thirty-one cents per dozen,

«

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 23

the cost of keeping the fowls being $1.13 each, he
shows a profit of $4.04 per head, proving conclu-
sively that these small flocks pay much better with
care than do other farm stock.

All the different breeds will pay a handsome pro-
fit if furnished quarters suitable for their condition,
and properly cared for; and, generally, it is best
for the breeder to make a specialty of the kind his
taste shall dictate. But with our twenty years’ ex-
perience with all the so-called thoroughbred va-
rieties, we are led to advise, that, taking into con-
sideration the individual merit and associate worth,
the selection of Light Brahmas, Leghorns, and
Plymouth Rocks, for they will be found to pay the
best for extra care.

The Brahma is a superior winter layer, producing
the larger number of her eggs from October to May.
As poultry, the chicks have to be killed quite young,
—say eight to ten weeks old, as broilers; the most
profitable time, as roasters, being at eight months.
This makes them late as poultry; but to make up
for it in a measure, the virgin cocks are tender
enough for roasting at even twelve to thirteen
months, more so than the native at seven or eight

24 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

months, and in early spring, sell next in price to
capons.

The Plymouth Rocks are good average layers, and.
excellent mothers, their special merit being that
they are rapid growers, and make fine poultry for
summer and early fall; and so long ‘as the breeders
are content to have them fill this middle ground
between the small and the Asiatic breeds, so long
will they grow in public favor, and remain one of
the three best breeds for the farmer’s use.

The Leghorns are a non-sitting variety, and one
of the largest producers of eggs, being most prolific
during the warmer months of the year. Their
chicks make nice early, though small broilers, and
should be killed as such; for, as roasters, their skin
is tough and carcass too small, their chief merit
being in egg production alone. They are very quick
growers, many pullets commencing to lay at four
months and a half old, and there are cases on record
in our own yard, where they have laid at three
months and three weeks old. We have also started
with eggs and produced three generations in three
hundred and sixty-three days. This precocity en-
ables one to raise his stock-birds even after the
season is too far advanced to rear successfully the

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 25

Plymouth Rock or Brahma. Thus you see how
peculiarly adapted one to the other the three breeds
are, and all of them are hardy, standing much ne-
glect. With them, the farmer easily caters to the
wants of the markets the year round.

With the above breeds as stock, the yearly pro-
duct will average one hundred and fifty eggs and
eight chickens to each hen, which will sell (taking
Natick market for 1875, as a basis), as follows :—

124 dozen eggs, at 25 cts. perdozen, . : $3 12
4 pairs of chickens, 28 lbs., at 25 cts. per ib, ; 7 00
American guano, . : : . : 25
Total, 5 : . $10 37
The cost of producing the same Reine:

‘Keeping of hen, A : ; : F : : $1 15
15 eggs for incubation, . 38

Cost of growing 8 chicks to 35 Ibs. Give oer at
93 cts. per lbs., : ‘ ‘ : 3 32
Interest on fivestment and Gaanalties: 2 : - 60

Total... : ; . ‘ : $5 45

To notice some of the other breeds, we will say,
“the Hamburg family” is one of merit as egg pro-
ducers, yielding about one hundred and sixty-five
eggs per year, as a rule; and there is a case on
record where a single hen of the Golden-Spangled
variety laid one hundred and fifty-one eggs in six

26 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

months. As poultry, the meat and bones are dark,
so much so as not to be desired by market-men.
The race is delicate, and hard to rear, but when six
or eight months old, seems to have become quite
hardy, except it be a predisposition to the disease -
called “ black comb,” — but why the disease should
be so termed we cannot understand. To be sure,
the comb turns black, but the causes come from
derangement of the egeg-producing organs. We
have seen them lie down, their combs become black,
and they, to all appearance, dead, when all at once
they would expel the egg, and in a few moments
they would be singing about the yard as well as ever.

The different varieties of this family are Golden-
Spangle, Golden-Pencilled, Silver-Spangle, Silver-
Pencilled,—this last being the old-time Bolton Grey,
under which name it was first imported into this
country. The white and black varities are of more
recent date than the first four named ; the black, we
think, the most hardy and prolific of them all.

The Spanish was long known as one of the best
layers, and, in fact, the old Minorcas were in every
respect equal to the Leghorns, but the breeding of
the white face upon this breed has resulted in the
fact that much of their merit has been sacrificed.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. © 27

Their eggs are larger than those of any other breed,
but in number they fall much behind the average.
They are extremely delicate as chicks, but when
once matured, they seem reasonably hardy ; and the
contrast of a pure white face and ear-lobe, with
their metallic, green-black plumage, makes them
much admired. As poultry, here in America, we
would not concede, perhaps, that they were up to
the average. Their dark legs and white meat are
not preferred by the masses. 3

The Dominique is every way equal in merit as to
number of eggs, and in poultry equally as good, as
the Plymouth Rock; it being rather under size,
compels it to take a second place. In all other
points, what has been said for the Plymouth Rocks,
would apply to the Dominique.

The French class, comprising Houdans, LaF leche
and Creve Ceur, while they are highly appreciated
in France, have failed to give general satisfaction in
New England. But Mr, Aldrich of Hyde Park has
been successful with the Houdans, and claims for
them all that is excellent as table fowls, besides
being a good average producer of eggs: they are
more inclined to non-sitting than otherwise. But
the Houdan and Creve Coeur require warm, dry

28 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

quarters. They, like the Polish, are inclined to
roup if confined in damp quarters.

The La Fleche are the most delicate to rear of the
whole class, and in our northern climate are much
troubled with a weakness in ther limbs. <A good
healthy hen of this breed, we believe, will lay more
eggs from March to October than any other breed,
not excepting the Leghorn.

The Cochins are, in England, much preferred.
They are good mothers, being covered with long,
fluffy feathers. They are hardy, and as layers in
winter are hard to excel. Their eggs are furnished
with a thick shell, and in closely bred birds are
extremely hard to hatch. There are the Partridge,
Buff, White, and Black varieties, all having their
admirers ; the Partridge being the most beautiful,
while the Black has undoubtedly the most merit, for
they are good layers and fine poultry. For one
dollar, the «* American Standard of Excellence” can
be obtained, which gives a full description of the
different breeds. We therefore omit description of
breeds in this essay.

As a rule, a bushel of corn will produce nine
pounds of live weight in poultry, and, with good
even care, one has only to weigh his chicks to know

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 29

their cost. When fowls are fed sparingly, being
kept short, they become an expense; for there is no
stock that pays so poorly, if neglected, or as well,
if extra care is taken of them. A greater profit will
be realized on incubating breeds, if allowed to rear
one brood of chicks during the season; for the
incubating season gives the laying functions rest,
and you get more eggs, we are confident, in the year,
beside the care of the brood of chicks gratis ; and as
the chicks will pay one hundred per cent profit on
their cost, you will find that many of the incubating
breeds will pay as well, and even better, than some
of the non-sitting varieties. In all breeds, it will
be found to pay to take pains to make your selec-
tions from the best-laying families of the breed, for
there is as much difference in them as there is in the
Shorthorn breed of cattle for milk.

The smaller the flock, the greater will be found
the individual yield ; but the most economical pro-
vision, taking into the account the care of the flock
and greatest comparative profit compared to cost of
provision made for them, will be found in groups of
fifty, for a greater number will not do as well to-
gether. This number can be kept in health and a
high productive condition in a house with a laying-

50 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

room fifteen feet square, an open shed ten by fifteen,
posts seven feet high, all under one roof, which can
be half-pitch, with a cupola-ventilator twenty inches
square. The exhalations from fowls are very poison-
ous, and it is very essential that they have thorough
ventilation. At the same time, we must not expose
the flock to a direct draught of air. Fowls, left to
themselves, will not stand in a draught, and, when
compelled to, they take cold as easily as does the
human family.

A window on the south side of the laying-room,
six feet long and four feet wide, the sill of which
eomes down to within one foot of the floor, will
warm and light the room, and Keep the eravel dry,
which will help in the work of deodorizing the drop-
pings. Construct a platform twenty inches from the
floor, twenty-two inches wide, around the walls of
the room. One foot above the same, place the
roost. which should. be two and a half, and, for
Asiatics, three inches wide, —the corners rounded |
off. Under the platform construct the nests by
means of a portable frame that will be fourteen
inches deep, the front made of two strips five inches
wide, and a door nine inches wide, which is to be
let down to gather the eggs. This will give a pas-

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 31

sage-way of eight inches in the rear, thus making
smooth work in front and giving seclusion to the
nests, —the same being easily removed to cleanse
them. Avoid all permanent or box-made nests,
which become harbors for lice. Avoid, also, the
old plan of an inclined plane for roosts, for all the
fowls will strive to occupy the highest perch, and
many a fight and fall will be the result, which will
vastly increase the list of casualties, while the low
and level plan saves many from lameness and inter-
nal injury; for while a hen will walk up to her
perch, if she has the chance she will invariably fly
down. Roosting low makes them less breachy ;
even the smaller breeds, if reared on low perches,
will not require a fence more than four and a half to
five feet high to fence them in. The floor of the
house should be kept covered three to four inches
deep with a coarse-fine gravel, not so fine as to be
called sand, yet having a loam mixture in it. This
will deodorize all the filth and stench —the bane
of the poultry-house. :

The floor should be raked over at least three times
each week (if it cannot be done daily), and ali sur-
face filth, with the droppings from the platforms
removed, and the whole replaced with a fresh supply

32 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

of soil twice each year. The fertilizer thus manu-
factured will be found excellent for all root-crops,
especially onions and carrots.

If the flock is to be confined, and on the least
practical amount of ground, each house and shed
will need two yards, two rods wide and ten rods
long; the two being necessary, so that while one is
in use the other can be sowed down to forage crops,
thus furnishing the fowls with raw vegetable food,—
as much a necessity as grass for the cow, to secure —
the best results.

In constructing these conveniences for your fowls,
do not think you can get along without the open
shed, for experience teaches that for a large produc-
tion of eggs and security of their hatching when set,
that the fowls must have the open air daily; and a
shed that protects them from the storms and driving
winds in winter, and furnishes cool retreat in sum-
mer, will prove a most judicious expenditure. These
numbers and fixtures can be augmented to any num-
eer required, but each fifty should be a community
of itself. Add no more than you can care for as
well as you do the first fifty you start with, and on
which you have based your calculation of success.
The many failures are to be attributed to neglect, and

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 33

failure to care for the many, with a generosity cor-
responding to that given the first few.

The feed for fowls thus confined may consist of
boiled vegetables (purslane, cabbage, squash, seed-
cucumbers or potatoes), mashed with wheat-bran
and corn meal, while hot; feeding the same at the
morning meal in such quantities as will be eaten up
by nine o’clock, allowing the flock to forage till four
_or five o’clock, when a full feed of small grain and a
small portion of corn may be fed to them, adding to
the morning meal fresh ground scraps or meal in
some form, three days in each week. This will be
found sufficient till the frost prevents the further
growing of forage crops; then change the feed to
what soft food they will eat up at the morning meal,
—small grains, sunflower seed, etc., at noon, and
what corn they will eat at evening. This will maintain
the most even animal heat for the twenty-four hours ;
it being health and heat that produce the eggs, the
hen being simply a machine which, if carefully run,
must produce the egg or die. During the winter
months, feed chopped cabbage and turnips, and
rowen hay. Rowen clover is an excellent substitute
for grass, and is the only thing we can find that will
produce eggs that will make the golden sponge-cake

34 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

and custard like that seen in summer. They will
eat from five to six pounds per head during the
winter, if fed in a rick, keeping them constantly
supplied; and while it increases their productive-
ness, it also increases the beauty of their plumage,
making it well worth one’s trouble to supply the
same.

The cost of keeping as above will be found to be
from $1.15 to $1.25 per head. The construction of
such quarters, as described, and the purchase of
natives or grade stock, will cost from $2.50 to $2.75
per head, or if a start be made with thorough-breds,
$5.00 per head as capital invested.

In this connection, we would like to call your
attention to the many natural facilities now unim-
proved, by which the number of eggs would be
increased, and a portion of the food and a large per
cent. of the outlay described, be saved.

There is no reason why fifty fowls to the acre
could not range with the cattle in our pasture-lands,
and both land and cattle be benefitted thereby.

When thus colonized, it is noticeable that certain
fowls adhere to certain members of the herd, busy
in catching the flies that pester them, and consuming
_ the worms and insects disturbed by grazing.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 30

In most of our pastures there are dry knolls and
southern sloping hillsides, in which excavations
could be made fifteen by twenty-five feet, the ends
and north sides walled up, leaving but the two sides
of the laying-room and roof to be built of lumber ;
even the roof could be thatched, or earth-covered.
All of which could be home-constructed, or by the
employment of cheap labor. These habitations
would be warmer in winter and cooler in summer,
and therefore better than the first described. These
quarters, located far enough apart to save the
expense of fencing for yards, would save the labor
of forage-crops and all meat-food, till the frost cut
off the natural supply.

No farmer should be excused from utilizing all
such facilities adjacent tu his building, which, with
the barn-cellar and orchard, would, in most cases,
enable him to keep at least two hundred and fifty
fowls, all of which could be cared for by the young-
er members of the family, and the profits would
secure older and abier help for the heavier work
of the farm, while many a boy would be made a think-
ing, practical farmer, happy in his lot, who is now
chafing under his hard home-life, waiting only for
age to liberate him.

36 =©6@ Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Farmers, this poultry-keeping has more than a
money value for you. Interest your boys in it, for
thereby they learn many of the principles that under-
lie the successful breeding of stock,—fitting them,
when older, the better to manage cattle and horses.
The rapid production of chickens enables them to
try as many experiments, in a few years, as would
take a lifetime with stock. In the breeding of fowls,
they learn that like produces like more surely, and .
only, as a rule, where the stock is bred in line, and
that to produce chickens uniform in type and color,
they must have, in both sire and dam, a preponder-
ance of the blood of the desired type; they must
mate kindred blood judiciously, avoiding too close
relationship,—for by mating fowls of one blood for
three generations we produce sterility in the egg.
They learn that prepotency of sire is more marked
in the mating of kindred blood, and in the offspring
of dams of weak constitution, and when appearing
in the coupling of radically different blood, that it is
an exception and not the rule. They learn that the
blood most difficult to subjugate, in the end has more
lasting quality, and does the flock the most gcod as a
new infusion of blood ; these interests, once awaken-
ed, cannot slumber; the boys become thoughtful,

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. ae

and, as years increase, you find in them a help not
found in your hireling.

So far we have tried to show the best management
of adult fowls. But this stock, from year to year,
must be renewed; for beyond the second year,
younger stock will be found to pay much better, and
those birds that are coming two years old in June,
should be sold as poultry just before chickens come
Into the market, when they bring a much better
price, and their value will replace them with young
stock. If the young stock is to be reared on the
farm, it will necessitate the rearing of as many
chickens as the breedmg-stock number; for chicks
hatch nearly equal as to sex, which only enables you
to replace the two-year-old birds each year sent to
market.

A single brood of chicks will thrive and take care
of themselves. With even care, one hundred can be
reared in a flock, and all do well. But if more are
to be reared, care should be taken to confine those of
the same age together,—the February and March
chicks in one field, April and May chicks in another,
and those hatched later in a third. Each lot will be
found to do well; but, if running all together, the
young ones get trampled to death by the older ones.

38 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Suppose we should rear our children as many do
their chicks, the whole family running over and step-
ping upon the nursling, should we wonder if it grew
up crippled and deformed ?

Avoid huddling them together. Twelve to fifteen
chicks are all that should be allowed to brood in one
coop. We are apt to let the brood quarter in the
chicken-coop till quite late in the fall, when they out-
grow the coop, and crowding into it, they suffer
from their own exhalations ; and the piling one upon
another, causes, in many cases, the slipping down of
the hips and the one-sided appearance which so often |
comes to our notice.

The best mode of setting hens is, to sink a barrel
on its side one-third into the ground, filling up with
earth even with the earth on the outside, using a
small quantity of hay to form the nest, especially in
early spring. This, you see, will prevent the cold —

air from reaching the eggs through the hay from

&
the under side, and chilling them, while the earth in
the barrel becomes heated by the hen, which in-
creases your chances for an early brood. Place one of
the chicken-coops described, in the front of the bar-
rel, and by the means of a slide-door admit the hen

to and from the nest. The coop becomes a feeding

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 39

and dusting yard for her while sitting, and a home
for her and her brood when hatched, besides pre-
venting her from deserting her eggs. As the season
approaches June and July, pour into the barrel, be-
fore putting in the earth, a half-pailful of water.
The heat of the hen will draw the moisture up, and
prevent too rapid evaporation in the eggs, and secure
for you a better hatch.

By setting an even number ata time, and doubling
up the broods, you can reset the hens thus released
(which generally do better the second time), by
which means you secure eighteen clutches of chick-
ens from twelve incubating hens, which will produce
as a rule about one hundred to one hundred and ten
chickens that will be marketable. The overplus will
be found to not more than make good the casualties
and deformities.

This plan of hatching and rearing the chickens
away from your fowl-houses releases them from, and
prevents the incubation of millions of lice, which
are generally produced by setting the hens where
they are in the habit of laying. If you wish to see
every louse and red-spider, which is the same as the
bed-bug for the human family, concentrated into
twenty inches square, just allow a few hens to incu-

40 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

bate in the hen-house. The best food for young
chickens, for the first week or ten days, is stale
wheat bread, soaked m scalded milk, and occasion-
ally boiled chopped eggs; millet and canary-seed
will be found quite forcing, and will give the brood.
a good start, and it pays to use them for the first
two weeks. This feed can be followed by sealded
oat-meal, wheat-bran, and corn-meal, mixed, say one-
third each, with cracked corn and wheat and whole
corm, as soon as the chicks are large enough to |
eat it. :

It is unadvisable to hatch chickens earlier than the
season will admit of getting them on to grass by the
time they are four weeks old. If they are hatched
earlier than this, sow, when the brood hatches, 2
frame of oats in your hot-house or kitchen, and cut
each day the green oats for them. In this way you
can carry the chickens over till the grass comes in
the spring, and the trouble thus taken will repay
you in the possession of early show birds, that gen-
erally sell for a much larger price, according to their
merit, than later birds; and only by such care can
we hope to win the premiums in the September
exhibitions. Diarrhea is the scourge of young
chickens in early spring. When the symptoms

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 41

appear give only scalded milk as drink, and none
but cooked food, which will be found generally
to correct the evil.

At four to six months old separate the cockerels
from the flock, and feed mashed boiled potatoes,
with méal and barley and whole corn, thus fitting
them for the shambles; and the pullets at five
months oid place in your hreeding-pens, where
they will soon commence to repay you for their
care, and most assuredly in a like proportion. In
nearly all the cases where we find people breeding
in this practical way, we find them using only what
we call native or mongrel stock. This, we believe,
is a mistake, for the thorough-bred is worth as much,
and many of the breeds far more, for this practical
work ; and should all use the thorough-bred, killing
as they do now, one-third for poultry, using the
larger number left to produce eggs for the market,
using as breeders only the best they raise, selling
only for breeding purposes when a fair price (say
from two dollars and fifty cents to ten dollars each)
could be realized, they would in this way raise the
standard and come to realize that in every twelve
fowls they kept they had the value of a cow, and, car-
ing for them as well, they wauld find they paid as well.

42 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Show us a farmer who is conscious of capital in-
vested in his fowls, and we will show you a farmer
who makes money out of them. The greater the
number raised, the higher the price you will be able
to command for the best individual specimens. This
has proved true in cattle. (See history of Short- —
horn cattle in America.) It is every day being re-
peated in fowls. Twenty-five years ago we sold
Light Brahmas at one dollar each, and the price was
considered a fair one, the native then selling for
thirty-three cents. When the price increased to
twenty-five dollars per trio, it became the town talk ;
but in the past three years, when we have sold cock-
erels at one hundred dollars, and trios at one hundred
and fifty dollars, it has ceased to be a surprise, and
really itis not in keeping with bulls at seventeen
thousand dollars each. We expect to live to see
specimens of superior excellence sold as high as two
hundred and fifty dollars. Already, in England,
five hundred dollars a trio has been realized.

PART III.

——_—eee

UNIFORM TYPE AND COLOR IN BREEDING.

Iv setting up your boys in the business of practi-
cal poultry keeping, or for breeding thorough-breds
for the market, it is well that they havea motive and
aim in view,—something that will interest and in-
struct as wellas to make them money. We will
therefore give our rule to secure uniform type and
coler in breeding, or how to establish a strain of such
blood, hoping by interesting them in the theory, to
interest them in the practical workings of it.

The American people are lovers of “beauty” in
everything; a beautiful horse, a beautiful cow,
all demand a price far above those of equal merit
that fail in symmetry. Then, in breeding, aim
to attain: first, beauty or symmetry; second,
color; and both coupled with merit as egg pro-

44 Breeding and Management of Poultry, —

ducers ; and as the first two are to be transmitted in
a greater degree by the male, it becomes of great
importance that he should possess those desirable —
features.

In selecting a sire, be sure that he is well bred,
and comes from a line of “good ones,” a bird which
is the counterpart of hzs sire; for then you have a
double guarantee that he will control the offspring.
As a rule, the offspring bred back to the grandsire,
the sire and grandsire being alike, we start with an
almost certainty of success, if we do our part in the
mating. Having made our selection, we must put
our foot down and stand firmly to the rule of breed-—
ing to no sires but this one, or males of his get, and
none of them that do not assume the likeness of the
sire; thus establishing a line, or “ strain of blood,”
which, in a single word, means uniformity.

In the hen, secure first, productiveness as to eggs ;
second, a robust constitution, coming from a long-
lived race ; third, color; lastly, symmetry : and from
this mating select the large pullets that most re-
semble the sire, and breed them back to the sire.
This second crop of birds will be three-fourths the
blood of the sire you selected as the founder of
your strain.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 45

Now the more stubbornly the blood of the first
dam gives up to the blood of the sire, the more good
it will do us when subjected properly to him.

Many select well-bred hens of a weakly constitu-
tion to make the first cross, for they assert, and
truthfully, that the sire being so robust and strong,
nearly all the chicks favor the sire. ‘This is all true,
but it is also true that the blood used in the hen is
weak and will fail in lasting quality. We like strong
blood ; that which in the first cross seems to fight
for the breeding influence ; that which has got to be
bred back to the strain desired, and the control
given if only by a preponderance of blood. We then
get a lasting good from the cross. Constitution and
vital force must come from the dam, form and color
from the sire; and in all the matings, the introduc-
tion of new blood must be with a thought to that
end.

The crossing of two well-bred strains oftentimes
produces a distinct and new type which is very
beautiful. To secure this new type (which is in
itself a fact that the two elements producing were
of equal strength, as neither controlled the breed-
ing), and to perpetuate it, it would in that case
be wise to select a dam of delicate though pure

46 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

blood, thus giving the sire all the chance possible
to stamp his offspring; then by breeding his pullet
back, to concentrate his breeding in his grand-

children, they also being his children; then we
could go on, by selections of coarser or stronger
dams for new blood for the strain. The American
breeder is of a restless nature; he wants something
that is peculiar to himself; something in which he
can be identified. You find them all over the
country, chopping up the blood of their birds by
the introduction of new sires, first from one flock,
then from another, hoping thereby to have some-
thing different. They succeed; but when they have —
got it, they are disappointed that no one else wants
it. They think the bottom has gone out of the
chicken business, and they curse the business and
retire. Of such we will say, the business is better
off when they do retire from it. Now, there is
but one way to reach uniformity in breeding, no
matter whether it is horses, cattle, or fowls, and

99

that is by “in breeding,” and, like poison, it may
kill or cure, just according as we display good
judgment in its use.

Whenever we introduce new dams to a strain,

breed their progeny back to the sire of the strain,

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 47

and never use sires from this new introduction of
blood until the blood has become thoroughly sub-
jected to the strain.

To explain: if the chicks of the mating of the
pullets to sires of the strain are not all in type like
the strain, then breed back again, and not use a
male as a stock bird until the desired afilnity of the
blood has been accomplished. As a rule, use no
male with less than seven-eights of the blood of the
strain, nor females with less than three-fourths of the
blood of your strain as stock birds.

If all the breeders would adopt this plan of breed-
ing, and would keep a record, they would then see
the importance of pedigree, and how beautifully all
these things are governed by a natural law. We
‘can mix the blood of our birds as easily as we mix
- the paints that give us different tints in color. By
adhering to this mode, one breeder becomes of
benefit to his neighbor breeder; for by crossing
strains, the pullets become of equal value to each:
each breeding back to his respective strain makes
the blood of his neighbor’s strain feed the blood
of his own. When breeders learn this, and work
together, they will all be better off, and may become
founders of families in fowls, as now breeders of
Shorthorns become in cattle.

Pare ve

DISCUSSION OF THE BOARD.

Ar the close of the foregoing Essay, the following
discussion of the same took place, and we introduce
it here on account of its practical import. |

Mr. Furr. I have been exceedingly interested
in the paper which has been read by Mr. Felch.
I am sure he has come up to the expectations of
those who had so much confidence, when they
invited him to prepare this paper. Mr. Felch
has had many years of thorough and careful ex-
perience and accurate observation, and I am sure
the principles which he has enunciated in his paper
will be of great interest and great value to the large
number of poultry breeders in this State. |

I should very much like to hear the experience
and observation of those who are now engaged

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 49

practically, every day, in poultry breeding. There
are a great many questions, I know, that many
persons wish to hear discussed, and there are others
here who can discuss them befter than I can. [
have been a somewhat extensive poultry breeder
in the course of my life. I have kept a great
variety of fowls; too great a variety, altogether,
I am sure, for profit. J have generally come to
the conclusion, that where profit, for poultry and
eggs together, is concerned, the Light Brahma is the
best breed; but as egg producers, the White Leg-
horn, and perhaps one or two other breeds, greatly
surpass them.

So far as the feeding of poultry is concerned, I
_am pretty well satisfied that farmers and those who
keep poultry are inclined to feed too much corn.
Corn, as you all know, will induce fat, and when
poultry are to be fatted for market, they can be
fatted, probably, quicker and more economically
upon corn or corn-meal, heated, than upon any
other substance; but as far as my experience has
gone, it is not advisable to feed corn if you wish
to get the largest number of eggs; it induces too
great fat, especially if the hens are kept in some
confinement. Hens that are allowed the whole

50 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

range of the farm may be fed upon almost anything. ;
They run off what little extra fat they get, perhaps, —
by eating too much corn; but poultry that are
confined, or partially confined, ought not to be fed
too much upon corn. Oats, or any of the smaller —
grains, and vegetables, potatoes, fish, and that class —
of food, it seems to me, are very much better.

As far as the feeding of fresh or cured rowen or
young clover is concerned, I have no doubt that
what Mr. Felch has said is correct. |

Question. Is there any danger of making White
Leghorns so fat by feeding them on corn that they
cannot fly ?

Mr. Fetcu. I don’t think you can give them —
anvthing that will fat them so that they cannot run
or fly. But as egg producers, there is no question
that the White Tea family is the best. They
will forage for themselves, and pretty thoroughly,
and they are stronger in their feet than the Asiatic
breeds, if we are to judge by the damage ey will
do in the garden.

Question. Do you have bottoms to your coops?

Mr. Fercn. Ido not. Ihave simply platforms
for early spring, on which to place the coops, in the
summer allowing them to set upon the ground.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 51

Quxstion. How do you feed the clover rowen?

Mr. Feccn. After curing it becomes brittle;
simply feed in a rick, as to stock. If it is cut up
too fine, and fed carelessly, they will waste it. _

Quxrstion. Which is best, the Brown or White
Leghorn?

Mr. Fe.cn. I would not say one was better

than the other.
Qumstion. Do you have any difficulty in hatch-

s that are laid by the

, ing chickens from the egg
_ Asiatics ? | }
‘Mr. Fevcn. That is the danger of the whole
‘business. ‘They sometimes become so very fat, that
‘it will be almost impossible to hatch an egg from

‘them. Turn them right out and give them food

‘that will not fat them, and you will find that the
eggs will hatch well. _

‘Mr. Hersey of Hingham. Mr. Felch says that
‘close breeding in and in tends to sterility. I would
like to inquire if he has had any actual tests of this,

and if so, what difficulties he has encountered.

Mr. PELcH. What I mean by in and in breed-
"ing is breeding birds of the same blood or pedigree
ptogether. I always take pains when I am breeding

y)

in line, “breeding in,” as I term it, to so mate that

52 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

there will be a change of blood, and secure the
chick in blood different from sire and dam. It is
always better to breed back to the sire than to breed
the chicks together. When introducing a new ele-
ment of blood, I find often-times that this works
well. This is a rule I have followed for twenty
years. I believe I was one of the first to adopt this
course. I never buy a male bird, and consequently
I have been obliged to make this new blood for
scores of others ; and when I buy a new bird, [ treat
it in that way, breeding the pullets of the first cross
right back to a sire of that strain, and never use a
male bird until I have reduced the foreign blood to’
one-fourth or one-eighth. Now, if you breed in and
in for three generations, that is, breed brothers and
sisters, in three generations, it will be almost impos-
sible to hatch an egg.

Mr. Hersry. Have you had any actual tests
of it?

Mr. Fetcu. Yes, sir; I believe, as a rule, the
statement I make will hold good. There may be
exceptions ; there are exceptions to all rules. But I
think if any one follows that rule, so that he will
know exactly what he is doing, he will find that I
am correct. But the fact is, a great many do not

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 53

know. They will have a fiock of birds, and they
will save a young cockerel from them and breed
from them, thinking they are all of one blood. If
they will start from one single dam and breed her
chickens together, and their chickens, and then a
third lot, [ am quite sure they will reach a point
where the eggs will not hatch. Unless you have
a flock of hens in one inclosure, you can see how
easily you lose the track of them. You cannot get
uniformity unless you breed. your line of sires to the
same strain of blood. I think any one who has
tried it will agree with me in what I have said on
that subject.

Mr. Hersty. I suppose we meet together here

E to gather facts, and whatever the result of our ex-

periments may be, it is for our interest to know
about them.

Twenty-five years ago, I started for the purpose of
demonstrating, one way or another, whether we
should be able to breed in and in or not. I took a
white native, and from that white native I have bred
for twenty-five years, and still the eggs hatch. Dur-
ing the twenty-five years, only three times have I

introduced anything different, and those three times

it was done by eggs and eggs only, and the male

54 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

bids were not kept, only the females. But during

the last two years, no new blood has been introduced
into my flock, and I have bred in and in as closly as

possible. And my poultry yard is so situated, and

so fenced in, that no other poultry can come near

them. Now, the result is, that my eggs hatch a great

deal better than my neighbors’. Three years ago
(which was the last year that I had the care of them
nyself ), I set four litters, of thirteen eggs each, and
every one of them hatched; and of four others,
eleven hatched. I think there was not a single Jit-
ter that year that gave less than six chickens from
thirteen eggs.

Now, I admit that I have been careful in breéding
to take only those fowls which were ph ysically strong
and perfectly healthy. I think that that is a point
to which we must look carefully. I believe that
healthy birds will bring healthy offspring. But
perhaps I ought not to say what I believe. I only
rose to state these facts. Itis an isolated case, cov-
ering a period of about twenty-five years. If there
were twenty-five other individuals here who could
stand up and say that they had tried the same thing,

with the same result, we might be able to come to

teigs

oS -§

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. BE

some correct conclusion. Perhaps a single experi-
ment is not sufficient.
Now, if other people have tried the experiment of
- in and in breeding, and failed,—if they have really
tried it, and not guessed at it,—of course that must
count against the experiment which I have made.
But I hope that, if this Board shall meet in this or
_any other hall ten years from this time, there will be
' many individuals who will be able to rise up and say
Bc know from practical tests what the result is of
breeding in and in.”

Mr. Feicu. The gentleman who has just taken
his seat, says that the introduction of blood was by
eggs, saving the females. That does not meet the
3 sase, for he put half a dozen new elements into his
| stock every time he introduced the eggs, which might
| have helped him out. I do not see that his case
touches the point which I advanced, for one intro-
duction of six pullets would have carried him through
the whole twenty years, and the eggs would have
hatched well.

Mr. Bitw of Paxton. I have had some expe-

‘rience in keeping hens, but [rise chiefly to add a word
to what was said on one point by the gentleman who

gave us the very instructive and interesting essay,

56 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

and that point is this. He spoke of hen-houses in
the sides of hills, near our farm buildings, so that
the fowls might forage in the pasture with the eattle.
Now, he did not state what breed of hen would be
the best for that purpose, but I judge from my own
experience that a kind of hen not much in favor,
perhaps, with most hen fanciers,—I mean the Black
Red Game,—is the one best adapted to that purpose.

There is an impression abroad among hen dealers,
and those who have not mquired into the matter,
that the Black Red Game, or Game hens, are of lit-
tle value except for their fighting qualities ; but with
all my keeping of the Games I never have seen one

fight but once, and that was with a White Leghorn, ~

and he got awfully thrashed; so I am not keeping
him for that purpose. But I find that in the pas-
tures, the Games have the foraging quality, and that
is the point Trose to make. I know tolerably well
four or five kinds of Game birds, and any of them
will walk off and feed by themselves several hundred
rods,—almost a quarter of a mile.

Another notion that is prevalent about them is, |

that they are quite wild. That comes partly from —
the name— Game. But I find that the Games are —

as gentle, if you treat them gently, as any hens I

b

ine ee

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 57

ever had anything to do with. As to their laying
qualities, I have kept them several years, and I am
confident that they do lay well. I would not say
that they are as good layers as the White Leghorn
or the Brown Leghorn, but I do not know any other
family, except the Leghoras, that excels the Game
in laying qualities.

Another point about the Game is, that their eggs
are from a quarter to a third larger than the Light
Brahmas’, or than almost any of the pure-blooded
hens with which I have had anything to do, except
the Leghorn.

_ I would like to ask a question about the Black
Spanish. What does Mr. Felch know about them,
_as to their laying qualities, constitution, etc. ?

Mr. Fetcu. The Black Spanisht, before the Leg-
horn came into notice, was considered the best laying
fowl. They lay large eggs, but they do not lay a
large number of them. I thing that a full-bred
Black Spanish will lay about one hundred and twen-
about what our native

ty-eight eggs in a year,
fowls will do. Probably there is not half a dozen
egos a year difference in what the Black Spanish, the
Game, and native fowls will lay, and as a rule the
Game eggs are much smaller than the Brahma.

58 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Quxstion. How do the Black Spanish stand the
cold weather in the winter?

Mr. Fetcn. Poorly. A Black Spanish chicken

is a miserable thing while growing, but when once

grown, the fowl seems to be quite hardy. It is a @

beautiful bird to look at; there is no question about
that. If a man does not care how much it costs him
to produce and keep a flock of Black Spanish birds,
he can have them, and they will do very well, but
they are not profitable, managed in a practical way.
I tried to find the breed that a person with the least
experience could do the best with, everything con-
sidered, and that is why I selected the Leghorn,
Plymouth Rock and Light Brahma; and here let me
say, that, no matter what the breed is, the Almighty
has so fixed that thing that they will all pay a profit,
if properly managed. A man wants to take the

s ae is eee
Ce NS TE he Migln aFuR: hte On Pan med Hotere we SOS

breed that pleases him, and if he does that, he will :

be likely to take good care of them and make a pro-
fit. One man likes the Black Red Game, another the
Brown Leghorn, and another the Brahma. I do not
agree with those who say that the Buff Cochin is the
best bird. of the lot. The Buff Cochin is a splendid
hen to raise chickens, and they are handy to have for
that purpose. They look large, but they are not

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 59

really so. They are very full feathered, and their
feathers make them look large.

Mr. Vincent. The Black Spanish do not want

_to sit.

Mr. Fevcu. No; but they are of weak constitu-
tion. Still, I can hardly say that, because, when
once grown, they seem to be hardy, if you can keep
them away from the frost. Their wattles and combs

‘are easily chilled, and that seems to take all the
‘life out of them until spring.
Question. What do you consider the best cross?
Mr. Fexrcn. I consider the best cross in the
“world is the cross of a White Leghorn cock on a
“Light Brahma hen. I say a White Leghorn, because
_ that cross will produce a uniform white color. There
will be no parti-colored feathers, which is an ad-
. vantage in preparing poultry for the market.
_ Question. What would be the quantity of eggs
produced by that cross?
_ Mr. Fexcu. They will produce as much as either
of the thorough-breds. I have birds in my family
of Brahmas that have laid for twenty-three succes-

as ss

‘sive months without setting; but that is unnatural.

‘Il have received several letters this season from

‘parties to whom I have sent birds of this family,

60 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

stating that their birds have laid the entire season
without wanting to set. The Brahmas, both dark
and light, do not lay in that way, as a rule.

The Leghorn I call a hardy bird. The Black
Spanish I call a delicate bird, because they are
predisposed to disease. The whole Spanish class
must have dry, warm quarters, or they will have
the roup. They will have catarrh in the head, and
roup follows, and all the attendant diseases. You
cannot put them in a damp place with impunity.

Mr. Carever. Is there any limit to the number
of eggs that any one of the breeds of hens can lay?
I think I have seen it stated in some paper,—from a —
French authority ,—that the ovaries are limited. Do
you know anything about that?

Mr. Fretcu. I do not feel competent to answer
that question. I have seen it stated that a hen will
not lay after she gets to be four or five years old.
But, two years ago, there was a Light Brahma hen
at the exhibition in Boston, that was twelve years
and three months old, and she laid three days out
of the week. I have hada Light Brahma in my ©
yard this year,—eight years old,—and she laid some
forty odd eggs. I believe, therefore, that hens will ~
lay until they are pretty old. I do not believe, as

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 61

some do, that they will cease laying at four or five
years of age; but, as a rule, birds, after they are
three years old, begin to fall off in the production
of eggs.

Qusstion. Are not pullets the most economical
kind to keep for eggs?

Mr. Fricu. The second year appears to be the
year of greatest profit. You may raise two chick-
ens,—a pullet and cockerel,—and the day they are
twelve months old, the pullet will have supported
herself and the cockerel, and if sold at the end of
twelve months, that cockerel is net profit. You
may base your calculations of profits upon that,
and you will find it to be true. A Leghorn, when
she commences to lay, will lay, usually, until she
moults, and, generally, will not commence to lay
again until the next spring. But you get the start
of a year, or longer, before it comes to that, if
she has good blood in her.

Question. If you were only keeping a few hens
for eggs, what kind would you select?

Mr. Fetcu. If I were keeping hens for eggs
alone, I should most certainly keep the Leghorn
breed in preference to any other. Keep the pullets

62 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

up to the time of moulting, and then sell them and
replace them. |

Question. Have you had any experience in
regard to the laying qualities of the Hamburg?

Mr. Fexcnu. The Hamburg family will lay as
many eggs, probably, as the Leghorn. They are
handsome birds; and if any one has an eye for
beauty, and wants a few handsome birds for eggs
alone, I should recommend the Hamburg family.
They are a little tender In raising, but, like the
Black Spanish, they seem to become hardy after-
wards. They lay well. I have had Hamburgs that
laid one hundred and fifty-one eggs in six months.
That is recorded in the report of the Middlesex
South Agricultural Society for the year 1858, and it
is also reported, I think, in the State Agricultural
Report of that year. The Black Hamburg is, I
believe, the best of the family, for their chickens
are easily reared, and that, perhaps, is attributable

to a cross. I think there is a Black Spanish cross —

that went into the original Golden Hamburg, that
produced ‘the Black Hamburg. The other varieties
of the Hamburg family are the Silver and Golden-
Spangled and the Silver and Golden-Pencilled. The

+
VF
Oh,
the
an
a”
wi
st
RS
<4 4
A
a
“}
3
§
i
a
be
fi

Sa
=

7.

eS ee ee ee eee

_ a a es

ae

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 63

white and black are two varieties of that class pro-
duced within my recollection.

Quxstion. _How long do you allow your chicks
to run with the hen? Do you have many deformed,
one-sided chickens? J am troubled that way.

Mr. Fencn. I do not take the hen away until
she weans the chicks herself; yet it is as well to
remove her to the laying house when the chicks are
from five to seven weeks old, according to the
season. I have the partings, or slats of my chicken
coops, three inches apart, and when my Brahma
chicks raise one or both wings to go in or out of the

coop, I leave the door open, for in squeezing in and

out through the openings between the slats, they

easily slip their hips down, thus making them one-

sided—deformed

seen an entire brood ruined by being reared beside

as you have spoken of. I have

a picket fence of one and one-half inch spaces.
The foregoing discussion clearly shows the inter-

est the farmers of the country are taking in this

great question of poultry culture. They look upon
it from a money point of view. They want to know
how many eggs can be produced, and at what cost,
and demand practical worth with exhibition excel-
lence. |

64 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

The rule with all breeds should be, to kill all
the inferior specimens, whether they. be male or
female, and demand that the beautiful specimens
be so in a double sense, “ Handsome is that, hand-
some does.” | :

If we breed from none but the most prolific”
layers, we shall the more surely improve our stock
in laying qualities. The policy of keeping all the
females, is a bad one; they should be wed out if
they are poor layers.

While the results quoted in the Essay have been
accomplished, and can be again, we can cut down
the figures to a net profit of one dollar per head, ~
and the margins are then even better than can be
realized upon cattle or horses.

There is no danger of overstocking the market;
for poultry seems to be a necessity. Our Southern
brethren are in a large measure dependent upon it
in warm weather. In all seasons it is to be pre-
ferred to beef or mutton and it always rules higher
in the market.

So long as beef, mutton and pork remain at their
present prices, and when (as is the fact,) a pound of *
poultry can be raised for the same price per pound,
we see no reason why it will not be a profitable

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 65

business. Even in this season of low prices, in
other provisions, we find fresh eggs quoted at
twenty-seven to thirty cents per dozen, in August,
and corn but seventy-five cents per bushel at retail.
A bushel and one peck of corn, or its equivalent,
will support a laying hen one year, and if she
produces but eleven dozen of eggs, no more than
is obtained from the unimproved sort, it will leave
a margin of two dollars and thirty-six cents per head
for the care of the flock, which would pay, we opine,
as well as the majority of the professions.
We would not counsel the use of mongrel stock,
as breeders, under any circumstances, nor the use
of deformed specimens, only in the case of necessity.
Even deformity caused by accident may have so
shocked the nervous system as to affect the breeding.
We are knowing to a case where a hen had her
foot caught in a steel trap, and, being in it some
time before being liberated, had her nervous system
so shocked, that after the toes were amputated,
five-sixths of the chicks hatched from her eges the
following season, were club-footed in the limb cor-
responding to the one mutilated on the dam. We
know, not all, nor even a very small number of like
accidents would produce a similar effect, but we cite

66 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

the case to show that if an accident can effect the
breeding, how much more an hereditary deformity
would effect it.

Cross bred fowls are, in the majority of cases, far
more prolific as egg producers than the native, or
even the thorough-breds from which they were bred,
and in all animal or vegetable life this will be found
true. Therefore we must always produce them from
the two thorough-breds, for to breed from the cross
will be to deteriorate.

A few words upon the most fatal and troublesome
diseases of poultry and we will leave our readers to
breed chickens and be happy.

PA Eye Vi.

DISEASES OF FOWLS.

We shrink from writing upon this subject, for we
are not an M.D., and we only give our views upon,
and treatment of a few of the most fatal diseases
that we have had occasion to deal with.

We believe in prevention, and when fowls are
sick, in extermination, more than in doctoring.
When fowls have their liberty they are seldom ill,
and when they are confined, if we are careful to
furnish a good supply of vegetable food, health
generally attends them.

Tn most of the fatal diseases, there is a poisonous
fungus growth in the blood. Fowls never perspire,
and the heart beats one hundred and fifty times per
minute. The evils that are easily thrown off by
perspiration, with them, have to be exhaled by res-
_ piration and as a result we find the seat of nearly all

68 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

the fatal diseases to be in the head, throat, and
lungs. Rapid respiration and circulation, therefore
becomes necessary to expel the vapory excretions.

The chanticleer of the farm-yard whose liberty

is not prescribed, will have a battle every week -

and not seem the worse for it, while in a similar
instance, one kept in a poorly ventilated house, and
fed upon unwholesome food will suffer from inflamma-
tion and canker, and in very many cases death will
follow. And why? Because the blood is poor and
evel poisoned, and unable to do the work of repair-
ing the damage until it has thrown off the poison
from which it is suffering. The former rich in a
healthy circulation commences the work of recupera-
tion the moment the wounds of the battle stop
bleeding.

We are all aware that iron is one of the very best
of blood tonics, and if we but observe, we shall see
that fowls kept upon an iron and sulphur charged
soil, are generally more healthy and show better
lustre to their plumage than those kept upon a dry
and arid plain. The reason is that the vegetable
growth is but the embodiment of the soils, one fur-
nishing rich iron and sulphur deposits—the other
destitute of them.

wt. ube oe

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 69

The breeder if he would be successful will do
well to consider his location and furnish artificially
that which is lacking in his soil. “From dust and
to dust” is true of all things, and it behooves us
to see of what kind of dust we build our chickens.

The best doctors are those who watch the patient
while well, and prevent sickness, instead of waiting
for symptoms and then doctoring them, (the ex-
pectant plan, so called,) and finds his remedies: in
the regulation of the diet.

So the breeder best takes care of his flock, who
keeps a watchful eye upon them while at roost.
If the droppings from it show a costive tendency,
then feed freely of vegetables, such as boiled pota-
toes, turnips, or cabbage mashed with bran and
meal while hot. If the droppings show a relaxed
tendency then cease giving vegetables, and resort
to baked johnny-cake, corn, and tincture of iron.
Sour or sweet milk is one of the best things to feed
poultry at all times. Fowls thus carefully fed are
seldom sick unless it be that they have what we
term the “distemper.”

DISTEMPER.

This disease all chickens are heir to, and gener-

70 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

ally are taken about the time they are from twenty-
two to twenty-six weeks old, and at the time they
are shedding their second chicken feathers, prepara-
tory to putting on their freedom suits, so to speak.

If carefully watched little or no medicine is need-
ed, and so light is the disease that it hardly deserves
a place in this catalogue, yet if not jealously watched
it becomes the most frightful in the introduction of
roup and consumption.

Symptoms.—A. listless quiet mein, a disposition
to remain on the roost in the day time, face and
comb quite red, and a puff or fullness of the face under
the eye. The second day a white froth is discern-
able in the corner of the eye. A decided logs of
appetite is also noticeable.

Treatment.—Ilf noticed, and the disease taken in
hand before the appearance of the froth in the eye,
it will usually only be necessary to wash the head
and beak clean, and blow down through the nose
into the throat either with the mouth, or by means
of a rubber nipple, thus clearing the tear tube, and
bathe the head and wash the throat with a solution —
of carbolic acid—one part acid to ten parts water. |
The birds should be kept in a quiet place and
allowed nothing but water. The third day they will

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 71

regain their appetites and all is over. Many of
them have this distemper so lightly as not to be
noticed.

In aggravated cases when the eyes and face are
much swollen, the head and throat should be thorough-
ly steamed by the use of a large sponge and hot
water. The tear tube should be cleared (as before
explained,) a desert-spoonful of castor oil given,
and the bathing of the face and throat with the
solution of carbolic acid continued at short intervals.

This distemper may be. called a cold, or the in-
cipient stages of the roup. We will not quarrel
about names, but simply say that in our opinion it
is no more roup than a cold is measles. There is
no offensive smell to the breath as in roup, but if
neglected it will excite roup. We have not the
slightest doubt of this; in fact know it to be the
case, and the breeder has the choice of adopting the

b

adage, “A stitch in time saves nine,” and attending
to this mild, easily managed distemper, or to neglect
it and have that scourge of a poultry house—“ THE

ROUP”—to contend with.

ROUP.

When roup appears, our advice is, to kill the

72 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

affected one and turn your attention at once to
the flock, giving sulphur in the ratio of a table-
spoonful to fifteen fowls every other day for a week,
feeding tincture of iron, eight drops to a hen every
day in their soft food, which will pay te be boiled
rice, until treatment is over. With this, be sure
that the ventilation is complete and free from direct
drafts upon the fowls. For the benefit of those who
wish to cure the disease we give the following symp-
toms and our method of treatment :

Symptoms.—Swelling of the head, watery dis-
charges from the eyes and nostrils, which are very
fetid and offensive to the smell, following which,
these discharges become acrid and result in a con-_
gealed yellow coating to the mouth and tongue,
called canker—which we term a poisonous fungus
growth in the blood.

Treatment.—Wash and steam the head and throat
with hot water in which a dash of carbolic acid is
added. Clear the nasal passage to throat by an
injection of carbolic water, one part carbolic acid to
ten parts water. Gargle the throat and tongue with
a solution of potash, but do not peel the canker off,
if to do so causes any bleeding, for that would only
ageravate the disease. Give a dessert-spoonful of

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 73

eastor oil, and each morning give nearly a gill
of milk in which three or four grains of hypo-
sulphite of soda has been dissolved. At evening,
after the washing and steaming, the cleansing of the
nasal passage, and the gargling, give a gill of
milk with eight drops of tincture of iron.

The milk can be easily administered by taking
the bird by the under beak and drawing the neck
upward till straight, when the milk poured from a
tea-pot will run into the crop without the effort of
swallowing. |

At the end of about four or five days the effect of
the hyposulphite of soda in the blood, and the solu-
tion of carbolic acid as a wash may be seen in the
sloughing off of the cankerous substance from the
tongue and mouth, when the fowl will commence
to mend. ‘The treatment at this stage should be
nourishing food, with occasional doses of sulphur,
and the fowls will regain their health and spright-
liness.

Six-sevenths of the cases of roup are curable, but
its extreme contagion makes the cure a questionable
_ policy, and it should never be undertaken unless the
aifected fowl be at once removed from the flock and
the fowl-house.

44 Breeding and Management of Poultry,
CHICKEN POX.

There is a disease, new to us, which’ came to our
notice the present spring, which we should call an
eruption, or the chicken pox. |

Symptoms.—An eruption of the comb, face and
wattles, raised and warty in appearance, and in color
a yellowish white. When the crests are removed,
these warty substances resemble a bunch of tiny
spiles set into the flesh. They bleed profusely.

Treatment.—Remove the crests and bathe in hot —
water and carbolic acid. When the bleeding ceases
apply citrine ointment, when the warts will dry ©
down to a hard black scab. Let the scabs remain
for sixty or seventy-two hours, when by removing
them, they will take away with them the little white —
roots of the disease—from one-sixteenth to one-
quarter of an inch in length.

Give each morning for four days a pill made as
follows: Table-spoonful of common flour, table-
spoonful of flour of sulphur, tea-spoonful of cayenne
pepper, twenty-five to twenty-eight drops “ Fowler’s —
Solution,” (if this cannot be obtained, use sixty ©
grains hyposulphite of soda instead,) and milk
enough to mould the compound into twenty pills.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. (5)

Dissolve four grains of quinine in two-thirds of a
| pint of milk, giving one-half in the morning and
balance in evening, or in three equal doses during
the day. Feed, while treating, on boiled onions
and rice, mixed with oat-meal. If the disease attacks
the eye and so prevents feeding, make the food into
pellets half the size of one’s little finger, which, if
dipped in milk and the bird held as described in
roup, will slip down the throat readily.

Tf the sulphur acts too powerfully upon the bowels
scald the milk given, which will check its influence
on the bowels and cause it to work more strongly in
the blood. The disease is so like the “yaws” de-
scribed by Dr. Quinn, we are of the opinion that it
is a kindred one, if not the same. |
Roup sometimes accompanies it, but they are not
alike. This has a run, and requires from five to
seven days to treat it. We tried specimens of a
strong constitution by giving milk and water, and
without treatment, which recovered. It is very
contagious, and on its first appearance kill the speci-
men afilicted, and by the use of vegetables, sulphur
and iron treat your flock to check its spreading.
‘Cleanse the house in which the disease appears as

76 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

thoroughly as you would a dwelling that had been
visited by small pox.

DIPTHERIA.

We give to this new and very fatal disease the
above name on account of its symptoms.

Symptoms.—The face and throat become exceed-
ingly red and inflamed; so much so, that if cold
water is applied it will evaporate in steam on ac-
count of the heat produced by the inflammation.
Six hours after this feverish appearance in the throat
and face, the throat becomes coated with a yellow-
ish leathery lining, which may be removed by
putting down the throat a compressed sponge,
liberating it and withdrawing it when it will take up
this coating, leaving the surface of the throat a
whitish red, thickly studded with minute raw spots
from which this poisonous fungus growth seems to
exude. If the throat be left without sponging out
more than six hours, the coating will adhere to the
throat in the same manner as the canker does in
roup.

Diarrhcea attends the disease, of a like character
to that described in cholera, the discharges resem-

bling a mixture of oil, snuff and chrome green paint.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 17

Exhaustion is very great, so much so that we have
given a cock of twelve pounds weight, two ounces of
brandy with two ounces of milk in the morning and
he showed no evidence of intoxication whatever.

Treatment.—Steam the head and throat with hot
water to which a little carbolic acid has been added,
and sponge the throat as described in roup, also
gargle the throat with a strong solution of potash.
(We would obtain from our family physician the
same gargles as used for diptheria. )

We have used muriate tincture of iron, touched
on the red spots in the throat with a camel’s hair
brush, which seemed to burn them over and check
the leathery fungus growth spoken of. Three grains
of hyposulphite of soda in milk in the morning, and
three grains of quinine in milk in the evening, toge-
ther with occasional doses of brandy and raw eggs
were used to sustain the life of the fowls while suf-
fering from the disease.

Usually in three days there will be a decided
change for the better, or death will ensue.

When the eruption we have called chicken pox
accompanied the disease it seemed to act as a

counter irritant and more fowls recovered when thus

78 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

afflicted, than when troubled with the throat disease
alone.

In the light of our experience we should not try
to save a single specimen but should kill and bury
them at once, and attend to the sanitary condition
of the remainder of the flock.

The use of Fowler’s Solution will be found quite
as beneficial, (and in the height of the disease, more
so,) as the hyposulphite of soda. One drop morn-
ing and evening is sufficient. Should this disease
visit one in the form of an epidemic it would ,be no
less, and we are fearful, much more fatal than —
chicken cholera. |

BUMBLE FOOT.

This disease is in very many cases caused by
carelessness. Flying down from high roosts to a
floor which is always more or less covered by small
gravel stones, results in bruises that are precisely
like what we usually call “Stone Galls.” |

The flesh of the foot being so tough, the puss can-
not escape, therefore if not attended to, it must
congeal, and an ungainly troublesome foot be the

result.

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 79

The fowl goes lame, and careless of its comfort,
we in nine cases in ten fail to investigate in time to
prevent serious trouble. When discovered before
the puss congeals, lance the swelling at the rear of
the foot, and the pressure upon it in walking, will
press the puss out and there will be a much smaller
callous than if allowed to settle down of its own
accord.

We have treated cases by making an incision in
front and rear of foot, and those on shank by open-
ing at top and bottom, and by the use of a syringe
and a solution of carbolic acid, of one part of acid
to ten parts of water, cleanse them thoroughly when
they all heal up.

In most cases we are not aware of the trouble till
the puss is congealed, when it is almost impossible
to press it out unless we take with it some portion of
the layers of the foot, which would be worse for the
fowl than to use a strong liniment to take out the
soreness, and let the inflammation settle down into
a corn.

When the swellings are upon the shank or knee-
joints which are generally the result of rheumatism,
or gout, the fowl may as well go to the block, for it
is a doubtful policy to breed from such a specimen.

80 Breeding and Management of Pouitry,

But some have a mania for doctoring, in which
case use strong liniment, and bind the shanks and
joints in leaves or bulbs of the skunk cabbage, and
give internally, one drop, morning and night, of
“Fowler’s Solution” for a month, or bromide of-
potash, three grains per day until the trouble is
cured.

Bumble foot may be prevented in a great degree
by providing low roosts and keeping the floor of the
fowl-house covered three inches deep with loamy
sand, which costs less than to doctor fowls for the

want of it.

THE RED SPIDER LOUSE.

This pest is the scourge of the poultry-house, and
the source of more trouble and annoyance than any
other hindrance to poultry keeping. The quarters
often become literally alive with them before the
breeder is aware of their presence. They. sap the
life blood from the fowls and reduce to skeletons
and debilitate a flock to such an extent, as to make
the season unprofitable. Working only in the night,
they escape notice and have things their own way.

Fowls that are sitting upon eggs are generally the
greatest sufferers, for these lice instinctively seek

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 81

out such hens as are about to hatch their broods,
and many a hen sacrifices her life to her mother-
hood.

In this case the hen becomes sallow in face and
comb—actually bloodless, the lice having consumed
the blood to such an extent as to cause death, and
many fowls, whose deaths have been attributed to
disease, have been murdered by these pests.

The quarters should be constantly watched, and
all the cracks and knots, on or about the roosts,
saturated with coal tar and kerosene oil, or carbolic
acid. The houses must be kept free from them, for
the exhaustive influence of these maurauders not
only entails the loss of blood to the fowls, but by
reducing their strength, renders the flock more
liable to the diseases we have described.

It is therefore the best and surest step toward
warding off disease, to have an absolutely clean
poultry-house. Iffrom one to three pounds of sulphur
be mixed with the loamy sand and gravel covering the
floor, in which the fowls may dust themselves, and
kerosene oil used as described, the fowls occasionally
dusted while on their roosts with a dredging box
filled with sulphur and Persian insect powder, or
carbolic powder, their quarters will soon be cleansed.

82 = Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Cleanliness coupled with judicious feeding is what
makes fowls profitable. So great a nervous irritant
are these species of vermin, that in two flocks
equally well fed, the flock which occupies quarters
infested with lice will not lay at all, while those
free from this annoyance will lay nearly every day.
This fact proves them to be an expensive enemy to
the poulterer.

We do not go so far as some writers, and say that
all disease is caused by lice, but will say that many
a fowl would not have suffered disease, were it not
for this barn or spider louse. Breeders, look for
them at all times. Do not wait for them to make
themselves known, and force their acquaintance
upon you.

PARE Vai:

Cumann

SPECIFIC FOOD FOR FOWLS.

A few words upon the use of the several condi-
ments advertised for fowls or ege production may
not prove amiss in this work.

In most cases, where these condiments are needed,
the breeder is troubled to obtain a variety of food
- for his flock. We have demonstrated the necessity
of the daily use of flesh, vegetable and grain food,
and where the meat and vegetable elements are
lacking, their constituent parts have to be sup-
plied in a concentrated form. Thus sulphur and
iron become a necessity, and want of time to supply
in their natural form all the elements of food that
are necessary, has caused a large demand for these
specific foods and condiments for fowls. Therefore
a word of direction for their use will prove advan-

tageous.

84 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Of the many kinds now in use, it is safe to say
that in all are found nearly the same ingredients,—
the quantity of each in the compounding, being the
greatest difference in them. These condiments and
ego foods should be carefully administered. No
general rule can be followed. One should begin
with less than directed, and increase the quantity
until the desired result is accomplished.

We have, in testing some of the egg foods, given
them as directed, and forced some of the fowls to lay
three soft shelled eggs in a single night, two hens
side by side producing five such eggs in a night.
It is evident then, that. in such doses the food be-
comes abortive. |

Breeding fowls should not be allowed to lay more
than one hundred eggs in the six months termed the
breeding season, and if they are found to be falling
off from that ratio, the food may be used to stimulate
them to a natural production, or over fat fowls may
be induced to lay more freely by its use, and their
fat reduced to some purpose.

Fowls kept to produce eggs for the market, may
be fed upon this food more freely until they are
forced up to their full constitutional limit, and when
moulting time arrives, they may be killed and

or Thorough-breds for Practical Use. 85

marketed for poultry. Birds thus forced will gen-
erally moult slowly, and fail to lay till the following
spring, which would make it more profitable to
replace them with young stock that will stand the
use of the food, and pay a profit on its use.

To be able to use fowls for a series of years, the
egg production should be the result of proper food.
We have had our attention directed to a preparation
called “Animal Meal,” composed of fresh meat,
fresh bone, and carbonized grain, which to our
mind is a desirable food for fowls. We are all
aware of the healthful properties of charcoal for
fowls, and especially for fattening turkeys for the
market.

The carbonizing of the grain gives all the prop-
erties of charcoal, while it retains all the nutriment
of the grain, and being ground into a meal with the
meat and bone, preserves them sweet for general
use. Thus we have a feed which, if mixed in the
ratio of one part animal meal, three parts bran, and
three parts corn-meal, or with six or eight times
its bulk of meal or coarse food, and made into a
warm mash for the morning meal, is highly nutri-

_ tious, and yet as cheap as ordinary grain.

86 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

Its use in conjunction with the chemical ege pow-
ders would augment the influence of both, and the
fowls could be forced to their utmost limit. In
feeding these stimulants the wegerac diet must not
be neglected. |

Tn leaving the subject in the hands of our readers:
we hope they will not condemn, until they have first
put the suggestions herein contained into practice,
when we shall feel that they, like the author, will
have accomplished good results.

APPENDIX.

HENRY F. FELCH’S POULTRY-HOUSE.

(SEE FRONTISPIECE. )

We give as a frontispiece the cut of a poultry-
house erected by H. F. Felch which is peculiarly
adapted to the needs of the poultry breeder.

For the benefit of these whe weuld like te erect
- a handsome, durable, and convenient poultry-house,
we give its dimensions, also a plan of the ground

floor, and second story.
FIRST stoRY—40 feet x 20 feet.

88 Breeding and Management of Poultry,

A, entry and grain room, 10 x 20 feet. BB
‘rooms 10 x 10 feet, for breeding stock. O C' a room
‘each for pullets and cockerels—general stock. D —
Stairway to second story. - :

SECOND STORY.

f store room—f f ff four rooms for sitting hens
or hens and chickens, g g g g g five small rooms for
single cocks, or for sitting hens, 2 passage.

The form and general appearance of the buildings
is shown in the cut. The partitions are made of
wire netting, giving a roomy, pleasing appearance,
ag well as affording light and ventilation.

We think the building would be improved by
slightly increasing its height—say to 12 feet in the
posts, and inserting double windows in the gables,
which would give a window in each of the large
rooms of the second story.

aw Healt

WM

af

on- Show