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Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003153693

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Inu Consideration of the sum of. a a,
dollars, paid by Blas Caw) Mara tg bi
Ui sate Pes nieces adlinieh i alaaldues , in
POO GUT OF ait ain weniok Banos oH ocr Gidiuptinnn Sakae ;
State of ..... Ap civil d sida og isin ies gout WO
hereby license and empower the said... ia oat a
SOs bea de sR awe ES vneeeeceeeaes. tO manufac-

ture in said .. [ler ete

for his own use only the improvement in Processed
Feed, for which I did apply for United States Let-
ters Patent on ..2 2644.29, 622738 :
Ser. No. Gt F 3

idandee haa ae tense gusset ies , and to use said
process for his own use only, to the full term for
which said Letters Patent are granted.

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This Dirense, is granted to 7.647 te
= ie ene Seated ++) with the express un-
derstanding that said .. 77.7 oe
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Daidits SA urd eee eee ema e will not disclose said
process, or in any way impart said rights to any one

not licensed by me.

Signed at Pleasant Valley, in the County of

Dutchess, and State of New York, this. pa ae
Dei OF Leon OO ebees renee: 190%.
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(Application for patent filed March 27, 1908. Serial No, 423563)

EDGAR BRIGGS
Author of “Profits in Poultry Keeping Solved"

PROFITS IN POULTRY
‘ KEEPING SOLVED

Best AUTHORITY ON POULTRY RAISING

SAVE LABOR, TIME AND EXPENSE

BY

EDGAR BRIGGS

Pleasant Valley, Dutchess Co., N. Y.

THIRD EDITION

WASHINGTON, D. C.
THE FEATHER; THE HOWARD PUBLISHING CO.
PRINTERS, 1908

Copyright 1906, 1907 and 1908
By

EDGAR BRIGGS

INTRODUCTORY

Just a few words in the way of introduction to
those who have never heard of me or of my new meth-
ods. I was born a poultryman; my father before me bred
fancy stock all his life; from a small boy | gathered the
eggs, took charge of the poultry, exhibited them at
the county shows and had birds of my own. I have bred
fancy stock all my life and tried the winter broiler busi-
ness with fatal results, as hundreds of others have done.
This led me to experimenting and also studying nature
to see if there was not a way in which they could be
raised on a large scale without any loss to speak of.
The result is, after ten years of careful experimenting, I
have solved the problem and am now able to put any
poultry plant on a paying basis, regardless of location
or other obstacles, and plants that went out of business
under the ordinary methods have started up under iny
new methods and made wonderful successes. My first
edition put on the market two years ago have all been
sold, as well as my second edition of 3,000 copies in 1907 ;
this, my third edition of 5,000 copies, will be ready to
mail in March, 1908.

My great feed at 10 cents per bushel will make any
plant pay. After experimenting with processed oats, my
great feed for 11 years, I consider I now have as near
a perfect feeding system as can be obtained for either a
yarded.or free-range plant. Follow my methods, laid
down in this book, and success is certain. Read every
line carefully. You cannot go wrong, and a fortune
awaits any one who builds one of my free range plants,
and yarded plants are bound to pay a handsome profit
under this system of feeding.

Very truly yours,
Epcar Briacs,
Author.

“ACN SADTTIVA LNVSVATd LV ‘YOHLNV FHL AO ADNACISAA

CHAPTER I
Al New Plant

Since getting out the first edition of my book in April,
1g06, and my second edition of 3,000 copies in 1907,
which have gone so rapidly that my third edition of 5,000
copies will be ready to mail in March, 1908, as my main
object is to get out a new edition every year so you
can get the benefit of all my latest experiments. I have
bought a new 6o-acre farm specially adapted to build
one of my free-range plants on, where I can entertain
my customers and friends, and where you will always be
welcome and made at home. I am now building a plant
to carry 2,000 layers of the very choicest White Wyan-
dottes and Single-combed White Leghorns on my famous
free-range system. No time nor expense will be spared
‘“ to make this one of the greatest paying plants in this
country. This will also be to some extent an experi-
mental farm, as my aim will be, if possible, to improve
on my system. All my young stock will be raised on
the free-range system as laid down in this book. For
this I have two four-acre fields, side by side, which will
be inclosed by a wire netting fence, as described else-
where, and one field will be used for White Wyandottes
and one field for Single-combed White Leghorns. I shall
endeavor to raise 2,000 of each breed. Four choice mat-
ings of each variety will be kept to produce my prize
winners and to produce males for all my breeders and
for my customers, as my great aim is to produce the
best hatching eggs in this country from the best stock
at the lowest prices. as I shall do but little advertising
for my poultry plant. My customers, who have bought
my book, will get the benefit of all my experiments
and the benefit of exceptional quality in stock and
eggs. In front of my dwelling I have a five-acre field

i)

6 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

with a fine stream of water running through it, one of
the most natural locations to be found hereabout. I
shall carry one thousand White Wyandotte layers in this
field of high quality seldom seen in such numbers to-
gether. I will have another six-acre field on another
part of my farm, where I will carry one thousand layers
of the famous Young strain of Single-combed White
Leghorns, no finer nor greater layers to be found in
this country. A large feed house will be built in a side
hill, and underneath it will be a large cellar divided up.
one part for incubators, one part for an egg room, and
one-half for processing oats for my large plant. Labor
will be a small item on this plant, as all my feeding, etc.,
will be done with the aid of a gentle horse. My first work,
after getting posession of my new farm, April 1, 1908,
will be to fill my incubators with 2,000 White Wyan-
dotte eggs, then to build my laying houses and get my
stock in their new quarters, where my colony houses, as
described elsewhere, will at once be built, and two brood-
ers placed in each house; then a large number of fruit
trees will be put out for shade. as well as profit. Do not
fail to pay me a visit if you come this way. Location:
My place is located three-quarters of a mile from Pleas-
ant Valley depot, on the old P E. R. R. now owned
by N. Y., N. H. & H.R. R. All trains from Pough-
keepsie Bridge depot stop at Pleasant Valley. To reach
my place from depot turn to left and walk to hotel,
past the front of it, turn to left, walk north by end of
hotel straight ahead until you reach my place—fifteen
minutes’ walk from depot. If notified my wagon will
meet you at depot. If you come to West Pleasant Val-
ley station walk to east five minutes and you will reach
my place. If you come from the east through Boston
you get off at same depots. You are always wel-
come any day except Sunday, as we must have one day
for rest.

A PREMIUM-TAKING FLOCK OF COLUMBIAN WYANDOTTES

BUFF PLYMOUTH ROCK HEN

CHAPTER II
How to Erect and Run a Poultry Plant for Profit

In these few pages of as few words as possible, I am
going to tell you how to erect and run a poultry plant on
an entire new system for saving labor and making
money. A plant for the farmer, for the business man.
A plant that can be run by an amateur, so that one
without experience can make it pay a profit from the
start. It is conceded, by men who know, that ninety-five
out of every one hundred make a failure in the poultry
business. The reason for this is because they go en-
tirely opposite to nature in caring for them. A hen in her
wild state roosts in trees and feeds on seeds of various
kinds, worms and insects of every decription, and when
you take her and shut her up in a yard you make a
prisoner of her. Under such conditions you feed her on
mashes of various kinds until you get her sick and out
of condition and the natural result is she does not lay
more than one-half the eggs she is capable of, and in
some cases not an egg. Hens kept under such condi-
tions in many cases die of roup or cholera or other ma-
lignant diseases.

Another very important thing we can learn from the
hen in her wild state. She always lays her brood of eggs
during the springtime, hatches and raises her chicks
when the ground gives up a crop of worms and various
other insects, and by the time these chicks are fit to
wean, dry weather of summer comes on and worms and
insects become scarce and the result is the hen lays no
more eggs during the year.

Now, in order to keep hens laying the year round, we
must produce springtime conditions the year round.
And, right here, I want to say there is nothing that can
take the place of insects equal to green cut bone but
this is very hard to obtain in most places, and especially
on a large scale Therefore, as a rule, we must use
beef scraps in place of it.

CHAPTER III

Location

First of all we must have a suitable location. This
is a very important thing if you are going in the poultry
business as a business. If you do not own a farm, by all
means spend some time and get one suitable for the
business. I advise not less than fifty to seventy-five acres.
One with a nice, big orchard on it is most desirable. And
by all means get a place with one or more streams of
water running through it, and if these streams are fed by
springs so much the better. Under no circumstances
buy a place for the poultry business unless it is well
watered, for this is where the saving of labor comes in,
and the poultry will do much better—this is nature.

Get a place sloping to the south, with gravelly or sandy
soil, if possible. Sixty acres will carry five thousand lay-
ers nicely and leave room enough to raise six thousand
youngsters if it is laid out right, besides pasturing your
horses, cows and various other things you will want on
a farm. An ideal poultry farm should be inclosed with
a five-foot fence of wire netting and two barb wires over
this. It should also have a base board of rough hem-
lock sunk two inches or more in the ground. This makes
a fence proof against all kinds of animals, and there is
nothing that has more enemies than chickens. This is all
the fence you will need on your plant, as a rule, unless
you go in the fancy line, or in dividing your cockerels
and pullets. In these cases you should fence in the fields.
Your hens must have free range if you want results.
And you must remember the profit lies in eggs. There-
fore, an egg plant is what you must have to make money,
and a plant of this kind laid out right and handled prop-
erly can be run by the labor of one man most of the
time, as under my system labor is a very small item—
and labor has put more poultry plants out of business
than any other one thing.

10

CHAPTER IV
Laying Out Your Plant

First, to lay out your plant, we will take your stream
of water and build houses both sides of it far enough
from the stream to keep on high-ground. Put your
houses sixty to seventy-five feet apart. according to your
ground, keeping sixty Leghorns to a house and fifty
Wryandottes, Rocks or the larger breeds. You must flock
your hens, then you will have no further trouble, as
nearly every hen will go in her own house.

To flock them, put your sixty hens in the house and
keep them shut up for three days, letting them out on
the third day one hour before dark Your hens get ac-
quainted in the three days they are shut up together, and
will ever after run much together and return to their
own house. After trying houses of various kinds and
styles I have never found one that suits me so well as
the one I shall describe, and I consider it the most
perfect house built at the present time—and also the
cheapest constructed.

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A MODEL LAYING HOUSE

CHAPTER V
Buildings

First, I will give you a list of the lumber that goes
in such a house:

Three chestnut planks, 2 by 8 by 20 feet long.

Thirty-three boards, 1 by 8 by 16 feet long, tongue and
groove.

Thirty-three boards, 1 by 8 by 14 feet long, tongue and
groove.

Twelve hemlock, 2 by 4 by 20 feet long.

Four 2 by 3-10 feet long, for roosts.

Three windows, 8 by io glass, six panes each.

This house is ten feet wide, twenty feet long, four
feet high at eaves, with a double pitch roof. made of
tongue and groove boards, so that paper of any kind
is not required. A roof of this kind will never leak, of
any account, if put up with lumber well dried out.

Cypress is the best of all lumber for these houses, as
it will stand the weather—far better than any other kind,
and it will last for many years without decaying. White
pine is the next best, and the only other kind of lumber
that can be used where no lining paper or roofing paper
is used. Second quality lumber will answer every pur-
pose if you use judgment in cutting it and putting it on,
but you must have your lumber good and dry, then it
will not shrink apart of any account.

Use the best lumber on north side and en‘!s of house.
I will show a cut of this house. A view of the frame
will aid you very much in building your first house.

12

POULTRY RAISING

Diagram of Frame

2x4=1/9FT. BIN. LONG

13

2xX4=20 FF LONG

Corner Fost 3fr. 10 In.

8x0

Farrers OFF 8/N.

PLANK 2x 8= 20 Fr. LONG

FRONT VIEW, BOTTOM

CHAPTER VI
Directions for Constructing House

I will now tell you very plainly how to construct these
houses, so anyone that can use a saw and hammer ought
to be able to build one.

First, square up your planks twenty feet long, then
take your third plank and make two planks ten feet long
each. Now spike your twenty-foot plank on your ten-
foot plank, using twenty-penny nails, and you have
a box twenty feet long and ten feet four inches wide,
outside measure.

Now take a 2 by 4 and saw six pieces four feet long.
Then saw out each one of these 2 by 8; these make your
corner posts and also your center posts. Spike these
firmly on your plank box, one in each corner, and one
in center of house, letting the 2 by 8 piece you saw out
come on your plank. Nail from inside and let flat side
come toward ends. This will make your outside even.
Then saw four pieces 3 feet 4 inches long to double your
corners with. These nail from plank up on each end. This
will make them all even on ends and sides. Now take a
2 by 4, just 20 feet long, nailing one on each side flatways
on top of your uprights, even with ends and outside.
Now take a 2 by 4, ten feet four inches long, saw two
inches out of each end, drop this in center of house on
your plank, which drops bottom two inches below level
of plank; spike firmly both ways. This keeps your house
from spreading and is also your division. Take a 2 by 4
nine feet eight inches long, spike this at end of house,
away from door, between your 2 by 4 even with top of
plate. This piece stays in and keeps your end from
spreading and is also used to nail your end boards to
Now take two more 2 by 4, saw ten feet three inches long.
nail one in center of house to upright under plate. nail

14

POULTRY RAISING 15

the other at end where your door goes in same way,
using a twenty-penny nail—just one in each end—as both
of these come out after your roof is on. These are used
to keep house from spreading and are also used in put-
ting roof on, as we lay a 20-foot plank on them to stand
on in nailing the roof on. Now saw two sets of rafters,
each rafter 6 feet 8 inches long Heel must fit on plate
and have your top come together nicely.

Make a pattern and keep it for all future sawing, as
you may have trouble fitting the first pair.

Nail each set together on ground, then spike firmly
on end of your plates. even with outside in each case.
After this, put in your ridge a 2 by 4, 19 feet 8 inches long,
Spike this in peak between your two sets of rafters,
letting flat side come even with south side of house and
upper edge even with peak. Spike firmly through end
of rafters, using three spikes in each end. Then fit a
pair of rafters in center of house, raising your ridge in
center a little above level. Then put in two cross-
pieces, three feet from peak on each side. Spike firmly
through end rafters and center rafter, as your roof boards
nail on these. Now set in your door studding in center
of end. Make your door about thirty inches wide. ac-
cording to the width of your boards, and about six feet
high. Put in a 2 by 4 on each side. setting bottom on
plank and sawing top to fit under rafter. Now put a
short piece on top and you have your frame complete,
except a 2 by 4 from door frame to corner of house, to
nail your end boards to.

Now you are ready for your siding. Take, if you use
white pine, 1 by 8, 16 feet long boards. Take 16 boards,
sawing each in four feet lengths. This gives you 64
boards, four feet long. Begin at a corner, nailing one
inch from top of plate, as your roaf boards come over
these and just pass it. See that you get your joints per-
fectly tight.

16 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

After putting on both sides put on your ends, up and
down same as siding Then for your roof saw your 14
foot boards one-half inch from center This makes one-
half just one inch longer than the other Now plane off
your groove in first board. Let this project one inch
over end of house. Put on your south side first, using
your shortest board, nailing boards about three-eighths
of an inch from your peak, as your boards on north side
nail over these, and in this case you use no ridge board.

Your roof boards should be very dry, and put firmly
together. and vou will have no leaky roofs.

Next, saw out for your windows. In same end of
house you put your door.

Put two windows in center of this part under plate
on south side by nailing a 2 by 2 for windows to slide on.
You slide this pair of windows both ways. Put your
other window in the other department, two boards from
center of house, and under plate, just the same as the
other pair, sliding it back. This is used principally for
cleaning the house.

Saw a hole for letting out fowls in first part of house
under your two windows, and put in a slide which you
can slide sideways with your foot, fitting this very loose.

Now put in your roosts. First, nail a strip up and
down seven feet from back end. Put a 2 by 4 block on
plank to keep this strip out so window will slide in
between. Now nail a seven foot strip from end of
house to your short strip sixteen inches below top of
plate. Do this on both sides and on these boards lay
your roosts 2 by 3 ten feet long. About five of these gives
sixty hens plenty of room. You can either notch your
board one-half inch to lay them in or let them lay loose
on your board. Do not nail them.

Now put in your wire netting partition in center of
house, a door of wire netting.

Put in your feed hoppers and nests, and your house is
practically complete.

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WHITE WYANDOTTE MALE

POULTRY RAISING 17

Diagram of End of House

Door

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10 Fz.

END

CHAPTER VII
Making of Hoppers

Your feed hopper should be made large enough to
take a bag of feed, one hundred pounds, which is sure
to last a flock of sixty layers a full week. To make
this, take a common hemlock board, twelve inches wide,
for bottom and ends, saw a piece two feet long for
bottom, two pieces three feet long for ends. Nail these
together, ends in bottom. Now use tongue and groove
boards for back and front. To put in your back, fit
your first board inside of ends, letting it come on bot-
tom in center of hopper and top edge of board even with
back of hopper, putting rest of back boards even with
outside. Better put rest of boards on outside. Now for
your front put first board, one inch from bottom and one
inch from your other board, letting top of board come
even with outside front of feeder. Then board up on
outside. This lets your feed come out in front. Now
put a four-inch strip across front at bottom. This keeps
your hens from throwing out the grain.

Now make another hopper about quarter size of this
one for beef scraps. Make it in the same manner, only
make the throat of it fully one and a half inches instead
of one inch, as beef scraps will not feed readily like
other grain and you will often have to give it a kick, as it
will clog up easily. A nice way is to give it a kick every
night when you gather the eggs. You can also make a
three-department box for oyster shells, grit, and char-
coal, which should be kept before them at all times—grit
to grind their feed, oyster shells for lime in making
shells, ete , and charcoal for medicine.

Another hopper which can be made at no expense
and is grand for feeding beef scraps is as follows: Get
a box at grocery store, say 15 inches long. 5 inches wide,

18

POULTRY RAISING 19

and 10 or 12 inches high; now board this box up tight;
only leave a 3-inch opening across entire front of box at
top. Fill this box with beef scraps; hang on a nail by
boring a hole near top and your hens can eat until it is
empty and no bother about clogging. Other sizes of
boxes will work just the same. You can use one double
this size for other feed. Your hen puts her head in this
3-inch opening and can eat until all is gone if your
box is hung close to the ground, and these boxes will
cost you nothing at grocery store where you trade.

WHITE LEGHORN COCK

CHAPTER VIII
Care of Lavers

First, I will tell you how to care for three thousand
layers with but little labor, and you should clear $3,090
a year from them.

If you have built your plant on a stream of water you
will have no watering to do.

Keep your feed boxes filled at all times.

Never let them get empty.

Your main feed is best quality wheat screenings.

Your large hopper will take a one-hundred-pound
bag, which should last a full week, often two weeks.

You should make a round every week and fill all your
hoppers—one with wheat screenings, one with beef
scraps, and your three-department hopper with grit.
oyster shells and charcoal.”

If your plant is built on a stream and inclosed with
a good wire-netting fence, all the work you have to do
during the week is to gather your eggs every night and
give each flock of fowls two quarts of cracked corn.

Remember, your fowls have wheat feed before them
all the time, so they can safely have a light feed of
another kind of grain every night.

A horse and wagon should be used for this work at
all times. A good gentle horse that can be left standing
and is afraid of nothing is what you want.

From November until April you will have to make
two trips a day to your houses. As col.1 weather comes
on your windows will have to be closed nights and
should be opened again in the morning when the sun
shines and warms things up.

On this same trip you should give your hens all the
processed oats they will eat—about four quarts.

20

POULTRY RAISING 21

In case you have heavy snow storms your hens can
eat snow and they will lay just as many eggs as though
they got to the brook to: drink—and even more

Your last trip at night you feed each flock one or two
quarts of cracked corn, gather your eggs and shut the
windows. The slide which lets your hens out is never
closed.

This feed is for flocks of sixty layers and this system
will pay a good profit with but little labor, as you can
easily see.

You will not get an abundance of eggs during the
winter under this system. ;

You should keep the end of your house, where your
nests, hoppers, etc., are, well bedded during the winter,
and throw your grain in it so as to give them all the
exercise possible.

A FLOCK OF BEAUTIES

&

WHITE WYANDOTTE COCK

CHAPTER IX
An Egg Plant for Profit

I will now tell you how to run a large poultry plant
for the greatest possible profit. This will require more
labor, but will pay the most profit, labor considered,
of anything I know of at the present time. I have ex-
perimented to my entire satisfaction that fowls, to be
kept in perfect healthy condition, should have free ac-
cess to feed at all times, and they will lay fully one-
third to one-half more eggs a year—and eggs that will
hatch, for they will be produced nature’s way.

I have found nothing so good as good quality wheat
screenings to be kept before them at all times. So you
must keep a hopper of wheat screenings always before
them ; also one of beef scraps; and they should also have
grit, oyster shells and charcoal before them at all times.
Now, if possible, in order to get your great profit, you
must have a free-range plant, such as I have described,
and it should be a leghorn plant, and of all the leghorn
family there is none that will produce you more eggs
and larger, finer eggs than the single-combed White Leg-
horns.

I am positive an average of 200 eggs a hen can be
produced under this system of feeding and caring for
them.

One good man could care for five thousand layers
during the summer, providing some one cared for the
marketing of the eggs. But for winter care. say from
November 1 to April 1, it would keep two men busy,
for my aim here is to tell you how to produce eggs the
year round in the greatest possible number.

I will begin with the winter care, say November 1,
when your stock should all be properly housed in the
colony houses I have told you how to build. We will

23

24 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

presume you have a leghorn plant of three to five thou-
sand layers. We usually have much cold weather dur-
ing November in this part of the state. Of course, you
will have to vary this part of the system according to the
weather. Here you must use judgment. The first thing
in the morning, soon after daylight as convenient, start
out with a load of processed oats, and give each flock
of sixty layers about four quarts each. If the morning
is warm, open your windows. If cold, leave your win-
dows closed until your next trip, after breakfast, about
8 to 9 a. m.

If morning is cold and freezing, you should take a
load of warm water and give each flock enough for the
day. The finest thing I know of to water a large plant
of this kind is a two-gallon butter crock. Get the low
kind, for they are easily kept clean and require but
little labor in fillmg Even if your hens have free ac-
cess to a stream of water chey should be watered in
their houses during the winter if you want a large egg
yield. In the morning, when your hen comes off the
roost, she is apt to be dry, especially if she is laying,
and it is very essential at this time that your hen should
have warm water to drink. for cold water would chill
her and make her dull and all hump up and the result is
your eggs yield stops.

About 2 p. m. give each flock all they will eat of
processed oats. Feed this very liberal, as you will find
they will always be hungry for this and you cannot
over feed them on it. About four quarts to a flock is
about right. This is one of the greatest egg producers
I know of, and there is nothing which makes eggs so
fertile.

Your hen will eat these when she will look at nothing
else It can be produced for ten cents a bushel at the
highest price—usually for eight cents a bushel. I will
tell you in my next chapter how to process these oats.

POULTRY RAISING 25

This alone is worth hundreds of dollars to anyone who
keeps a large plant, as I will prove to you further on.

For your last round, just before sundown, give each
flock two quarts of cracked corn in their litter, to give
them more exercise. Gather your eggs and close up
your windows. If weather is very warm leave one of
your windows open or partly open in scratching part.
You must use judgment in these things. A plant cared
for this way during the winter should give you fifty
to sixty per cent egg yield right through, providing
your pullets are laying age and your old hens have
passed through their molt.

You will see that I feed four times as much processed
oats as I do any other kind of feed. Oats to a hen
are what oats are to a horse. It gives them vigor and
puts life in them, such as no other feed will do.

If you follow these instructions to the letter, and
use judgment in keeping your houses from getting too
warm during the day, you will never fail to bring in a
load of eggs every day in the year.

Always empty your water jars at night on this last
trip, so your hens will always be dry in the morning
when you come around with your load of warm water.
This is very important.

About 11 a. m. give each flock of 60 layers about
one quart of green cut bone and at the same time, if
weather is very cold, gather your eggs, for if you are
saving them for hatching care must be taken they do
not get chilled.

SILVER-LACED WYANDOTTE COCK

CHAPTER X

Patent Processed Feeds and How to Produce Them

IMPORTANT NOTICE

The following process of preparing my improved feed
is fully protected by United States patent pending, and
included with the sale of this book is a license authorizing
-the purchaser named to make and use my Processed Feed
for his own use only.

I will now tell you of one of the most wonderful
feeds known at the present time. Positively one of
the greatest egg producers ever discovered and some-
thing that will make eggs hatch any time of the year.
Oats to a hen is what oats is to a horse. What would
a horse be worth without oats? But very little! The
main objection to oats for fowls is their very tough
hull, which is very hard to digest, and for this reason
alone many people will not feed them to their hens
I have experimented very extensively with oats and
have fed them for weeks boiled, with no results in
eggs. They make a very good fattening feed when
boiled, but of no value for eggs—simply put the hens.
out of laying condition. But when processed, hens eat
them in preference to anything else. In fact, they will
eat them when they will touch nothing else, while on
the other hand, they are the last things eaten by the
hens in their natural dry state. I will now tell you how
to process them.

Take a pail of good, ordinary oats, same as you
feed your horses, cover them with water and let them
soak five hours in summer and ten hours in winter, then
turn them in a larger pail, one that will hold double the
amount, first bore a one-half inch hole in your pail be-
fore turning them in, so it will not hold water; leave
in this pail until they sprout thoroughly and begin to

27

28 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

germinate. heat, which will be in three or four days if
in a moderate warm place. Always keep covered with
an old bag and stir and sprinkle with water once daily.
After they become a mass of roots turn into a box
holding about five pails. The oats should not be over
three or four inches thick in the box This must also
have a couple of one-half inch holes in bottom so water
will quickly drain off when you wet them each day.
They will grow very rapidly when they begin to sprout
and are at their best for feeding when sprouts are one
inch to one and a half inches long, and one bushel will
make four to five bushels if oats are good and grow as
they should. Always keep oats covered with a heavy
bag or old blankets to keep them warm, for they will
grow much faster, and your sprouts will remain white
and very crisp. By feeding when sprouts only one-
half to one inch long you not only get the value
of your oats, but they also take the place of green feed,
and there is nothing I know of which will start hens
laying so’ quickly and will make so many eggs during the
year. Give your layers twice a day all they will take.

For growing young chicks there is nothing like them.
Give your little chicks all they will eat three times a day
after they are a week old. They are at their best for
little chicks when sprouts are one-half inch long.

If possible always grow them in a cellar, but in warm
weather they can be grown under open sheds, under
trees or north side of buildings. They grow at their best
in a temperature of 50°.

Now for a large plant where you must grow them
in large quantities you will find a butter tub a fine
thing to soak them in. They can generally be gotten
at a grocery store for five cents each. You fill your
tub three-quarters full of oats and fill up with water,
let them soak five to ten hours, then turn in a barrel
that you have put a couple one-half inch holes in so

POULTRY RAISING 29

water can drain off. Now if you soak two or three
tubs at a time you can dump them all in one barrel,
and leave them in this barrel until they sprout and be-
gin to heat. They should be thoroughly wet every
day so long as they remain in the barrel, and as soon
as they germinate heat they must be dumped in boxes
that have holes in bottom say three to five inches thick,
and wet and turned daily until ready for feeding. It
they get too hot in boxes cool down with cold water
and spread out thinner. To have them at their best you
should start a lot every day and keep them fed up as
fast as they get fit. You will soon learn just how many
to start every day. A little cayenne pepper and salt
distributed through them evenly when fed will greatly
increase your egg yield and keep your hens in the pink
of condition—a teaspoonful of pepper and one of salt
to a common pailful. I, as an experiment, kept two
pens of leghorns six months on this processed oats and
beef scraps in front of them and no other feed and
they laid well all that time and went through the earliest
molt of any hens on the plant, although I do not
advise feeding them alone. Now, if this falls in the
hands of one who has no cellar to grow their oats in,
nor no warm place in winter, they can be grown in
an open shed or barn by piling up a foot or more of
horse manure and setting your box on it and bank your
box on all sides with horse manure, put on a board
cover and throw over this a blanket and you can easily
grow them in such boxes during the coldest winter
weather. You can grow them much quicker in winter
time by wetting them with warm water, but in sum-
mer time they should always be wet with cold water.
They also make a great feed for ducks. Now remember
there is nothing that will grow chicks so fast as these
processed oats, and nothing so cheap for when they
grow at their best they can be grown for ten cents per

30 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

bushel, and there is nothing that will make hens lay so
many eggs nor such fertile eggs. This feeding system
alone is worth hundreds of dollars to any one with a
big plant, and for small yarded plants it solves the green-
feed question entirely and will make any plant pay a
profit. Leghorn pullets can be grown and put to laying
at four months of age on this feed. I have also done it
with White Rocks and White Wvyandottes. Never soak
oats over five hours in summer or in a warm cel-
lar in winter, where a heater is run, for if you do you
destroy the sprouting qualities of the oats. Barley is the
next best grain for processing, and will give nearly as
good results. Wheat and buckwheat can also be proc-
essed in same manner with grand results.

CHAPTER XI
Summer Care

For the summer care of these flocks, beginning about
April 1, or as soon as the ground can be worked, take
a strip of land along the ends of your house, which end
is most convenient, and plow a good strip. If you have
ten or twenty houses in a row, plow the length of them
all, if you can. Now sow this strip liberally with oats,
and if you can harrow this every morning so much the
better, and sow lightly of oats, three times a week, un-
til the coming November. Do this all summer long,
using a spring tooth harrow, and your hens will work in
this fresh ground for this grain continually. As this
grain keeps sprouting and coming up all the time you
will have springtime for these hens from spring until
November. If you follow this up the result in eggs will
surprise anyone The hen keeps right on laying all
through the summer and fall, and not even stops when
she is molting. So I claim under these conditions a
two hundred to two hundred and fifty egg hen will be
a common thing and flocks treated this way should
average two hundred or more eggs each, for you see the
hens feast on an abundance of worms and insects as
well, and they will not consume more than half the
quantity of beef scraps when treated this way.

In changing from winter to summer care, if your
plant is laid out on streams of water, as I have advised,
you will have no watering to do, and just as soon as
you get to plowing your ground you will gradually
stop your green bone and processed oats, as your hens
will get all these oats they can handle, now started in
their natural way in the ground. The worms and in-
sects they now get will take the place of green cut
bone, so all the work you have to do during the sum-

31

32 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

mer is to cultivate this ground and keep sowing oats
and at night hitch up your horse and give each flock
of fowls about two quarts of cracked corn and gather
your .eggs. If you follow up this system the hens will
keep at it all during the molting season. You must
make your rounds every week during the summer and
fill all your hoppers, one with beef scraps, one with
wheat screenings. Also your grit, oyster shells and
charcoal. These must be before them winter and summer.
Never let them get empty, and when freezing weather
comes in the fall you must change your plans at once if
you want the egg yield to continue. Remember this is
where the profit comes in. Under no circumstances let
your hens fall off on eggs; start on your winter ra-
tions, as I have outlined in a previous chapter, just as
soon as severe weather of November comes on.

‘During the summer your windows are to be left
open day and night; also your door, providing your plant
is enclosed with a wire netting fence such as I described
in opening chapter of this book.

You must remember one thing. If you let your
fowls get knocked out in any way, through careless-
ness, it will take three to four weeks to get them back
again. And you in the meantime have lost a month’s
laying of eggs. So great care and judgment must be
used. Sickness will scarcely be known under these
conditions. Your hens should always be in the pink
of condition, and your eggs from January to Septem-
ber should run go per cent fertile and give wonderful
hatches. I think you will agree with me that this is
caring for fowls the nearest to nature’s way of any
system known at the present time.

=
7 arse Prize PULLET
NEWYORK 1877

A WINNING BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCK FEMALE

CHAPTER XI
Caring for a Free-Range Plant Without Labor

In this chapter, I will tell you how to care for a free-
range plant with practically no labor, only gathering your
eggs and caring for them.

First, make a feed hopper, as I have described, to hold
a bag of feed. You should have three of these, fill one
with wheat screenings, one with oats, one with cracked
corn. Also your small hopper with beef scraps and your
three-department hopper with grit, oyster shells and
charcoal. And if your plant is built on a stream of water
and inclosed with a wire-netting fence, as I have de-
scribed, all the work vou have to do is to gather your
eggs every night and send your man around once a week
and fill all your hoppers. He should also put carbolic
acid and kerosene, half and half, well mixed, on the
roosts once a month during the winter and twice a month
during the summer. In September he should clean the
houses out thoroughly and coat them over with new
sand. Your hens will go to the creek to drink, and in
winter, 1f ground is covered with snow, let them eat snow
and they will lay more eggs. The hole which lets them
out of the house should never be closed, day or night,
winter or summer. In the winter time your windows
would have to be kept closed and your hens will pay you
a fine profit under this system with practically no labor.
You will not get a big egg yield during the winter, but
you can depend on a profit of one dollar or more from
each hen on this no-labor system. You will be surprised
at the results. .\nd for a business man in the city, who
owns a small place in the country, and wishes to make
some money at home while he is away, there is nothing I
know of that can pay him so large a profit on his money
invested as a poultry plant run on these lines. Of course,

34

POULTRY RAISING 35

in this case you would have to buy your breeders each
season and the best way to do this is to sell off half of
your stock during the early fall and replace them with
pullets of which you can always buy at one dollar each
during September and October. You can buy better
birds for your money during these two months than at
any other time of the year. One reason I specially ad-
vise single-combed White Leghorns in preference to any
other breed, is because you can always buy all you want
for one dollar each. good laying stock

I advise changing your breeding stock at end of second
year’s laying, as two years is all a hen can be relied on
to pay a good profit and she should never be kept after
this unless she is an extra good one which you want to
use as a breeder.

achrel/73* =;

LIGHT BRAHMA BANTAM COCK

CHAPTER NIII
Caring for a Yarded Plant

I am now going to tell you how to handle a yarded
plant for the greatest possible profit, to those who are so
unfortunate as to own one, for such plants seldom pay
unless it is used for breeding fancy stock. I have experi-
mented for many months on yarded plants and I find that
hens even over crowded in small runs will produce more
than double the eggs fed on the hopper system than they
will fed the other way. Just keep good quality wheat
screenings and beef scraps before them at all times and
give a liberal feeding of processed oats in the morning—
all they will eat—and at 3 p. m. another feeding of pro-
cessed oats—all they will eat. Remember you cannot
over-feed them on the processed oats, as they are light
and quickly digested. At night give a light feeding of
cracked corn in litter in winter and you will be surprised
at the results. Your fowls will always be in the pink of
condition and practically no sickness among them. Roup,
colds and cholera will scarely be known, even on the
same plants that have always been full of it, when the
hens had their daily mashes, all they could eat of it.

I will also give you another valuable secret for a yarded
plant. If your hens have long, narrow yards, say 10 by 60
or more feet long, I will tell you how to keep green feed
in their yards all summer. Spade up half the yard, sow
it to oats early in the spring and put in cross boards eight
inches high, cover it over with one inch mesh wire net-
ting, stretching it tight and stapling it firmly to the
boards. As soon as your oats get a good start your hens
will eat them through the wire netting and your oats will
grow just as fast as your hens can eat them off. In this
way they will be supplied with green feed all summer
long. I am satisfied a yarded plant can be made to pay

36

POULTRY RAISING 37

run on this new line and cut your mashes entirely out.
If possible, feed green cut bone once a day. About 11
a.m. I find the best time for this. If you are in a position
to get plenty of green cut bone feed a yarded plant as
follows: Keep a hopper of wheat screenings, also one
of beef scraps, always before them, as well as grit, oyster
shells and charcoal. Give a feeding of processed oats in
the morning and 11 a. m a light feeding of green cut
bone; 2 p. m. another feeding of processed oats, all they
will eat; at night a light feeding of cracked corn in litter
to induce exercise, and your fowls will keep in the pink
of condition, lay well all winter long, and colds and roup
will hardly be known if they are properly housed They
should be watered with warm water in very cold weather,
as they are always dry in the morning, and should not be
allowed to fill themselves on ice water. After they drink
all they want of water in the morning, during the rest
of the day they will drink but little at a time and cold
water will not hurt them.

A QUEEN OF WHITE WYANDOTTES

CHAPTER XIV
Feeding a Yarded Plant for the Greatest Possible Profit

I will now tell you how to feed a yarded plant for the
greatest possible profit and still have healthy birds and
produce eggs that will run fully 90 per cent fertile in
January. This method will produce more winter eggs
than any method I know of at the present time. Keep
a hopper of wheat screenings, one of beef scraps, always
before them. Also your grit, oyster shells and charcoal—
never let them get out of any one of these ingredients.
As soon as it is light, give each flock a few handfuls of
barley or buckwheat in the litter to keep them busy, say
a pint to twenty hens.

About 9 a. m. give all the processed oats they will
take.

About 11 a. m. give a light feeding of green cut bone,
just what they will eat up nicely, not over one-quarter to
one-third ounce to a hen.

About 2 p. m. feed all the processed oats they will eat.

Just before going to roost give a light feeding of
cracked corn, thrown in their litter—they will not take
much as a rule.

In the morning give your hens good, clean, warm wa-
ter. This is very important, for the more your hens drink
the more eggs they will lay.

Always dump all your drinking fountains at night so
your hens will be sure to be good and dry in the morn-
ing, and start off with warm water.

If you keep your windows well opened during the day
so your hens do not get too warm, you will have no
trouble in getting an abundance of eggs all winter long.
For if you knock your hens out by over-heating them or
leaving your windows open just one night, carelessly, it
will take three weeks to get them back on eggs again.

38

POULTRY RAISING 39

You must use judgment in this respect. A yarded plant
fed this way will keep perfectly healthy and lay an abun-
dance of eggs the year around, but can never compare
with a free-range plant fed on the system I described
for producing the greatest amount of eggs.

One more advantage in feeding a plant this way, you
can get eggs from Leghorns that will run go per cent
fertile right in January under this system, and hatch
fully as good as eggs usually hatch in April. Wyandotte
and Rock eggs will run from 80 to 85 per cent fertile,
and for any one who wants to raise early broilers, you
can easily see the great value of this method of feeding.

In case you cannot conveniently give your hens warm
water to drink in the morning leave water before them
all the time, or water first thing in the morning before
hens come off the roost.

If your houses have dropping boards you should clean
the droppings off at least twice a week the year around.
In the houses I have described for your free-range plant,
your droppings go right on the ground, and it is not at
all necessary to clean them out often than twice a year,
so you can see the amount of labor saved.

For nests in these colony houses that I have told you
how to build, I advise making three sets of five nests
each for each house, which can easily be made. A com-
mon hemlock board, twelve inches wide, will answer
every purpose. Saw a piece, four feet six inches long—
three of these will make your top, bottom and back. Use
four partitions one foot long, and for your front a four-
inch strip is all you want, and you have a set of five nests
quickly and easily made. You can either nail these to
siding or put a couple of holes in them and hang them
on hooks, about one foot from the ground, just so a
hen can look in them, and then she will jump in them
from the ground.

Three sets of these nests should go in every house for
a flock of sixty layers.

n, }
ie AW)
gal

Ten FEN
BosTon 1995

GAED *,007KED BY 2
DVY YOUNG HIGHLAND NY

A PEN OF PRIZE BEAUTIES

CHAPTER XV
How to Build an Ideal Incubator House

I have told you in my former chapters how to produce
your eggs in the greatest possible number and how to
produce eggs that will give you the largest hatches.
Now you will want to know how to hatch them. First,
I will tell you how to build what I consider the most
perfect incubator house. Select a side hill if you have
one near by, for a perfect incubator house should be
part under ground and part on top. You can determine
size of house by the number of machines you want to
use and the number of chicks you wish to hatch. But it
is always safer to build much larger than your present
needs, then you will not have to rebuild or enlarge when
your business grows.

To build this house, put up a wall of stone five feet
high on all four sides, putting in windows at the top of
your wall; a four-pane window, 8 by to glass, will
answer the purpose nicely. Hinge at bottom so it will
open inside.

Put windows on each side and at south end. Put none
on north side. A window every ten feet is about right.
Now put a window in each end for ventilation. Put
these windows near peak; a six-light window, 8 by 10
glass, and in summer these can be left open for ventila-
tion. This makes an ideal incubator house.

Throw up dirt to top of wall on all sides, except
south end, and put in a double door wide enough to carry
out any incubator set up.

The air in such a house always smells free from lamp
smoke, and if you fail to get good hatches in such a
house you will know it is not the fault of the house.

4I

A FIRST-PRIZE COLUMBIAN WYANDOTTE COCKEREI.

CHAPTER XVI
How to Run an Incubator

I want to say a few words here in regard to running
an incubator, especially to the beginner. First, after set-
ting up your machine and starting your lamp, you must
let up your regulator. Keep unscrewing it until tem-
perature goes up to 10214 degrees. Remember the tem-
perature cannot raise when your disk over lamp is raised.
But when you get temperature to 102% and your disk
raised one-eighth of an inch, or so it just clears, then
your machine is ready for the eggs.

Better run your machine twenty-four hours after you
get your temperature right before putting in the eggs.
As soon as you put your eggs in your temperature will
disappear; give your machine twenty-four hours to get
back to 102% degrees. Run your ventilation according
to directions sent with the machine you use.

Change trays from side to side in the morning and
from end to end at night in a two-tray machine, and
turn the eggs at end of third day and fourth day. After
this turn twice a day until eighteenth day Turn last
time at end of eighteenth day, but continue to change
your tray from side to side and end to end until you
see the first pip. Handle your eggs very carefully at
end of eighteenth day on, and do not jar them in
changing your trays. Now, remember, animal heat be-
gins to take place after seventh day and your tempera-
ture will begin to work up and you must give your regu-
lating nut part of a turn every time the temperature
crawls up to 103, so as to keep it down as near 102%
as possible, if you are operating you machine in a room
which registers above 65 degrees. If not over 40 to 45
degrees, then keep your machine at 103 and do not air
your eggs. ,

43

44 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

In a room of 50 to 70 degrees begin airing your eggs
on fifth day and air each night, depending on tempera-
ture of room.

A good airing for an hour or two on seventeenth day
will much improve your hatch in warm weather.

Give plenty of air during hot weather.

Good, fresh eggs hatch much better than those kept
two or three weeks,

If you are hatching white eggs test them on fifth day,
and take out all clear eggs and dead germs.

If you are incubating brown-shelled eggs leave them
in seven days, when you can test them nicely, taking out
all clear eggs and dead germs.

They should be tested again at end of fifteenth day.
Remove all dead eggs and if you have not a good, fair-
sized shell you must give more ventilation, for you can-
not get a good hatch without a good-sized air cell.

After you see your first pip do not open your ma-
chines again under any circumstances until your hatch is
practically through, say the morning of the twenty-first
day for Leghorns and end of twenty-first day for all
large breeds.

Leave chicks in incubator fully twenty-four hours after
all are out.

Just a word about buying an incubator. I have tried
nearly all the leading makes of incubators on the mar-
ket, and I firmly believe there is no machine made to
equal the latest Cyphers, made by the Cyphers Incubator
Co., of Buffalo, N. Y. It isfar ahead of their old style
machine, and the increased depth to the egg chamber with
their nursery drawers makes it a first-class hatcher in
warm weather as well as cold. And I believe it to be as
near perfect as a machine can be built, and if you fail
to get a good hatch with it, as a rule, you will know the
fault lies either with yourself or the eggs. Now comes
the most difficult part of all, the business of raising the
chicks. Here is where they nearly all fail except those
using my system.

LANCASTER mas

A BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCK WINNER

CHAPTER XVII
Chicks Raised Nature's Vay

Tirst of all you must get the best brooder made if
you expect to be successful, and if you are not in the
broiler business and do not want to hatch only breeders,
then I advise getting your first hatches out about March
20, and for this system, on a large scale. taking everything
into consideration, I believe to-day there is no brooder
made equal to the latest Cyphers Self-Regulating Brood-
ers for outdoor use, costing $17. This brooder can be
successfully used out of doors from March 20 on, and
you never have to worry about your heat nights, as long
as you run a good, big flame. for it regulates the same
as an incubator, so there is no danger of overheating
your chicks nor chilling them as long as you keep flame
enough to keep up your heat. These brooders will safely
carry 75 to roo chicks, and if they are hatched strong
and properly cared for according to my instructions you
should raise nearly every chick put out. :

To do this on a large scale, to raise from three to
six thousand, you must keep some one among your chicks
all the time if you do not want them all carried away
by hawks and crows and various other animals, as there
is nothing we raise that have so many enemies.

I will here name you some of their worst enemies when
they are small: Hawks, crows, rats, weasels, cats, skunks,
woodchucks in rare cases, raccoons, foxes.

Select for raising vour chicks a nice, large orchard if
you have one; if not, you must put up some artificial
shade. Put your brooders in rows across the lot, about
ten feet apart, and try to hatch in one week enough
chicks for a row of brooders. About sixty feet in front
of this row put a one and one-half foot fence of one-
inch mesh wire netting; then another row of brooders

46

POULTRY RAISING 47

about eight feet from this fence; then another fence,
same as the other.

It makes no difference how many brooders on a line,
twenty could be handled all right if they were all filled
with chicks at near the same time.

If the field was near level they would equalize them-
selves all right in the brooders.

You can safely put seventy-five chicks in each brooder
and should have no trouble in raising seventy of them
to maturity if you follow my instructions to the letter.

For feed and care I first grind fine all eggshells they
‘hatch from, and feed these for first three days, putting
chick feed before them the second day. You must see
that they are never out of feed again as long as you own
them. Here is one of the secrets of success, for if your
chicks always have free access to feed, they will never
overeat and die of indigestion. As soon as you put them
out give them fine grit and fine charcoal, also water that
is lukewarm, and your eggshells, and, as I said, next
day put chick feed before them.

On the third day also put beef scraps before them and
see that they are never without it. Begin feeding them
processed oats, same as you do your hens; on the seventh
day they will quickly take to it and eat off all the roots
and sprouts, leaving nothing but the hulls. Feed them
all the processed oats they will take from then on, say
three times a day. Do not be afraid, for they cannot
overeat of it, and remember this costs only ten cents a
bushel. You can thus see how cheap you can raise your
chicks.

Remember, from the seventh day on, your chicks must
have always before them water, chick feed, grit, charcoal
and beef scrap; also feed three times a day all the pro-
cessed oats they can eat. I generally set a panful in the
pen first thing in the morning and again at noon, dump-

48 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

ing out the hulls every time. And again at about 4 p. m.
[ see that they have just all they can eat, and I wish you
could see them grow. It is a pleasure to raise chickens
this way where sickness is scarcely known.

After three weeks change from chick food to a good
quality of wheat screenings, which must also be kept
before them from then on as long as you own them. It
is giving grand results, and I know of nothing that can
in any way compare with it for growing young chicks,
and nothing so cheap as this screenings and processed
oats. If you cannot get good screenings use wheat.

After three days old your chicks should always have
before them grit, charcoal, beef scraps, chick food, until
you change for wheat screenings or wheat, and water to
drink—and good, clean, fresh water is very important—-
in fact, thousands of chickens are lost every year through
dirty water and filthy drinking dishes, as disease starts
in the drinking fountains in many cases.

If your fountains are not kept clean, and if you are not
particular and wash out your fountains every time you
fill them, slime collects on the inside, and I consider this
rank poison to the chickens.

The best fountain you can get is the two-piece earthen
fountain, which keeps the water cool and clean. I would
not use any other kind under any circumstances. If you
can yard your little chicks on a stream of water, so
much the better, and much labor is saved.

When your little chicks are first put out, they should
be looked after several times a day, and you must see
that they do not get chilled.

Keep your brooder at 95 degrees first five days, then
it should be lowered to 90 degrees, after two weeks
to &5 degrees, and after three weeks to 80 degrees and
gradually harden them off, depending on the season of
the year and the weather. Here is where common sense

WHITE WYANDOTTE FEMALE

POULTRY RAISING 49

and judgment counts Give your chicks heat just as
long as they want it if you wish to attain the most rapid
growth, and this is what counts if you wish rugged birds
of extra good size, for such birds, as a rule, are never
sick.

After your chicks are four weeks old give a light
feeding every night of cracked corn until they are ma-
tured. If they are Leghorns this can be kept up as
long as you own them with grand results.

I am now going to give you the secret of success in
raising your chicks and putting them over the danger
period, especially Leghorns, which is from twenty to
forty days old. This is raising them nature's way.

In front of my colony house brooders, say six feet, I
plow a good, big strip the entire length of all my brood-
ers. I do this the day chicks begin to hatch, and I sow
this lightly with oats. By the time the chicks come out
‘of their brooders the oats are nicely sprouted. I let the
chicks out of the colony brooders the third day about
10 a. m., if weather is nice. The next day I let them out
I run the harrow over the ground and sow more oats.
Every day after this I harrow this ground. And I sow
more oats every other day. The result—the chicks keep
at work from morning until night and never get time
to become sick.

You ought to see them grow on this system. I con-
sider this the only perfect way to raise chicks, and
the only successful way. Pullets raised this way should
lay at four to five months of age.

As soon as they weigh two pounds each, or near
this weight, the cockerels should be marketed—except
what you use for breeders—and these should be sepa-
rated from the pullets in order to mature them fine.

If the eggs which your chickens are hatched from are
produced under my system you should have no trouble
in raising fully ninety-five out of every hundred you

4

50 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

hatch, providing the eggs are from yearling hens or fully
matured pullets

Bear in mind the most critical time of your chick’s
life is between twenty and forty days old. This is the
period they must not be neglected, as they begin to
grow rapidly at this age.

You must sow more liberal of your oats at this time,
and do not neglect your harrowing, for it takes but a
short time each day.

You must also give your chicks all the processed oats
they will take at this time.

In order to economize and save labor, as soon as the
chicks are large enough to leave the brooder. you can
move your pullets to your laying houses; that is, the
pullets which you want to keep for your own breeding
stock to take the place of your yearlings.

When you want to replace a flock of old hens with
pullets just put a lean-to on back end of your laying
houses—say 6 by 6 feet square would answer every pur-
pose. You can put this up with a single pitch roof
and a wire netting front. and put some low roosts in
here and shut in sixty of your finest, largest pullets for
three days, when you can let them run with the hens.

Feed chicks in their own department in an open
trough, keeping it full of wheat screenings; also beef
scraps before them all the time; also grit and charcoal.
They will grow fine here and mature very rapidly.

When you sell your old hens just shut chicks out of
their department and they will go right in the main
house and never have to be changed. When they start
to laying, they will keep right at it, and you will gain
a full month’s eggs under this system.

This lean-to is also very handy for shutting up set-
ting hens and various other purposes.

For earlier hatches, if you find you want to hatch very
early and also to have some houses to carry over some

POULTRY RAISING 51

surplus birds, in case you go in the fancy stock, you
cain build one row of houses same style as your laying
houses, only one-fifth smaller. Use sixteen-foot plank,
and make your house eight feet wide and sixteen feet
long, outside measure, in each case. Make your house
four feet high at eaves, same as your laying houses. For
the roof, saw a‘sixteen-foot board in three pieces, and
saw rafters five feet one inch long. Build it the same
as laying houses, with wire netting partition, and you
have an ideal house for the business. Put in windows
the same size as you use for your laying houses, one
im each side in center of each department; also a slide
under each window for letting them out.

Use a good indoor brooder for these hotises. I can
sell you a good brooder for $5 to put in these houses—
one that will raise your chicks. You cannot put up too
many of these houses, for I consider this the ideal way
of raising . chicks.

Now handle these chicks just the same as I have out-
lined for the others, except you use these houses in
February and March, when you cannot plough the
ground, so you will start these chicks same as I have told
you, except on the seventh day you begin feeding pro-
cessed oats to your chicks, and give them all they will
eat of them from then on, and see that they are never
out of chick feed. It will be a pleasure to see them
grow, and sick chickens will be rare under this system
of feeding—and your cost in raising them will be very
light, as you will find their main feed is processed oats
at 8 to 10 cents a bushel.

When your chicks are large enough to think of roost-
ing, and need heat no more, you should market the cock-
erels for squab broilers, if possible, at eight to ten weeks
old, and remove your pullets to your laying houses.

52 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

Your brooders are then ready for another batch of later
chicks which can be allowed to grow up in these houses.

You will find these houses very handy for wintering
surplus cockerels and pullets, and it is always nice to
have some surplus birds on hand.

I think I have made things very plain, and if you
will follow my instructions you will have no trouble in
raising your chicks, providing your eggs are produced
under my method of feeding, from healthy stock.

PARTRIDGE WYANDOTTE HEN

CHAPTER XVIII
Raising Broilers—Bowel Trouble, Its Cause and Cure

This chapter is written expressly for broiler men and
those who keep their hens mainly on mashes.

As I have been through the same experience in my
day, and have seen whole broods die off like poisoned
flies with bowel trouble, and have tried everything I had
ever heard of, but with no results until I took all feed
away for three days and gave only charcoal to eat and
boiled milk to drink with a good quantity of black pep-
per put in and this stopped the diarrhea completely.
But many would die any way, so I experimented even
further, for you can depend upon it if some in each
batch have it on the start of the season it will get worse
every hatch. So, for first three days I gave only char-
coal to eat and boiled milk to drink, with plenty of black
pepper in it. The result was I had scarcely a case of it
after this. But these chickens I found were very difficult
to raise anyway, so I had to look still further for my
trouble, and I found all the trouble lied in the feeding
of the breeders. You will find in nearly every case
the foundation of all your trouble lies in your breeding
stock.

If you want healthy, rugged birds, free from disease,
never feed them a mash.

The cheapest way of all to feed and have healthy, rug-
ged birds. free from disease at all times, is to feed as I
have told you, except in place of your light mash at 9
a. m., give your hens a good feeding of processed oats,
nature’s own feed. If you will produce your eggs in this
way, from yearling hens mated, with fully-developed
cockerels, not less than ten months old, you can raise
practically every chick you hatch, even in a long-piped
brooder-house, providing you can run your temperature

53

54 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

anywhere from 80 to 95. degrees. This, you know, is a
big variation; but strong, healthy chicks can stand a lot
and not get sick. Once they get sick, they will bunch up,
and this is the last of them, for they can die about as fast
as you can hatch them.

You will find most of the big breeders, who are in
the fancy stock raising, all use hens for hatching and
raising them, and get all their neighbors to hatch and
raise for them, for they cannot hatch them and raise them
with incubators and brooders, just because their breeders
are fed on mashes, so as to get a big yield to supply
their large trade in eggs for hatching. Nearly all the
eggs sent out for hatching by the single settings, at a big
price, always are hatched by the old hen and raised by
them on free range, which will pull them through if any-
thing will.

Unter my system of feeding eggs laid here in January
are running 90 per cent fertile, and have hatched as high
as 9334 per cent of fertile eggs.

Other years’ chicks, weak and sickly, almost impossi-
ble to raise, which shows you without a question that it
all lies in the feed.

You can see at a glance why every one who has tried
the broiler business as a business has failed at it. I
defy any one to find a profitable broiler plant, but I am
satisfied it can be made to pay under my system of feed-
ing and in no other way yet known at the present time.

I want to say to you broiler men, with your long-
piped houses, give them one more trial with eggs pro-
duced under my system of feeding and your troubles
are over.

From January until June you can hatch broilers at a
splendid profit under this system, for you can grow your
later hatches up and make roasters of them at a grand
profit, for under this system of feeding your birds will
grow very rapidly and develop fully one-third quicker

POULTRY RAISING 55

than fed the old way, stuffed with mashes. When fed
the old way you will lose a large number with colds and
roup, and have but few well chickens to sell.

Just a word here in growing your birds for roasters.
Either good wheat screenings or wheat which I feed
must be kept before them all the time; also a first-class
beef scrap and grit, charcoal, and good fresh water.
And they should have one good feeding of processed oats
about 9 a. m.—all they will eat. At night give all the
cracked corn they will take, and you will grow roasters
that will be a credit to you, and sickness among them
will not be known, and your profit will surprise you.

But you will find it to your advantage to market them
as broilers as long as they bring 25 cents a pound and
more.

A pan of corn meal, set where they can eat all they
want whenever they want it, will also fatten them nicely.
Do not wet it, but let them eat it dry.

Under these conditions only can broilers be made to
pay a profit, and you can raise them well into the sum-
mer on this free-range system of cultivating the ground.
But just as soon as you fail to raise 80 per cent of your
hatch, better stop and sell your eggs.

CHAPTER XIX
Discases—Their Cause and Cure

I am going to write a few words here on diseases of
chickens, of which there are many; in fact, so many that
I will only mention a few which are apt to give you
trouble.

First. I will take the cause, which is improper feeding
in nearly every case. All colds, roup, cholera, bowel
trouble come from improper feeding. This also causes
lice, which live on the hen, or rather the poison thrown
off her system.

Heavy feeding of rich mashes will quickly knock out
your birds and various diseases will soon step in

Our old-fashioned farmers never knew what colds and
roup were. but of late years many farmers have been
feeding mash to increase their egg yield, and the result—
colds, roup, cholera.

If you will feed my way and cut your mashes out
you will not be troubled with disease. Roup and cholera
will not be known. If you see a hen sick just give her
a tablespoonful of castor oil and in twenty-four hours
more, if she is not all right, give hér another spoonful.
If she is no better at the end of next twenty-four hours
better cut her head off and burn her up for she will only
mope around and finally die.

I find roup and colds in fowls grown, or nearly grown,
can be cured in nearly every case without medicine by
feeding them my way, and partly grown to one-third
grown birds will improve very rapidly on this hopper
feeding, and by the aid of good roup cure you can save
nearly every bird and get them well and strong. But
never give them a mash.

You may occasionally have a hen go light, but very
rare on this method of feeding. I find corn is the cause

56

POULTRY RAISING 57

of most birds going light. I have proved this to my
entire satisfaction. Corn or cracked corn will not do
at all kept in hoppers before your hens, as they will grow
poor and go light on it unless on plenty of range, but it
can be kept before them without injury where two or
“three other kinds of grain are kept before them at all
times If you follow my system in every detail you will
have no medicine to buy, as sickness will scarcely be
known on a free-range plant. But if you have a small
yarded plant overcrowded in a very low, damp place,
why then you will get some sick birds, and colds and
roup will be apt to break out in a light form any time,
and in such a place you should always keep a good roup
cure on hand, and there is nothing I have ever tried as
good as Conkey’s Roup Cure. This will also tone your
birds right up and is a splendid tonic during the spring
and fall. Often in September, about the roth, a dis-
temper is apt to strike all your young stock, and affect
them in various ways, especially the stock not fully ma-
tured; so I strongly advise on all yarded plants to give
Conkey’s Roup Cure in drinking water, one-half dose from
first to tenth of September, when I would give full dose
through rest of month and first half of October, and you
will be well paid for it. All of Conkey’s remedies are
first-class and their advertisement will be found.in this
book.

Hill’s Bromide Quinine Tablets are also very good
for severe individual cases which will occasionally break
out. A tablet night and morning for a couple of days
will generally bring most any bird in good shape if taken
in time. They can be bought in any drug store for 25
cents per package, and should always be kept on hand.
You must expect to lose some birds during the spring,
when they are laying heavy, but your loss should be light
if my instructions are followed, and your yards are
plowed up as early as possible in the spring, especially on

58 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

a yarded plant, for much filth is bound to accumulate dur-
ing the winter close in front of your houses, and your
hens constantly scratching in this is apt to sicken them.
Air slack lime should be sown in these runs several times
during the summer, say once every two months, and also
on the roosts lightly once a week. This is for yarded
plants only, for on a free range you do not have these
things to contend with.

WHITE PLYMOUTH ROCKS

CHAPTER XX
When and How to Start in the Poultry Business

Now comes the important part to the one who is going
to start in the business, when to start, and how. Now,
in either case, you should start in the fall, if you wish to
start on a large scale, for your buildings should be put
up in the fall, even if you start by buying your eggs and
raising your own breeders. This is by far the cheapest
way to start if you have not much capital. Get your in-
cubator house ready in the fall, providing you have not
a house cellar, which will answer for your first year.

You can get your brooders all right in the spring if
you only raise breeders, but cannot start so early as where
you have a brooder-house. But the Cyphers Self-
Regulating Brooders can be used out of doors very early
in the spring any time after March 1, as a rule. Pullets
hatched midde of March should lay in August under my
system of feeding, and keep right at it from then on. I
can sell you all the eggs you want from either single-
combed White Leghorns or White Wyandottes, pro-
duced under my system of feeding, at $6 per one hun-
dred in any quantity on short notice—eggs that will run
go per cent. fertile right in January. Now, to the one
who is well fixed, financially, I advise him to start in the
fall. I advise putting up your laying-houses during
July and August, and buy your pullets as early as possi-
ble during the fall. October and November are usually
the two months when you can buy cheaper than at any
other time of the year.

You should have no trouble to buy all the pullets and
yearling hens you want of single-combed White Leg-
horns during these two months at $1 each. This is a
very satisfactory way to start, but not so cheap as buy-
ing the eggs and raising your own stock.

59

60 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

You must buy eggs of a party who feeds little or no
mash if you wish to get good hatches of chicks that will
live if given a half a chance, for when an entirely inex-
perienced man tries to raise them they must be from
hardy stock.

You do not have to wait many months for profit to
come in when you buy your eggs to start with, as you
can market your cockerels for broilers In three months
from the time you set your machines you can count on
quite an income, so all things considered, with the expe-
rience you get, I advise starting in the spring by buying
your eggs and raising your own chicks.

These chicks can be raised very cheaply under my new
system of giving them all the processed oats they will
take three times a day, in connection with a good chick
food before them all the time, as well as grit, charcoal,
and beef scraps.

You should clean your brooder out at least once a
week, which I find answers every purpose. Also keep
your brooder part, where chicks are fed, covered with
cut clover, as they eat much of this, and it is very ben-
ficial to them.

WHITE WYANDOTTES

AND ROSE-COMBED WHITE LEGHORNS

SINGLE-

CHAPTER XxI
A Leghorn Plant for Proft

I want to say just a few words here as to what a Com-
bination Leghorn Plant can be made to do, and to tell
you how to run such a plant for the greatest possible
profit.

First of all, your great aim must be the production of
eggs, and for at least six months in the year you must
feed this plant to produce not only eggs that will hatch
but to produce eggs that will hatch chickens, that will
live, cared for any old way. If you will feed your plant
this way, and advertise eggs for hatching, producing fer-
tile eggs that will hatch strong, healthy chicks, that will
live if given half a chance, and offer to replace all clear
eggs free if returned, express prepaid, I am very positive
a man with three thousand layers could clear from $8,000
to $10,000 a year, providing he feeds them on my system
and gives them free range.

You should sell your eggs during the hatching season
for $6 per 100, or $50 per 1,000. Possibly you could
make more money by selling them for $5 per Ioo in any
quantity, and make no reduction for quantity, for $5 per
100 is the popular price of good, hatching eggs in this
country. There is a grand profit in it when you produce
them in such large numbers at so small a cost.

Now for your breeders, their care, and feed.

You must not feed a bit of mash. I will lay you down
here the ideal way to feed for fertile eggs at a small cost
either a yarded or free-range plant for Leghorns only.

Beginning in December, the first thing in the morning,
as soon as it is light. give your hens a light feeding of
buckwheat or barley in your litter; about 114 quarts for
60 or 75 is plenty. Give warm water to drink as early.
as convenient, and at 9 a. m. give each flock all the pro-

62

POULTRY RAISING 63

cessed oats they will take. At 1 p. m., when you give
your flocks more water, or put in warm water with what
they have, give on this trip a light feeding of green cut
bone—a quart to a flock of sixty, if they will take that
much, if not, cut them down to a pint.

About 3 p. m. give another feeding of processed oats,
all they will eat. Remember, these only cost 8 or 10 cents
a bushel.

Before dark give not over I to 1% quarts of cracked
corn to a flock, and gather your eggs. If it is very cold
weather, you will also have to gather your eggs on your
1 o'clock trip.

These birds must have always before them grit, oyster
shells, and charcoal Also a hopper of beef scraps and
one of wheat screenings or wheat.

Just a word about mating up your breeders to produce
chickens, which should practically every one live.

To do this, take all your yearling hens and mate them
with cockerels, not less than ten months old. Put these
birds on my free-range system, and feed as I have here
directed, you can then raise practically every chick you
hatch.

Pullets also hatched in February and March, mated to
good, vigorous~yearling cocks, will also produce chick-
ens that are very hardy when a year old, and you should
have no trouble in raising 90 to 95 per cent. of these
chicks.

Under no circumstances use anything but a single-
combed White Leghorn for the greatest profit, because
they lay the largest egg of the Leghorn family, and are
by far the most popular of the Leghorn family.

To dispose of your breeders to the best advantage dur-
ing July, August, and September, you should make a
great clearance sale at $1 each. You will have no trou-
ble to dispose of all your surplus stock at this price, and
you will find this far preferable to putting them on the
market.

64 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

Care for your plant during the summer as I laid down
for summer care and feeding.

Just a word here in mating your male birds, for where
you follow up my system I advise four cocks or cock-
erels for every sixty layers. These birds should be so
mated that there is no fighting among them, and no
“boss,’ as a rule.

After your breeding season is over, say July, you
should remove nearly all your male birds and make one
flock of them, except a few flocks, which it would be well
to keep mated the season through, so you can always
fill a stray order for hatching eggs.

Your cockerels should also be separated from the pul-
lets and placed in one large flock, or several flocks of one
hundred or less in a flock. In this way these male birds
run together very peaceably and rarely ever fight, and
you rarely see a ‘*boss” among them.

To mate them up, just take out of a bunch as many
as you want for a flock of females, all at once, and let
them go. You will then have no fighting, and very sel-
dom even a “boss.” This is the only way to mate up
your birds for the best possible results.

Never keep a brassy male bird. Have nothing but
pure white birds on your place, and you will find your
profits can be greatly increased by gradually breeding
into fancy birds.

Show a few at your fall fairs or local shows. Get a
Standard and study them up. By careful selection you
can soon have a plant of very fine birds.

Do not try to show at the big shows, such as Madison
Square Garden, or Boston, for it takes years of study or
a large sum of money to win at such shows as these.

Just a word about your houses and Iam through. If
the houses I have given you the plans of in this book are
not warm enough for your location, you can build them
six feet at the eaves instead of four by using a twelve-

POULTRY RAISING 65

foot board sawed in half in the center. Put a loft-floor in
this house at eaves and fill the top with straw. Do not put
on a tight loft-floor; a floor of poles would work all right.
You should also line the sides in the same way, and you
would have a very warm house, where you could get
eggs in any kind of a winter.

I want to say right here the Leghorn plants of this
country are the only plants up to the present time that
have made money in a market way. Eggs for market, at
market prices, have made many of them rich.

All that have tried the larger breeds, such as Wyan-
dottes, Rocks, etc., have failed at it in a market way, so
they have all had to go in the fancy, or give it up entirely.

COLUMBIAN WYANDOTTE

CHAPTER XXII
al White Wyandotte Plant for Profit

I have decided to add here a chapter on White Wyan-
dottes, as I have bred them all my life, that is for the
past eighteen years, and exhibited them all that time. I
have seen them head all the large breeds in popularity,
but the demand for them increases yearly. I know of
no breed of the large fowl where it is such hard work to
get good, fertile eggs that will hatch strong chicks, that
are bound to live any old way, as it is from the White
Wyandotte that have been bred for exhibition purposes
in yarded plants.

In breeding exhibition stock every trace of creami-
ness or brassiness had to be bred out of them, and their
stability has gone with it to a large extent.

Inbreeding has also done much to injure the vitality
of this breed.

My aim here is to tell you how to feed and care for
these birds, so you can get them hardy and full of vigor
once more, without breeding out their fine qualities—and
this can be done by feeding alone.

I have experimented very carefully along this line and
I find all large breeds should be fed quite different than
the small breeds

First of all they should never see corn in any form—
that is, the breeding stock. If any corn it must be in very
limited quantities.

I find they will stand the hopper feeding and give
grand results. In fact, this is the only natural way of
feeding any fowl, and the only safe way of feeding.

First of all give them your hopper of beef scrap and
wheat screenings; also grit, oyster shells, and charcoa..
The first thing in the morning give a light feeding of
barley or buckwheat in litter to induce all the exercise
you can.

66

FIRST-PRIZE WHITE WYANDOTTE COCKEREL
OWNED BY A. C. HAWKINS

68 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

At 9 a. m. give all the processed oats they will take.

At I p.m. a light feeding of green cut bone, a pint to
a quart for sixty layers.

At 3 p. m. all the processed oats they will take.

At 4 p. m.. or later, according to the time of the year,
another feeding of oats. This should be fed to all large
breeds in place of cracked corn.

Always use clipped oats, and feed in the litter, and you
will not only get an abundance of eggs, but eggs that
will hatch strong, healthy chicks that will live. Such
eggs will run from 80 to go per cent. fertile right in the
winter months.

Iam not guessing at this, for I am doing it right in
February.

Do not be afraid of the processed oats, but give all
they will possibly take for they are very light and it is
impossible to over-feed on them. There is nothing I have
ever tried that will make hens lay equal to them, and
nothing so cheap. It costs only about half to feed a plant
this way.

You can always sell any amount of eggs for hatching
at $5 per one hundred.

I am positive you could sell all a three thousand laying
plant could produce for hatching by a liberal amount of
advertising on the same lines I told you how to advertise
Leghorn eggs.

You could sell a large quantity of breeders for good
prices, if you will start with farily good stock and ex-
hibit at the small shows on the start.

One thing you have to contend with on a Wyandotte
plant, you do not on a Leghorn plant, and that is setters
This means quite some work, but you will not have near
the amount of setters on a plant fed this way.

To properly break up a setter, they should not be al-
lowed to remain on the nest the first night, and as a rule
three days will break up any setter. Or, if you want to

POULTRY RAISING 69

break her up in twenty-four hours, just put her with a
bunch of surplus cockerels, where a roost is handy, and
your hen will not think of setting.

There is no breed at the present time so handsome as
the White Wyandotte, when bred up for show purposes,
and no fowl that makes so fine a broiler and roaster when
they are grown up healthy and rugged, that is, nature's
way, and this can be done on the feeding I have outlined
on my free-range system. You can get eggs right in
January that will run from 80 to 9o per cent. fertile, and
give you grand hatches of strong, rugged chicks that can
be easily raised right in the winter—and you will have
no trouble to dispose of hundreds of laying pullets dur-
ing September, October, and November at $2 each.
There is a grand profit raising pullets at this price, when
you can raise 90 per cent. and more of all the chicks you
hatch, and raise them largely on a feed that costs you
only 8 to 10 cents a bushel. So you can easily see what
a profit you can make by running a large plant my way.

Your small feed bills would surprise you, after feeding
the old way.

I am positive $10,000 a year can easily be made off a
plant of three thousand layers, and even more when you
work into high-class show birds and get $3 to $5 a set-
ting for many of your eggs, and $15 a hundred.

Sell high-class birds from $10 each up to a hundred.
It can be done by pluck and perseverence.

A White Wyandotte plant of three thousand layers
could turn in a greater profit than the same number of
any other breed fed, and run my way, which is nature's
way, providing it was handled by a White Wyandotte
fancier who thoroughly knew the value of his birds.

WHITE! WYANDOTTE HEN

CHAPTER XNIII
A Combination Plant for Profit—Fruit, Poultry, Bees

I feel that I must write a few words here on a com-
bined plant for those who want to go on either a small
or large scale, and do not want their eggs all in one bas-
ket; or to those who like a variety in life—for variety is
the spice of life.

There is no combination of business, that I know of, so
profitable, and at the same time will give so much pleas-
ure in various ways as this. First of all, every poultry
plant should be covered with fruit. This is the very first
thing you should do. To provide your poultry with shade
and a peach tree gives the quickest shade of them all.
Then the plum and the apple, and you are bound to get
immense crops of fruit, where you cultivate your ground,
and use your poultry manure around your trees. And
when you are feeding your poultry, how nice it is to have
all the peaches you want to eat, or plums, or pears,
grapes, and, in fact, you should plant liberally of all
kinds of fruit, and you will find life worth the living.

Now you want bees to fertilize your blossoms, so you
will get large crops of fruit, and bees are very profitable
and afford a great amount of pleasure. They are very
profitable; in fact, they often turn in a greater amount of
profit, time and captial taken into consideration, than
anything I know of. I have cleared as high as $25 from
a single hive in a season with but little labor. You have
to give them no attention to speak of from October 1 to
May 1, and for only two months, May and June, do they
need any great amount of attention.

I advise every one who keeps poultry to make of it a
combined plant—poultry, fruit, and bees.

You must remember that fruit-trees you must have on
your poultry plant for shade, if you expect your poultry

71

72 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

to do its best, and there is but little labor to care for a
big lot of fruit in this way—and there will be years when
your profit from fruit alone will not only give you a good
living but will give you a good, fat bank account as well.
Just think of eating peaches, for instance, from the Ist
of July until November. This can be done, if you will
plant several kinds from the earliest to the latest. You
can also have all kinds of apples, plums, cherries, and
other fruit in the same way, grown at no expense, on
your poultry farm and any one should enjoy life under
such circumstances.

PATR WHITE LEGHORNS

CHAPTER XXIV
Breeding for Layers

There is no question but what it pays to use a good
trap-nest and breed up your stock for layers. A few of
your best flocks could be used for this purpose. Pul-
lets would give you the best test for this, for after a
month or two you would know which ones were laying
the best, and at the end of the first year you could take
all with a big egg record and keep them over, especially
for your own breeders. In this way you could soon build
yourself up a wonderful strain of layers that, if cared
for and fed on my system of free range, you would soon
have flocks averaging you two hundred or more eggs a
year. It is not possible in any other way, in my opinion,
and this is the only sure way of breeding high-class show
birds. Those that win the blue in the hottest competition,
and it would not take so much extra time as you would
think, for you could release your hens on every round
you make. By breeding from the yearling hens that gave
you the big egg yield as pullets, you would not have to
trap-nest your hens the second year. In this way you
could easily develop a wonderful strain of layers, which
would more than repay you for time spent. In fact, a
big plant could well afford to hire an extra man for this
purpose alone—that is, on a three thousand laying plant
it would pay to hire a good man to do nothing but take
care of your eggs and trap your hens. In this way I am
positive you could soon have nothing but two-hundred-
egg hens.

73

CHAPTER XXV
Molting

I wish to say a few words here in regard to molting
especially on a yarded plant, for on a free-range plant |
believe in keeping them laying right through the molt,
for, as a rule, when they have practically their entire
new coat. they will in most cases stop laying and take a
rest, for a hen must have a rest and time to build up.
For, as a rule, on a free-range plant, when you continue
your harrowing and sowing oats you can keep your birds
laying pretty well all through. October and November,
when they will drop off and have their rest, then you
should have your pullets under full head way if you are
in the market egg business. But if you depend on sell-
ing eggs for hatching, then I advise you to let your hens
have their rest during November and December, and get
them under full headway in January, then you will pro-
duce eggs that will hatch, and if other things are favor-
able, your eggs should run 90 to 95 per cent. fertile from
January I on, and hatch equal to eggs laid in March and
April, providing your hens are fed under my system

Now, in caring for a yarded plant, you will find your
hens will slack off heavy during July and August, and
during September, October and November you will get
but few eggs from the large breeds. and, as a rule, all
things considered, taking the eggs you get in considera-
tion and getting your stock in the best possible condition
for winter eggs, I advise keeping your hens on nothing
but processed oats and beef scraps, for this will put them
through the earliest molt of anything I have ever tried,
and your oats should contain sprouts one-half inch long
for this, and will cost you about 12 cents per bushel. You
will also be surprised at the amount of eggs you will get
during this period.

74

POULTRY RAISING 75

December I put before them their hoppers of wheat
screenings or cheap wheat and to every pail of processed
oats add one teaspoonful of cheyenne pepper and one of
salt, which makes your hens very thirsty, and the more
water she drinks the more eggs she will lay. Your hens
will respond to this treatment and surprise you on eggs
and should lay as well during January as any month in
the year.

RO Iicite.

WHITE LEGHORN COCK

CHAPTER XXVI
Feeding and Selecting Large Breeds Important

I want to say a few words here to those who have a
love for certain large breeds and wish to keep them, even
if their profits are not so large. And many of you who
have read the preceding pages of this book may get an
impression there is no profit in any other breeds only the
ones I have strongly advised. I do not want you to
think this, for any one with push and advertising can
boom any breed to a certain extent, but this takes money.
I will here name some of the most important large breeds
which there is a good demand for and money in. Barred
and \Vhite Plymouth Rocks, Buff Orpingtons; also
White and Black Orpingtons; Columbian \Wyandottes,
Rhode Island Reds, the great winter layers, and for broil-
ers their eggs have a great sale. Two of the handsomest
of the large breeds, which are now much neglected, are
the Buff Wyandottes and Buff Plymouth Rocks. They
are great layers, and it remains for some good fancier to
again bring them to the front. There is money in any
of the breeds I have named as well as others. Now re-
member all large breeds need free range to do their best,
as they do not stand confinement. near as well as the Leg-
horns. To those favorably located on farms and can
raise crops I will lay down here the ideal way of feeding
all large breeds during winter for the most eggs, and
for yarded plants the year round. This same system can
be applied to Leghorns with wonderful results. This
method of feeding will produce the most fertile eggs of
any system in existence, no matter what any one tells you.
Now, instead of hopper feeding, you must raise a piece
of wheat, or barley, or oats, and when ripe cut it and
bind it in sheaves anid put it in your barn. Do not thrash
it, and in Nevember begin to give it to your hens in the
sheaf, and let them thrash it. Give a sheaf first thing in
the morning, and 9 or 10 a. m. give a feeding of pro-

76

POULTRY RAISING 77

cessed oats, and if they need more grain, depending on
the size of your flock, you can give another small sheaf
at noon, or give a light feeding of cracked corn in the
straw, and at 3:30 to 4 p. m. give another feeding of
processed oats with Lee’s egg-maker mixed with them,
according to directions with it, and you will never fail to
get an abundance of eggs, and at the same time your
birds will be in the pink of condition, and eggs produced
under these conditions will not only give you wonderful
hatches of chicks, but chicks that will live and grow with
half a chance. I will also say here that Lee’s Germazone
is a grand remedy for bowel trouble in little chicks, and
very simply given; just put in drinking water according
to directions with it. You should always keep it on hand.
You will see here that I have cut out beef scraps, for
good beef scrap is very high and very hard to buy at the
present time, and IJ have replaced it with Lee’s Egg-
maker, which I have been carefully experimenting with
during this past season of 1907. It has given me 25 per
cent. more eggs, during winter months, under the same
conditions, with half the expense, and birds are in the
pink of condition It can also be mixed with processed
oats for little chicks with grand results. Fresh-cut bone,
three times a week, is excellent where you can con-
veniently get it during hatching season, but is not a
necessity. I shall keep Lee’s Egg-maker in stock to ac-
commodate a local trade, and those in Pennsylvania can
get all of Lee’s goods of Mr. Howard L. Davis, Market
Street, Philadelphia, Pa., or write Geo. H. Lee Co,
Omaha, Nebr., for all their products are strictly high-
class, including their lice-killer, where you prefer getting
it ready for use rather than mix it yourself. I know
you cannot fail if you feed your large breeds as laid
down in this chapter. If you do not fully understand
everything write me, for my aim is to see every poultry
plant in this country succeed, or come and see me and see
two thousand birds cared for under this system.

CHAPTER XXVII
Erection of a Yarded Plant

_I must say a few words here to those who have but a
little land and must yard their stock. First you will want
a good laying house, and in order to house a large num-
ber of birds at the least possible expense, and to econo-
mize in labor, I advise a plain house without an alleyway.
one about 80 feet long for the least labor, for in a house
without an alleyway you must open all your doors in
passing through. I would divide this house in eight pens,
10 by 15 feet; build your house 15 feet wide, 80 feet long,
7 feet high in front and 5 feet in rear; put one fair size
window in each department about two feet from the
ground; fit your windows loose and slide up to roof and
make your holes for letting hens out under the window,
fitting wooden slides very loose to slide sideways so you
can open and shut them with your foot; put in your wire
netting partitions every ten feet, hang your doors two
feet from front of house with spring hinges, and have
your doors all swing one way, then you can walk right
through the house and your doors will always close
themselves. In making your partitions you should al-
ways run a ten-inch board across at bottom and your
door should swing over this. You can also fit a pan on
shelf over this board between partitions, and in this way
you can water two flocks at once. Your nests can go on
one side and your feed hoppers on the other. This house
should be filled in with at least six inches of sand and
then it will always be dry Dropping boards can be
placed on back side of house; a platform 3 feet wide is
about right, with three roosts over it Io inches apart,
all on a level—one foot from platform is about right. You
can keep thirty Leghorn layers and two male birds to a
pen nicely in such a house, or, if the larger birds, twenty -

78

POULTRY RAISING 79

four females and two male birds. They should have
yards 50 to 150 feet long, the longer the better, and you
should at once set these yards with peach or plum trees
for shade, and plow them several times during the sum-
mer, if possible.

You will want a feed-house handy by for feed. You
can use your own judgment in building this; size will
depend largely on size of plant. I advise a board floor
in it, and you can put bins in it and also leave a part for
a picking room.

Now you will want a good brooder-house. The length
of this will depend on the size of plant you build or the
amount of room you have. It is always best to build
too large. I advise a house fully 15 feet wide; would
raise it one foot from ground on posts and put in a board
floor. Would also board this one foot space with rough
boards, and under this floor put a cat, and you will never
have a rat in your brooder-house. Can put a window or
two so your cat will have some light. I would build this
house 7 feet high at north side, and 4% feet at south
side, a single pitch roof. Put along north side a 3-foot
alleyway, and cut your house up in 6-foot pens. They
will be 6 by 9 about, outside of hover, and each pen will
accommodate one hundred chickens. I advise Cyphers’
Heating System, but not the open-top system. Leave
one foot only between hover and alleyway. You will
want a window in each department; hang it at bottom as
it will open inside. Also put some ventilators along
north side of house, and every ten feet just fit in a board
3 inches wide 3 feet long, put on hinges and let it open
inside of house, and you will find these ventilators very
fine in hot weather You will want a slide in every pen
for letting chicks outdoors; also a slide between every pen
in house, so you can run chicks right along from one end
of house to the other. You should use a 10-inch board to
divide all your pens. This will also hold your pipes, and

80 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

from this board up you can use wire netting a foot of
one-inch mesh netting first, and from this to roof you
can use two-inch mesh. If you breed Leghorns you
will want this house wired to the roof. Of course you
must have a gate from alleyway in every pen. A
brooder-house like this comes in very handy on a free-
range plant for raising chicks during February and
March, for you can never get out too many early chicks.
You will also want several colony houses in yards to
grow up your young stock in. A little house, 3 by 5,
will accommodate sixty to seventy-five nicely until they
are large enough to roost in trees, if you are fortunate
enough to have trees in your yards. If you have not,
by all means set out peach trees in them at once for
your chicks are never as healthy as when roosting in
trees during the hot summer months, and the oftener
you can plow your yards and sow with oats the faster
your chicks will grow. and if you have kept them grow-
ing without a setback your most forward pullets should
be laying at four months of age.

LIGHT BRAHMA BANTAM HEN

CHAPTER XXVIII
Conclusion

In closing up the poultry department of this book
there are some things I want to impress on you, so you
will thoroughly understand everything. In order to get
the greatest egg-yield always add some cheyenne pep-
per and salt to your processed oats daily the year round,
not less than a teaspoonful of each to a ten-quart pailful
of feed, for the greater amount of water a hen drinks
the more eggs she will lay. In hot weather keep your
oats well wet down with cold water so they will not
spoil; wet them thoroughly twice daily if necessary.
Never wet them before feeding. Any common feeding
oats will grow just as well as high-priced ones, and if
you want them at any time for green feed only, let
sprouts get 14% to 2 inches long. But remember they
have more feeding value and are the greatest egg-
producers when sprouts are 1 to 1% inches long. Re-
member for young chicks there is nothing that will grow
them so fast as these processed oats and a little chey-
enne pepper added; same as for hens is very good for
them. Give your young chicks all they will take three
times a day sure. Also remember they are a great feed
for young ducks and will grow them very rapidly and
increase their size. Do not be afraid to give them all
they will take two or three times daily. While I find
a good grade of wheat screenings far ahead of any other
feed for hopper feeding, I also find it very hard to ob-
tain, and at times I am compelled to feed wheat. If
you cannot get good screenings by all means use a
cheap grade of wheat. Red wheat is better than white
wheat.

I also wish to impress on you the importance of a
free-range plant, for you cannot fail if you build one

6 81

82 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

of my free-range plants, and handle it under my system.
I know of no business that will make you money faster,
all things considered, than the poultry business, if han-
dled properly. And I know of no business where money
can be lost faster, all things considered, than in the poul-
try business. I have taken plants that have had to go
out of business and started them in again under my free-
range plan with Leghorns, and they have made money
very rapidly on same plant, where under the old system
they lost everything, so you can see it is in the proper
feed and care that makes success certain.

If your little chicks die badly during first two weeks
you will find your trouble is with your breeders almost
every time. To all who follow my free-range system
success is certain. If your chicks are closely confined in
small yards and begin to die and dwindle away at three
to four wecks of age, you must begin to feed them green
cut bone when three weeks old sure Give a liberal feed-
ing every noon for nothing else will bring them ahead.
Also spade yards up and sow with oats as often as you
can until you get them on more range. I am always
ready to give vou advice and help all I can, time per-
mitting.

A FEW THINGS TO REMEMBER

All oats will not grow satisfactory, and if you get
some that will not nearly all grow, try another lot of
another dealer, for when they grow satisfactory you
will have a complete mass of roots and sprouts, which
should be 1 to 1% inches long.

Have several large lots of oats growing for a large
plant, and do not get out of them, for this is your main
feed for producing eggs and for growing chicks. There
is nothing like it. Give them all they will take three
times a day, sure, as they live and grow on this as they
will on nothing else, and it forms fully 80 per cent. of
their rations after they are a week old.

If you fail to make the success you expect under this
system, write me, enclosing stamp, and I will straighten
you out, for you cannot go wrong if you follow my in-
structions to the letter.

If your little chicks have board floors you should
clean their pens out every four days, sure, and put the
leavings in runs of your old hens; they will clean up all
seeds and oats not eaten by chicks. Cover your floor
lightly with clover; there is nothing as good.

Your Leghorn pullets should lay at five months of
age, sure, if you have fed and cared for them as laid
down in this book. If they do not, you have failed to
carry out some important part, or your stock is not the
laying kind.

A poor memory is a poor thing for a poultry man, and
will put you out of business. By all means put your

83

84 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

memory in your business. Nothing can be neglected or
forgotten, if you wish certain success.

Trap and poison all rats during the fall and early win-
ter, for you cannot raise the two on the same plant.
“Common Sense Rat Exterminator” is the best rat poi-
son I have ever used, and if you cannot get it of your
dealer, write H. H. Cannon, Irvington-on-Hudson,
N. Y., who carries it in stock.

Hopper feed, only wheat feed, such as a good grade
of screenings or a cheap grade of wheat. Do not hopper
feed corn of any kind and then wonder why you are not
getting results.

Remember, you cannot get a hen laying in a day or
two. It takes from two to five weeks, depending on the
condition of the hen and the time of the year. So, for
big results, do not neglect your hen and let her stop

laying.

Do not neglect your houses and let them get full of
mites and lice. Go over your roosts at least once a
month during summer with kerosene and carbolic acid,
half and half—or a good lice exterminator. Also clean
droppings from board floors once a week sure, at all
times of the year, for lice multiply very rapidly in drop-
pings in the summer time on board floors. On the
ground it is different.

DUCK CULTURE

Believing this book may fall in the hands of many
who raise a few ducks, and possibly in the hands of
some who may raise thousands annually, and as I have
raised from five to ten thousand yearly for many years
very successfully, until I now am able to raise nearly
every duck hatched that has strength enough to eat and
drink, I will take up the care of the breeding stock, as
the foundation of success all lies with the breeders.
First you must select your breeders, and in every case
they must be young ducks.

Never keep an old ducks over the second year, for
they will not lay before February, as a rule, while young
ducks start in ‘December, if properly fed and housed.
I prefer breeders hatched in April to any other month,
as they get fully matured early in the fall and are
hatched from our strongest eggs.

All breeders should be hatched from April 15 to May
15, and such ducks should begin to lay in December.

Your breeding ducks can be kept very light during
September and October. Do not let them get too poor,
for if you do you may lose some.

If you are on a farm you can give them range and but
little feed. A mash of wheat bran and gluten meal,
equal parts, makes a very cheap feed to summer
them on.

About November 1 you must begin to feed them up
and house them, if you wish to get early eggs. This is
where the profit comes in. Give a mash. morning and
night, from November 1 on, as follows: One part bran,
one part middlings. one part corn-meal, one part clover,
5 per cent. beef scraps, 2 per cent. grit and oyster shells.
Give all they will eat of this, night and morning, and
keep water by them if they have not a pond. Also give
them water in their houses at night. A butter tub, sawed
down, makes a handy thing.

86

POULTRY RAISING 87

About December 1, increase your beef scrap gradu-
ally from 5 per cent. to 10 per cent., and lift your ducks
occasionally by the neck and see how thin they are. Do
not let them get too fat if they begin to lay in Decem-
ber and in January. If they do not gain much, and are
thin in flesh, gradually increase your corn-meal and add
some whole corn and whole wheat. The more they
gain on eggs the heavier feed they must have to keep
them in good flesh, for a good Pekin duck should lay
from seventy-five to one hundred eggs without stop-
ping. And give more oyster shells and grit. It requires
great judgment in feeding a flock of Pekins for the most
eggs and to have them run good and fertile. I have seen
flocks of breeders knocked out the whole season by get-
ting them too fat before they got to laying good. Your
breeders for best results should be mated up one drake
to five ducks, and your eggs should run fully go per cent.
fertile from March 20 on, and if they do not, as a rule,
you will find your breeders are too fat.

If you keep ducks for the greatest possible profit you
will find none to equal the Pekins as layers, and for
quick growers, which stand close confinement, they head
the list of market ducks to-day.

In hatching duck eggs I find a temperature of 10214
plenty high for good results, and you will get much bet-
ter hatches in warm weather by airing your eggs both
morning and night.

When they hatch put them in your brooder and give
warm water to drink. Watch them closely for two days
and teach them to go where the heat is, and after that
you have no further trouble. Give warm water to drink
for first two weeks, sure, for cold water will give them
cramps, which quickly kills them, and if they do not die
it will so stunt them that they never get over it.

I have at last found a perfect feed for young ducks
first hatched, and that is Spratt’s Patent chick feed. I

88 BRIGGS’ SYSTEM OF

pour hot water on it, which increases the bulk about one-
half; when cool, feed, and you will find every duck that
can be raised, or better every duck that has strength to
eat, will live on this feed, and they grow very rapidly
on it. In fact, they could be put to market on it, but it
would not pay as the feed is to high priced; but it pays
well to start them on it, for they eat but little the first
two weeks. I would not be without it in raising ducks.

After they are two weeks old you can gradually
change them on a mash made as follows: One part
wheat bran, one part middlings, two parts corn-meal, 10
per cent. beef scraps, a little grit, and you will find they
grow very rapidly on this. Twenty per cent. of green
feed can be added with grand results. After the sev-
enth week double up your corn-meal and increase your
beef scraps to 15 per cent., and if you have the large.
kind of Pekins they should be ready for market on this
feed at nine weeks of age, and fully 80 per cent. of your
flock should average five pounds each, dressed weight,
and many will go over this weight.

Spratt’s chick feed will cost you $6 per hundred, and
even at this price it is the cheapest thing I know of for
starting young ducks, for every one lives on it that is fit
to leave the incubator. It is the natural duck feed, al-
though not generally known.

In dressing ducks for market hang them in pairs on
a line, and stick in roof of mouth with a sharp knife,
and at the same time hit them a solid blow on top of the
head, and pull out their main tail feathers and wing
feathers, except flight feathers or plainer feathers on last
or outside joint of wing. Soon as dead take them down,
wash out mouth, and take them by the head, two at a
time, and dip them in a kettle of boiling water until
feathers come easy. You will quickly learn this with lit-
tle practice. Have a pail of cold water ready to wet
your fingers, and take the feathers from the breast first,

POULTRY RAISING 89

and then turn it over and remove the rest, taking all
large feathers off. They are then laid on a shelf for a
finisher, which generally gets 3 cents each. They clean
them up. Then they go in tubs of cold water and later
in a barrel of ice water, from which they are packed
in barrels and heavily iced and shipped to market.

As soon as your breeders are done laying, about
July 1, they should be sent to market alive. You will
never get more profit out of them as a rule.

You can also make a fine profit selling duck eggs for
hatching at $8 per hundred. A duck plant can make a
fine profit if handled right, as sickness and lice are not
known in the duck business. Duck eggs do not hatch
near as well as hen eggs in incubators, as a rule, but
you have no loss after they are hatched.

I have carefully experimented with processed oats for
ducks during 1907, and find them a wonderful feed for
young ducks. After they are two weeks old give all they
will eat twice daily, say Io a. m., also 3 p. m., and you
will find them the greatest growing feed ever fed to a
duck, and it also greatly reduces the feed bill, and your
young will be ready for market fully one week sooner.
They are also a fine feed for old ducks, and will greatly
increase the egg yield. Give the old breeders all they
will possibly take noons. And if your old ducks do not
run on grass, give them all the processed oats they will
take twice daily, about 11 a. m. and 3 p. m., and it will
not only produce a larger number of eggs, but very fer-
tile eggs as well. Always select your largest, finest
ducks for breeders.

In case your young ducks are in very small yards and
do not get sufficient exercise, and begin to go back or
have bowel trouble on Spratt’s Chick feed, why, then,
you can mix bran with it, also stale bread, soaked in
water, say equal parts of each, and feed every other
feeding on this until you change their feed, after two
weeks of age, and you should have no further trouble.

You must remember one thing in going in the duck
business—it means lots of hard work and is no business
for a lazy man. But if you live near a good-sized city
and can work up a good, private trade for your young
ducks among private families, markets, and hotels, and
not have to depend on the commission man, why you
will find a fine profit in ducks

: TAY
Wie Nthid
Wag \
—

i} WE,

HN
aN ii ie

BROWN LEGHORN COCK

YOUNG’S STRAIN
S. C. W. LEGHORNS

il HAVE NO OTHER BREED)

Again in the lead at Madison Square Garden,
winning more prizes than all others combined,
for the 8th consecutive year.

Winnings at Madison Square Garden for De-
cember, 1907, as follows:

COCKEEES cworawtepaweues tc 2: 5
POU 520 tgs vdgawn a Garg i 2
COC cxedsses wawouen tins a:
Hens soivenaseuuseeheewey 3 6

8 Specials—Spratts’ gold special for best Leg-
horn, any variety, hatched 1907.

President’s silver cup for winner of best dis-
play and greatest number of points of any breeder
in class.

Nearly every winning male bird in the class
was from my stock. This shows that my strain is
in a class by itself. Wunning both firsts on cock-
erel and pullet proves my matings for 1907 to be
correct and superior to any exhibitor, and goes to
show that “Young’s Strain” is, without a doubt,
the nearest to perfection. Both in standard points
and in laying qualities this strain is unequalled by
any other on earth. Stock and eggs for sale at all
times. 300 fine cockerels for sale at reasonable
price. Mating list free.

D. W. YOUNG

MONROE, N. Y.

FOR SALE

White Wyandotte Eggs

and Single-comb White
LEGHORN EGGS

Produced under my free range system in any quan-
tity, $6.00 per 100; $3,00 per setting, from prize matings,
Single-comb White Leg Eggs from the finest free-range
stock in this country, $6,00 per 100, or $50.00 per 1,000,
in any quantity. No order too large. Single settings
$3,00 per 15, These eggs hatch chicks that are bound
to live if given half a chance. Two thousand breeders.

J can also save you money on Incubators and
Brooders, Get my prices on beef scraps and Chick Feed.
Cypress Lumber, Lee’s Egg Maker, and various supplies
carried in stock.

Cash must accompany all orders.

Reference: D. LINcoLN Orr, Orrs Mills, N. Y.,
ex-President American Poultry Association.

EDGAR BRIGGS
PLEASANT VALLEY

Dutchess County New York

CYPHERS
Incubators and Brooders

are necessary to your success. These
machines are most simple to operate.
Patented, self-regulating, non-moisture
and self-ventilating. They are guaran-
teed to hatch more and stronger chicks
than any other. This answers the ques-
tion—‘* Which Incubator Shali I Buy ?’’

CYPHERS SCIENTIFICALLY BALANCED CHICK
FOOD

The reason why Cyphers Poultry Foods are so generally used by leading
poultrymen is because they give value for value and are unequaled in results.
This is shown by the large number of exhibitors who use nothing but Cyphers
Food and consequently win at the big shows. It is easy to realize why,
when you know that we are so careful to have our foods delivered to the
customer unadulterated that we put them in sealed bags and advise our cus-
tomers to refuse them if the seal is broken. We guarantee that no screen-
ings or weed seeds are used in our Foods. Nothing but health-giving,
strengthening, pure grains scientifically balanced by our experts to form flesh
and feather. Sold by 2,500 dealers and at all our branches. Ask for it and
accept no other. Compare it (the Food in the sacks—not small samples) with
other Foods and judge of its value.

SOLD IN SEALED BAGS

Cyphers Laying Food, Cyphers Forcing Food, Cyphers Chick Food, Cyphers
Mealed Alfalfa, Cyphers Scratching Food, Cyphers Developing Food, Cyphers
Shredded Alfalfa, Cyphers Short-cut Alfalfa,

Write for Free Illustrated Catalogue of 260 pages, entitled ‘‘How to Make
Money with Poultry and Incubators.’’ It’s a big one. We pay postage. It
contains six of the most valuable chapters ever published on Poultry. Chap.
I,.—Magnitude of the Poultry and Egg Industry; Chap. IIl.—Review of Our
Great Poultry Markets; Chap. III,—Profit-making Broilers, Roasters and Ca-
pons; Chap. IV.—The Profitable Pekin Market Duck; Chap. V.—Successful
Chick Rearing; Chap. VI.—Profitable Egg Farming. Also photographs of suc-
cessful poultry plants, both fancy and commercial; photographs of Govern-
ment Experiment Station Experts, America’s Foremost Exhibitors, Owners and
Managers—their Poultry and Duck Houses, Incubator Cellars and Brooding
Houses; Our Complete Line of Incubators, Brooders, Poultry Houses and Sup-
plies. If in return for this book you will send us the names and addresses
of two acquaintances who keep poultry, we will consider it a favor. Address

nearest office. '

CYPHERS INCUBATOR COMPANY

FACTORY AND HOME OFFICES
BUFFALO, N.Y.

Branch Stores and Warehouses—23 Barclay St., New York, N. Y.; 26-30
Union St., Boston, Mass.; 310 Fifth Avenue, Chicago, Ill.; 701 Linden St.,
Oakland, Cal.; 2325 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo.; 119-125 Finsbury Pavement,
London, HE. C., England.

Spratt’s Patent

THE BEST AND CHEAPEST CHICK FOOD

It is the best dry Chick Food that can be compounded, and it is the
cheapest, because none but the best can be the cheapest.

Chicgrain is a perfectly balanced, semi-cooked, partly malted grain, insect
and vegetable ration; easily digested and highly nutritious. It is a
compound of grains, meat, milk, ete., and the original formula has been used
and improved upon for over twenty years.

Chicgrain can be used as the staple food from the very day the chick 1s
hatched, by breeders who believe only in a dry food. It prevents and
checks the percentage of mortality. Bowel trouble is almost unknown where
it is used, and it gives the chicks a start in life that makes them grow
like weeds.

Chicgrain, if fed according to directions, will grow a larger fowl, with less
trouble, labor, and expense than any dry food on the market.

Price in packages, 10c., 25c., 50c., $1.00, and $3.50

SPRATT’S PATENT CHICK MEAL NO. 5

is prepared strictly according to modern scientific methods, and is the result
of careful and exhaustive experiments.

It has been demonstrated, and is admitted by all experts, that to rear
birds successfully, and bring them to the highest state of perfection, they
must lave, while very young, a cooked food, and their corn diet must be
carefully limited. This food should be composed of cereals, meat, vegeta-
bles, bone and shell in judicious combination. Such is Spratt’s Patent
Chick Meal No. 5,

We also inanufacture specially prepared foods for Dogs, Puppies, Cats,
Rabbits, Poultry, Pigeons, Game, Birds, Fish.

Send for Free Catalogue, ‘‘Dog Culture,’’ which contains practical chapters
on the feeding, kenneling, and general management of dogs, also chapters
on cats.

Write for copy of ‘Poultry Culture,’’ which contains much valuable
information.

Market St., Newark, N. J.; 714 8. 4th St., St. Louis, Mo.; 1324 Valencia
St., San Francisco, Cal.; 1279 Ontario St., Cleveland, O.; 11 Union St., Bos-
ton, Mass.; 988 Notre Dame St., Montreal, Can.

SPRATI’S PATENT (AM) LTD.

Roberts Poultry Farm

BREEDS NOTHING BUT
FIRST-CLASS

WHITE WYANDOTTES

Exhibition and Utility

We have won First and Second four succes-
sive years at Madison Square Garden and other
large shows.

They are not little “chunks,” but are large
business fowls that lay a lot of eggs that hatch out
chicks which grow to be broilers, roasters, and
great layers.

We have a large flock of birds fed under free-
range system laid down in this book.

PRICE: OF EGGS

13 for $3.00; 26 for $5.00; $6.00 per 100;
$50.00 per 1,000 for Incubators

ALLEN C. ROBERTS

PARKER FORD, PA.

HAWKINS

BREEDS AMERICA’S BEST

PLYMOUTH ROCKS

BARRED, WHITE, AND BUFF

WYANDOTTES

COLUMBIANS, SILVER,
WHITE, AND BUFF

Winners at New York, Boston, World’s Fair
and America’s Greatest Shows for 20 Years

2,000 Choice Birds for Sale

EGGS

From prize matings, I sitting, $5.00; 2 sit-
tings, $8.00; 3 sittings, $10.00; 5 sittings, $15.00;
$20.00 per 100.

Catalogue of America’s Best Free

A. C. HAWKINS

LOCK BOX 3, LANCASTER, MASS.