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Copyright N°

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POULTRY GUIDE POST

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POULTRY
GUIDE POST

BY-
Batt Lie ok. PARK

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ILLUSTRATED BY

Pern RY. *© 0. (GROWER

PUBL USED) oY
Mi PARK & ‘POLEARD’. COMPAN Y
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

COPYRIGHT 1912 BY
THE PARK & POLLARD COMPANY
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

PRESS OF
THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL
AUGUSTA, MAINE

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FOREWORD

HILE the terms used in the following pages are
in most cases descriptive of common articles
of trade, the names may be new to some of
our readers so we take this opportunity to ex-
plain our meaning more clearly.

Egg-Feed as used herein refers to a mixture
of ground grain, corn, wheat, oats, barley or
kaffir corn mixed with mill feeds, bran, mid-
dlings or shorts, ground Alfalfa, a little salt and
some animal matter like meat scraps or finely
ground fish, (a non oily variety preferred ).
This mixture is not to be fed wet but abso-
lutely dry in proper dishes or feeding devices
kept constantly before the birds.

Scratch Feed is the name used for a combination of wheat, oats,
barley, cracked corn, buckwheat, kaffir corn and sunflower seeds.
Other combinations may be used and the proportion and quantity
of the grains will necessarily vary from time to time, with the
market. Always be careful that the feed contains nothing musty,
mouldy or tainted.

Chickfeed means a mixture of small sized cracked grain and
seeds, and usually consists of cracked wheat, corn, kaffir, millet,
canary seed, oats,—and in some of the best a little dried fish, which
acts as arelish and stimulant.

Growing Feed is a mixture of whole grains ground together
with meat food added before grinding. It makes a wonderfully
effective feed when properly prepared.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

SYSTEM : : ‘ : ~ : - - = Sibase One
POINTERS - “ - - - : - Page eighteen
INCOME - - : - - Page sixty-nine
OPPORTUNITY = = : “ - - Page eighty-five
FEEDING - - - Page One hundred one
HousING - - * . . Page One hundred seventeen

Don'ts as : - Page One hundred thirty-one

at

Bree,

fs

OW have all heard of the
famous sayings of Louis D.
Brandeis, during the recent
fate hearings before the
Interstate Commerce Com-
mission at Washington, —
that he could show the rail-
road managers of this coun-
try wherein they could save
a million dollars per day in
their expense accounts.

We are equally certain
that we could show the
poultrymen of this country
wherein they could save for
themselves an equal amount, and when saved it
means much more than the corresponding in-
crease in their profit account, for in many cases
it signifies the doubling or trebling of the profit,
and in most instances, the turning of what had
been losses into good profits.

Professor Adams, of the Rhode Island Agri-
cultural Experimental Station, recently made the
statement that if the corn growing literature and

uss

(RE 1)

Page One

POULTRY GUIDE POST |e:

lectures going on in this country had increased
the yield one kernel per ear, this added increase
would amount to $1,800,000.00 in the pockets of
the farmers of the United States.

Now we are going to show you where you can
increase your efhciency 10% to 50%, and if this
is extended to every poultryman in the country,
the added revenue would amount to more than
the National House of Representatives could
spend in a double session working overtime.

And why should not the poultryman take just
as careful a survey of his losses and drawbacks
as the business man? ‘Think of it! Probably
the average large business of this country is
done on a less than 5% net profit, and it is safe
to state that the dealers in feed stuffs and the
necessaries of life, get less than 2% net profit.

It is easy to see that these business men could

Fest Aur

* Dirdy.

not allow a loss in the process of
manufacture of 90%—nearly equal-
ling their total sales. They would
be camping on the trail of the fore-
man who allowed any such waste
of raw materials, and they would
camp there just long enough to get
a new man for the job. But we
poultry raisers, in our optimistic
manner say, — “Well, I am doing
better than Bill Smith, because he

lost all his chickens and I only lost two-thirds of
We will run the incubator another hatch
and these chicks will only be three weeks behind.”

And so we excuse ourselves in the most dia-

Page Two

bolical slip-shod fashion, and content ourselves
with records because they are no worse than
the other fellow’s.

We have no knowledge of any business out-
side of highway robbery that could stand any
such losses as the poultrymen experience year
after year, and swallow with apparently little, or
no thought. For instance, not many years ago
the writer was called to suggest a remedy for a
plant that was losing a large percentage of its
chickens before they were three weeks of age.
In the course of the conversation, in getting the
facts of the case, the owner made the statement
that he had hatched that season 15,000 chicks,—
and he had raised less than 1500! Nevertheless
the plant is still running. The owner is still in
charge. It must be paying or there would have

been a change of ownership before this time.

Another owner made the statement that he
has been raising chickens twenty years, and he
would guarantee that he had buried as many
pounds of poultry as he had marketed!

Did you ever stop and consider that there is
a right good reason why every egg does not
hatch, and an equally good reason why every
chick that chips the shell does not grow
to maturity? And the chances are that
you are just as innocent as guilty of this
frightful mortality.

You, in your enthusiasm, want to take
particularly good care of your breeding
stock, so with great pains, much time, and some
cash, you very carefully cork up any opening of

Page Threz

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|| POULTRY GUIDE POST | |e Pes

any kind in your poultry house. You feel that
you are doing them a particular kindness, and
you see to it that the wind is tempered, and that
your pets never get out of doors on the cold
ground in anything but pleasant weather.

The result of this smothering is seen in your
various tests of eggs in the incubator. One-

Would you

race ay third are not fertile. One-third die between the

methods a and second tests, a 25% hatch results, and
3 e mortality keeps right on after they are
Against hatched; for not having yet been convinced of
mod the vitalizing effect of the air upon your old
efficienc . fowls, you are equally painstaking with the

babies, and they are kept in super-heated brood-
ers that kill off all but the very strong, and quite
frequently make a good clean job of it—and take
the whole lot.

Let us see how this will figure out. We will

start with 300 eggs. One hundred infertile,
leaves 200 in the machine, and 100 of these
drop out before the final test, and we get out
perhaps 75 chickens.
Placing these in heated brooders that have -
always killed more or less, we find
that we have 35 chicks of two pound
weight to go to the roosting coop or
market, and we will call them worth
50c. each.

Now we will start on the increased efficiency
plan with ;n equal number of eggs, but these
eggs were laid by hens kept in open front
houses — same houses costing less than the
other kind,—the open air treatment result-

Page Four

ing in greatly increased vitality. We find only
10% of the eggs infertile, and we only lose
about an equal number between the first and
second tests. This leaves about 250 eggs in
the machine, and when the hatch is due we
get a full 200 chicks that are full of ginger 25 Hatched
and snap. j
Here we find the increased efficiency program
has given us 200 strong, hardy chicks from the
same number of eggs, the same care and atten-
tion that yielded us only 75 second grade young- 4 Half Grown
sters on the old style plan. . Sv
In brooding the babies after they are hatched, wis
more wonderful and startling comparisons are CGR Q
found. We place the 200 efficiency chickens YAIQY
that have started life’s battle with a strong deter- IGS
mination to live, in eight heatless brooders and WZ
follow directions. Here the air conditions and
heat conditions are almost identical with Nature’s 22 Reach maturity
own methods, and at the end of three weeks we
have 100 chickens, while with the 75 chickens in
a heated brooder, heated to a degree recommend- ¢ oe
ed by the manufacturer, and maintained with
greater or less success—it is usually found at AH) 3
LZ

as many chickens as we started with, and we Ba, NS
pass it up as the usual mortality, and go on he Sy
grinding out more to run the same gamut of
trouble.
The modern higher efficiency method costs
much less to install and has everything to rec-
ommend it so far as economy of time and ex-
pense is concerned, and you may well ask, “Why

Page Five

se (es = <5 POULTRY GUIDE POST |

Air always

do the other conditions exist?” The only answer
is, “The skeptical mind of the public.”

So much for the difference between the hous-
ing of the old breeding stock, and the brooding
of the chickens up to three weeks of age.

Comparing the Feeding System, we find a still
larger waste that could be corrected. The aver-
age method of chicken feeding is on the plan
of keeping the chickens hungry, relying upon
their keen appetites to correct the inefficiency of
their diet: Whey “feed boiled eges, Jeraekes
crumbs, corn meal, oats, johnny cakes, cracked
corn, meat scraps, wet mashes, and many other
combinations, alternating between half starved
conditions and five-minute gorging processes,
that pass as feeding time.

As against this we have the modern efficiency
method, using Growing Feed, which should be
a combination of meat and grains ground to-
gether into a most palatable ration, kept always
before the chickens from one week’s age to ma-
turity. This feed is always within easy access
of the entire flock. Each member has “orm
feeds or more per day, takes it as his appetite
craves, and finds an unending supply. Never
from the end of the first week does any mem-
ber of the flock realize what the pangs of real
hunger mean. The result is: market chickens
in beautiful condition two weeks to two months
ahead of the old plan chickens, and pullets from
one to two pounds heavier at the same age,
rounded out before laying as perfectly as year-
ling hens.

Page Six

mi svstem Nee

Did you ever stop and consider the various
processes that the feed goes through in the diges-
tive economy of a chicken? We think it is not
recorded who first advocated feeding ground
feeds wet to poultry, but we all did it, and many
of us are doing it today.

Why? Because our fathers and mothers did
it. Now, we all admit that the best laying and
the best growth cannot be obtained by feeding
hard, unground grain, because we have so
developed the birds’ appetites that their intes-
tines are capable of digesting the food much
faster than the gizzards can break up and grind
whole grain.

Thus, we find that growing chicks, or laying
hens, make much more rapid growth, lay more
eges or make a more complete development
when fed ground grain. The reason, as we s%
see it, is as follows: When fed on wet mash yf
in the morning they gobble down a cropful in Wel/
five minutes or less time; practically no saliva“ , - ;
is mixed with the food in the process. This Air never
cropful of food is mildly attacked by the juices rl bt
of the crop, which can only penetrate the out- Y ;
side of the mass before the inside sours. The
passing of the food through the mouth so rap-
idly, and the gorging of the crop, practically
throws all the work that should have been done
previously, upon the intestines.

In this way less of the food is digested, and
more or less irritation arises, causing a tendency
to bowel trouble, and less efficiency in the num-
ber of eggs and growth of the bird.

Page Seven

Tor eS

¥

Now, when the birds eat ground Growing
Feed or Egg Feed, they take the feed very
slowly, mixing it thoroughly with the saliva
before swallowing, (they cannot swallow it if
they do not), the feed passes into the crop
slowly, and is rapidly saturated with the strong,
digestive acids of this organ.

It seems to us that this step in the digestive ©
process is entirely overlooked by the advocates
of wet mash feeding. It really seems as though
the wet mash feeders must consider the crop as
only a stopping station, or reservoir, for the food
to rest in before passing to the gizzards and in-
testines. We know that a very important work
is performed in the digestive process in the
crop, and that the dry feeding method, recogniz-
ing this, gets a much higher percentage of ef-
ficiency out of the feed, and incidentally, main-
tains the birds in a much higher standard of
health.

Here the work of digestion is very thorough-
ly started before the feed passes along the ali-
mentary canal through the intestines, and this
supplementary work which Nature intended
should be done before the intestines are reached,
makes the process much easier and more thor-
ough.

With the newly hatched chicken its destiny is
practically made or wrecked during the first
three weeks of its existence. If it finds itself

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Page Eight

in the land of plenty, with the proper food al-
ways within reach, it widens out into a broad
gauged chicken, building a digestive system
capable of assimilating large quantities of food,
and grows into a larger bird than its parents,
matures and ripens into one of those wide-
tailed, square-bodied, heavy-limbed birds, that
are a delight to us all. The pullets are ripe
at five or six months of age, and produce
eggs plentifully the full year through, and
with utter disregard of outside weather con-
ditions.

On the other hand, if the birds are brought
up and cared for by one of our skimpy feeders,
who thinks that they must be kept hungry all the Means
time, the chickens develop into the thinner stock, E
who have been taught from infancy to look upon ole)
a square meal as a mistake; these mistakes oc- EBA
curring at such rare intervals that the birds can- Thanks MY
not accumulate a surplus from which to manu- .
facture eggs. In case a change of ownership

gives them the benefit of full feeding, it takes é |
them a long time to get over the shock, and it is [ Is Ma.
a number of weeks especially in the fall of the

year, before they get well ripened, matured, and RE
ready to start laying; and they never have the =z
capacity to take in and properly digest the large
quantities of food, that is necessary for the most xr

profitable egg production. aN Se
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Page Nine

3, POULTRY GUIDE PosT ||

When the chick is first hatched, it has recently
absorbed the yolk of the egg in the intestinary
chamber, and this furnishes a portion of its food
for the next ten days, after which time, in a
normally healthy chicken, it disappears.

Now, during this ten-day period, with the yolk

The Cod to draw on, it is easy to tealize that nommone

animal fat should be added to the ration. But

the chickens crave animal food, and grow much

Dig better when fed a ration that contains this lean
meat, without the fat.

Here again the Cod Fish furnishes just the de-
sired element, and nothing else that we have
found answers the purpose. Meat Scraps uni-
formly contain from 10% to 20% fat.

Going back to the three-weeks-old chickens, let
us follow the housing system and general care,
aside from the feeding.

Most modern heated brooders are too large
for the babies, and too small for the four
to six-weeks-old youngsters, unless, as usually
occurs, Dame Nature has reduced the flock to
one-half or one-third of the original number.
The result is crowding in uncomfortable quar-
ters at night, and much loss of efficiency in their
general discontent, and much loss to the vitality
and economy. Chickens cannot make satisfac-
tory gains when living in bad air, in too small
coops, or when suffering from insufficient food
or improperly balanced rations, or in too large
flocks (one hundred chickens running together
and roosting in quarters about right in size for
twenty-five chickens).

CouTIts

Page Ten

rE

Twenty-five chickens properly cooped and fed
will make as many pounds gain upon one-halt
the food consumed, as will fifty chickens improp-
erly housed and fed, and the strangest part of
the whole story is that the increased efficiency
plan takes no more, in fact takes less, labor than
the old plan, and brings much quicker returns.

This higher efficiency method gives us full, plump The
broilers and roasters, ready for market or table
at five minutes’ notice. The other method gives Idea!

us broilers and roasters only after a fattening
process, two to four weeks behind the other, and Cit Yard
from one-half to two pounds less in weight. i

We have taken the chicken through the grow- \ Tit
ing period and marketing age, to the laying pen.
From our original three hundred eggs we have
ninety to one hundred strong, heavy, well ma-
tured efficiency pullets, as against the twenty to
thirty-five pullets that matured one to three
weeks later, and which were one to two pounds
each less in weight on the old plan.

The old style method takes the twenty to thir-
ty-five pullets, places them in a nice warm house,
with plenty of glass, feeds them a hot mash in
the morning, keeps them more or less suffocated
all winter through, reproducing the same kind /
of eggs and chickens the following spring; e
thereby perpetuating the general inefficiency
scheme.

The modern higher efficiency plan places these
large, well rounded-out pullets in houses costing
much less to construct, being one-third or more
open to the south, feeds them Ege Feed (before

Page Eleven

Po EE ow arr OS

Fine for

them all the time) and throws Scratch Feed to
thet “once a day. The eggs start early same
continue to come all the fall and winter. They
hatch out the same kind of high efficiency chick-
ens, and the profits are assured. ,

These briefly are some of the reasons why
the dry feeding system produces so much better
results than the old way, and why its users are
uniformly successful. A trial of the method
will convince you.

The conditions we have portrayed as the re-
sults of the old plan actually exist on thousands
of poultry plants today. Here and there one
owner is considered lucky, while hundreds com-
plain that their birds do not do well, and rail at
the tariff, reciprocity, and have a general grouch.
Occasionally an owner knows that there must
be a reason why every egg fails to hatch, and a
reason why every chick dies. He earnestly tries
to arrest these troubles, follows our directions,
and accepts our statements, and though they seem
somewhat radical, has faith, tries them out, and
finds even better results than we have predicted.

We are glad to say that thousands of our fol-
lowers are today much more prosperous from
our teachings, but we realize that there are hun-
dreds of thousands yet to be convinced and put
upon the higher efficiency plane.

Page Twelve

If you have been helped, won’t you help your
neighbor !

If you are still in the doubting column, won’t
you make a few tests of these methods, and when
convinced hand along your good results, and help

spread the good work?

If we all get together we can easily double
the poultry crop of the country, and thereby all
gain more returns and greater prosperity.

We consider poultry the most profitable crop
that can be raised today, and know that the profit
now derived from it can be doubled by this sys-
tem.

There are thousands of families struggling
along, striving to make the pay envelope satisfy
the butcher and grocery-man, who could keep
enough poultry in their back-yard to pay the
rent, and at the same time have all the fresh eggs
they could eat every morning.

And it does not require a great deal of room at
that. A space large enough to set a house 6 x 8
feet in size will do nicely for 15 or 18 hens, on
which a profit of from $30 to $50 a year can be
easily made, and the outlay need not be over
fifty dollars.

Smaller houses and flocks can be started and
as much larger as one cares to undertake, but

the point is that the thousands who might be

Page Thirteen

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XN POULTRY GUIDE POST be

making $50.00 to $300.00 per year right in their
own yards are not getting ahead at all.

Look your back-yard over and see if you can-
not start. If not, look up another location with
back-yard poultry keeping in mind, and then get
in on the right basis and get a lead on the grocer.

Page Fourteen

WE all admire an artist at his work and it does
not matter what that work is, if he is thoroughly

efficient.
This work may be painting pictures, render-
ing musical selections, selling goods, building a
house or raising a crop of potatoes or chickens,
but so long as he does it better than his com-
petitors or fellow workmen he commands our
respect and admiration.
Many times this efficiency will be recognized
as doing the right thing at the proper time and
in the right place.
In caring for poultry, little things done at the
proper time will be found to go to make up the 4
success of a venture.
On the following pages we have attempted to {UN
set down the most important of the little things
to be looked after each month during that
month. To the beginner we know they will
prove very helpful in removing needless worry
and in simplifying the business. To the old
hand at the business they will be found a daily
reminder of things that are sometimes over-
looked in the stress of the work.

Page Fifteen

POULTRY GUIDE POST |7=

While the chronological order is set for the
climate of New England, with slight modifi-
cations they will be found to fit almost any
climate, giving more air and shade in warmer
districts and a little heavier feeding of corn in
colder regions, always bearing in mind that when
in doubt give the birds more air rather than less.

We hope you will get as much pleasure in
following these monthly suggestions as we have
in gathering the facts from the pages of experi-
ence and setting them down for you.

Page Sixteen

py ais
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Donor GOInro

THE POULTRY
BUSINESS /F
you DO mor
LIKE HENS

STARTING IN JANUARY

JANUARY is a cold month, but this should not
deter any really earnest poultryman from start-
ing in business. Begin by purchasing a porteble
house along the line of those shown on page
117, or having a similar building constructed.
We think in most cases it will be more economi-
cal to purchase, but that is for you to decide.

Read carefully housing article on page 117.

We suggest the purchase of 15-18 pullets, with
no male bird, if you are in the business to supply
your table with fresh eggs alone. If you are
starting in to breed your own stock, and this
lot is for your original breeding stock, we urge
the purchase of not over 10 to 12 females, pre-
ferably yearling hens, and a good vigorous
cockerel,—one that is well developed and fully
up to the standard weight of the variety you have
decided shall be your choice. Fill the open
stoneware feed dishes with Egg Feed, give them
scratch feed once a day, provide fresh water,
erit and oyster shells, and you should soon be
getting eggs.

Do not go into the poultry business if you do
not like hens.

Page Eighteen

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

Plan Your Year’s Work, and Then Work
Your Plan.

January is a good month to plan out the cam-
paign for the next year’s or few years’ work.
Make up your mind, first of all, that you are go-
ing to be a high grade poultryman; that you are
going to improve your last year’s profits; that
you are going to raise your stock better this year
than you ever did; that you are going to have a
plan and stick to it; that nothing will tempt you
to keep changing from one breed to another,
from raising eggs for market to raising eggs for
hatching, from market poultry to fancy poultry;
and that you are determined to so improve your
breed by careful feeding that they will weigh
from one to three pounds more when they go to
market, and that the cockerels will go to market
from one to two months ahead of any of the
Meisibors, You can doit. Stick to it.

Late hatched June and July pullets should be-
gin laying this month, if they have been properly
fed and cared for. Broilers and roasters started
this month bring the cream of the year’s prices,
and the parent stock should be selected as per
suggestions in our October and December hints.
They should be laying well now, and the incuba-
tors and brooders put into working order, and the
work started early in the month.

Cut down the number of females in your
breeding pens. The annual loss from infertile
eggs, weak germs and delicate chickens would

Page Nineteen

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-Al| POULTRY GUIDE POST

total “up into millions of dollars. Youjisay
that it would be a nuisance to put half as many
females in each pen,—well, then, put a partition
through each pen. It may be a nuisance, but
not half as much as throwing away half of your
early hatches.

Small flocks spell big profits, and this rule
holds good from start to finish.

Pampered stock and pampered chicks spell

The conlented
hen fills the failure.

E basket The contented hen fills the egg basket.
49 ; Breeding stock previously selected should be
=== housed in cold houses and fed upon a properly

proportioned Egg Feed and scratch feed with
oyster shells always within reach. This ration
insures a steady egg yield, birds always in good
health, and if the stock is such as we have de-
scribed, eggs are sure to be fertile, and chickens
hardy and easily reared. Sloppy, wet-mash,
stop-watch feeding is not only nerve racking and
continuous drudgery to the owner, but keeps the
birds on edge and at all times watching and wait-
su J ing for the next feed. Where this way is once
given a trial, the old methods are sure to be laid
oe on the shelf, and you wonder why this business
method was not previously discovered.
Chickens hatched in the middle of winter need
good brooding accommodations, and while the
style of house and plan of brooder may vary
with the owner’s fancy, for a safe proposition
nothing equals the small colony house with an
individual fireless brooder contained therein.
The chicks should be kept in the brooders ac-

t
iy

Page Twenty

cording to directions until one week or ten days
old, then allowed the run of the dirt floor ot
the house for another week.

When two weeks old daily out-of-door exer-
cise must be provided and insisted upon. Chick-
ens cannot grow successfully without it, and leg
weakness is sure to follow if one attempts to
rear them without this. Feed them something
they like on a bare spot of ground just outside
the building, and provide easy access to and from

(

the house (no stairs or blind passageway) and
they will work back and forth under zero weath-
er conditions with nothing but benefit to them-
selves and their owner. cl

Baled shavings make excellent litter. Most ae
grain dealers carry it in stock.
¥f,

G

Better give the breeding hens a little more
room than the layers, and if you find you must
sell a few pullets in order to do this, ask your
live poultry dealer to quote.

Get your incubator this month and be sure you
have plenty of brooding room.

JANUARY DISEASES

The only trouble for January, and most of the
fall and early winter months, is roup—or neg-
lected colds, caused usually by crowded sleeping
quarters, or roosting in draughts or in too warm
houses without sufficient air.

Birds housed in houses that are one-third open
to the weather on the south side, (6r more open
in southern climates), will be free from roup or

Page Twenty-one

colds if the opening allows no draught. It is
the safest way.

To AVOID DRAUGHTS, long houses must
have tight board partitions between each pen.
Colony houses should be fairly tight on all sides,
but the south, and the opening here should be
about two feet from the floor, and sides and roof
as illustrated by cut of “No-Yard’ homseen
page 28.

Page Twenty-two

ea akRTING: IN: FEBRUARY

THE conditions for starting the poultry business
in February are much the same as for January,
except that for breeding purposes it is easier
to procure well developed pullets that will make
satisfactory breeders, although stronger chickens
will be the rule if yearlings are used as recom-
mended for January. Get an incubator, if rais-
ing chickens is your object, and start it up as
soon as the eggs come freely.

Our cities are growing rapidly; our people
are appreciating the value of fresh eggs. The
price keeps working up and will continue to work
up until you receive 75c. per dozen for eggs dur-
ing the holidays. Get aboard!

Do not spend much money on fancy breeds,
new varieties, and new blood. If you will take
proper care of your own stock, you can develop
it into as good and hardy a stock, and handsome
as any you see in the show rooms.

Keep your expenses and your ideas down to
the market level of price, and you will make
money, while if you try for the long prices of
fancy stock, you will find only disappointment
and loss.

Page Twenty-three

We have been there,—we have won the rib-
bons, and sold the high priced birds,—but take
it from us, THERE 1S NOTHING ING
is the good market biddy that has no frills, fancy
skirts or shirtwaists, that pays the grocery bills
and the mortgage.

bet all you GENERAL SUGGESTIONS
can Honey ‘
me

Winter chickens, in fact all chickens, should
be well fed in order to get the benefit of the
quick-growing habit of the previously selected
ancestors. Surely the youngsters cannot make
bone and muscle out of a “pleasant view’ or
“good sunny weather ;” something more satisfy-
ing to the appetite will answer much better, and
Mm while plenty of good vitalizing air must be pro-
vided, so must an abundance of food be always
within reach.

Use plenty of good litter. The birds need
exercise to keep in the condition that means
profitable poultry.

Keep the Egg Feed hopper full. The birds
are keeping union hours now.

Scald out the drinking dishes occasionally.

If your early hatches show signs of leg weak-
ness, be sure that you get them an out-of-door
run. In fact, feed them out of doors on the
bare ground one or two feeds per day of some
delicacy that they are very fond of. Get them
out into the open air after they are ten days of
age regardless of temperature. Shovel off a spot
right down to mother earth, and do not be
afraid to let them eat a little snow. Place your

Page Twenty-four

orders now for baby chickens for April delivery.

You will have to put on your thinking cap of-
ten nowadays, or the other spring work will
crowd out the chicks. Do the fair thing by them.
Their success during the rest of the year depends
on it.

Chicks of the large American breeds hatched
this month will make the best of early roasters,
and will bring good prices in June and July.

Start the brooder in a clean house, with not
more than 25 chicks together; feed chick feed
liberally, better up to the wasting point than to 1
let some of the chicks go hungry. Start the
Growing Feed as soon as they are one week old,
and let them have the run of the house when ten
days old. Do not let them bunch up out in the
bright sunlight on cold winter days. The sun-
light has a fascination for them and frequently
they will huddle together and get chilled outside
in preference to going to a warm hover cham-
ber. In wooden brooders it is sometimes better
to hang a thin curtain over the glass window to
avoid this trouble, until they reach a more dis-
criminating age.

If your rooster is old, do not have too many
hens in the pen with him, if you expect the eggs
to hatch.

If one keeps hens for ege production alone,
there will be no need of having any male birds.
It costs at least $1.00 a year to feeda male. Bet-
grer keep an extra hen.

Page Twenty-five

Peet See SED |

POULTRY GUIDE POST | a3

FEBRUARY DISEASES

This month’s troubles, if any, are likely to be
from confinement, sometimes resulting in egg
eating and feather pulling, caused by the
birds not getting all the variety of feed
which they pick up while on range.

These elements should be supplied in the
Figg Feed, thereby eliminating all chances of
this trouble.

Canker sometimes appears this month, but
it is really a case of roup that you thought you
cured last fall. Healthy hens do not have it un-
less they drink out of the same dish with the
sick ones.

MORAL: Isolate or dispose of all doubtful
ones, and continue the isolation until you dispose
of them. }

Crop bound birds have not been getting enough
Cit out the. hot roughage in their food, and to satisfy the crav-

Maoh ing, eat their litter, straw or long hay used in
making nests. This long material accumulates

I Spells Trouale in the crop, and sometimes causes death.

Page Twenty-six

STARTING IN MARCH

Carry out the January plan and directions on
page 121 as to getting the house ready and
setting it up; except that starting with newly
hatched chickens no litter would be required.
This is a very good plan if economy on first
cost isthe object.

This house makes a fine brooding house\for
two small brooders and fifty chickens, using the
dropping board on which to handle the brooders
until the chicks are a week or ten days old,—
then giving them the use of the house, separat-
ing the two lots with a little chicken wire. When
two weeks old provide runways outside, covered
to keep out the cats, and when the cockerels are
ready for broilers, ship them alive to market,
giving the pullets the entire house in which to
mature.

While this plan does not provide an immediate
income, it costs very little to start it, and the
cockerels sold should pay for the feed that they
and the pullets have consumed up to date.

Do not go into the poultry business if you
think you can half feed your flock and make a
success of the business. The hen’s body wants

Page Twenty-seven

come first; if there is any surplus it is made up
into eggs. It is up to you to provide the sur-
plus.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

When planning your extensions for the year,
if you build your roosting coops for your young
stock on the colony laying house plan, you will
find that your capital is working twelve months
in the year; whereas, if you use a low, small
roosting coop, you must rebuild again in the fall.
Select a type of colony house that pleases you,
then add to your plant each season as many of
these colony houses or units, as you need.

Brains are needed as much as capital in the
poultry business.

Following a hard winter, this is the month of

a poor hatches from stock that has been fed upon

wet mashes and partially smothered all winter in
glass houses. Such stock needs a few weeks’
exercise in the open air to get thoroughly alive
again.

Set all the broody hens that come along this
month.

Keep the incubator full. After ten days swap
the eggs out from under the hens into the incu-
‘bator. The machine will finish them up better
than the hens and deliver more chickens, with
no lice. An incubator and the hens working to-
gether make a splendid combination, and beats
either one working alone.

Healthy chickens live unless abused. Healthy
hens lay eggs, that if not abused, hatch healthy

Page Twenty-eight

chickens. Now it is up to you; if you are los-
ing chickens, why? Are you abusing them, or
did you abuse the old stock? Abuse may come
in two forms,—neglect or over-attention,—try-
ing to keep your birds too warm in winter, feedl-
ing improper feeds, etc. You may be keeping
your chicks too warm, not running your incuba-
tor properly. There is a reason for the death of
every chicken. Try and see this year if you
cannot cut last season’s mortality one-half.

Early January hatched broilers can now be
marketed, as the demand for this month does not
call for them to weigh over three-quarters to one
pound each. Market limited as to number re-
quired.

Pullets hatched this month will give good re-
sults in the fall.

Cockerels of the American varieties, March-
hatched, caponized, sell at good prices for fF |

GR 9

Vine a.

roasting chickens during August and early
September. This month is usually the year’s ’
lowest point for prices on eggs.

Alfalfa cut or mealed makes splendid litter
for brooders and runs for early chicks, always
sweet and not expensive.

Figure out about how many broods of chicks
there will be, and get the spring coops and fit-
tings cleaned up and in working order. Chickens
will soon be plenty, and time scarce.

In mating the pens of breeding stock refer to
October hints for the selection of male birds,
and December hints on the selection of females.
Remember that nothing but the best is good

Page Twenty-nine

2)
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am
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Tell your neighbor
about your success

M( POULTRY GUIDE Post |f Ke)

enough, whether for eggs, roasters, broilers or
fancy poultry.

MARCH DISEASES

Leg weakness in chickens is caused usually by
confining the birds indoors, and on hard floors
and overheated brooders. Get your birds out of
doors when ten days old, and raise them always
(all of them) in small heatless brooders.

Sitting hens leave their nests if lousey—sel-
dom. for any other reason. Use lice=poweer
liberally whenever you set a hen, and at other
times also.

Poor fertility is usually caused by insufficient
air in the quarters during the winter, too many
females with one male, or too large flocks. Cut
down the size of your flocks, and take out the
windows, substituting wire netting, water-proof
sheeting, or cheese cloth.

Raise your chickens on a new lot of land each
season, or let a crop of green stuff grow between
seasons, and you will not be troubled with gapes
in your chicks.

Page Thirty

S2akTING IN. APRIL,

STARTING in April is a cinch. Buy the houses
as in January plan, and if eggs for table is all
that is wanted, you will not have long to wait.
Your pullets will be laying within a day or two
after you get them, and in a week’s time you
will be getting a dozen eggs or more a day.

If you wish to start with the minimum expense
and are willing to wait for the chickens to grow,
get a small portable house and two small heatless
brooders and proceed as in March using the
house for the pullets after the cockerels go to
market.

Using incubators, you simply provide more
small brooders as the chickens hatch.

If hatching with hens, set them in a dry place
with plenty of ventilation. Avoid damp cellars.
Forget about sods and damp earth in the nest.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

If your chickens are on range or in yards
where the hawks bother them, sometimes con-
venient brush heaps, or stretches of wire net-
ting, so placed as to break up the swoop of
the hawks as they skim along the ground in

Page Thirty-one

5 out the
long leas

|| PCULTRY GUIDE POST [as Oum

catching the chickens, will stop their thieving.

In early spring a cornfield, with last season’s
stalks standing, makes an ideal dodging place
for the youngsters, and Mr. Hawk will give it
up as a “bad job” trying to catch them among
the. stalks.

There is only one way to feed poultry if you
would make a success of the business; stuff them
with the right kind of feed from “hatch to
lateness

Watch the cockerels and pullets, and mark
now the ones making the most satisfactory
growth, choosing those that have grown steadily
and at all times have been plump, full breasted,
and in good proportion.

Avoid those that grow leggy, with thin breasts,
and also the ones that grow unevenly, making a

-month’s or two months’ progress and then ap-

parently stopping, and later going ahead again.

Get the breeding stock out of doors, give them
plenty of room, not too many females with your
males.

If you have previously lacked the nerve, take
all the windows out of your poultry house this
month, provided, of course, that they are all in
the south side and no draughts on the roost re-
sults.

Growing Feed is the feed that puts those nice
plump broilers and roasters on the market, and
gives us the big hardy pullet that lays all win-
ter, and in the spring produces the kind of
chicks that are bound to live if given half a
chance—and proper feeds.

Page Thirty-two

POINTERS F we)

Cull your flock closely. Market everything
that is not making valuable use of every kernel
of grain it eats. Do not house any loafers. Get
them into money.

Your late chickens will still be in danger from
rats. Be sure to keep some good Rat Destroyer
in stock and use promptly.

Do not be afraid to give the chicks all the sour
milk they will cat. Good for them. If there is
anything better, we have never found it.

Better caponize the cockerels if intended for
roasters. Place in fair sized yards or let them
run at large, and feed—and fecd hard. ‘These
chickens are going to be worth thirty cents a
pound in June and you cannot afford to have
them stand around a minute waiting for the feed
tO. COME:

iityermis year atid have a nice lot of 5 or 6
pound soft roasting chickens to sell during the
Christmas holidays. OMA ;

Use all the poultry manure in top-dressing the ELS Ue
grass land or on the garden plot. lee

January and February hatched broilers. are BSS

. ° . ° SSA NS f}

now selling well, and prices during this month wy coma
should be at the top. If you think there is more Bem

money in them for you as broilers, let them go 4s i)
now, if they are large enough. The market calls
for larger broilers this month than in February

and March, and wants still larger sizes in May.
Always give the party paying the bill what they
want—if they call for two pound broilers, do not

send them one and one-quarter pound, or you

will lose in price.

Page Thirty-three

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ih Chicken pox is some more of last fall’s cured
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| POULTRY GUIDE POST

This is one of the best months to hatch pul-
lets for middle-fall and early winter laying. Get
out all you can.

Do not throw away that setting of eggs simply
because the hen left the nest and they got cold.
Unless they have been exposed to freezing tem-
perature for 24 hours, in many instances the hatch
will come along as if nothing had happened, if
you put another hen on and let her finish the
clutch.

Get away from the old idea that you should
keep fifty chickens in a lot. You will make al-
most, if not quite as much profit on twenty-five
chickens raised in the small heatless brooder as
with fifty raised in the old-fashioned way.

APRIL, DISEASES
As a rule poor hatches are the result of low
vitality in the breeding stock. (See March hints
referring to poor fertility).
Liver troubles and indigestion are caused by
poor food and improperly balanced rations.

(?) colds and roup, now showing up in another
form.

Page Thirty-four

STARTING IN MAY

Puutets for laying or breeding had better be the

ule for starting in May. Set the house up and
raise the chickens, if that is to be the business,
in the small brooder; or start as in April. The
house will soon be needed, and makes an ideal
roosting coop. Use the incubator and brooder
if you are breeding your own stock.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

A good garden, a cow, a flock of hens, and you
can cut your grocery and provision bill in half
and begin to live where you only existed before.

Let the March chickens have plenty of roomy
roosting coops or roost in trees. Keep the feed
always within reach.

To break up your setting hens, catch them the
first night you find them on the nest, and place
them in light airy coops, with wire or slat bot-
toms. This kind of a coop keeps them from
hugging a board floor or the ground, and by per-
mitting the free circulation of air below them,
tends to reduce the fever which is in their blood
at this time.

Page Thirty-five

Lice
Spoiled

rs
Mowe

HANG 4 Wf
YW aict

| POULTRY GUIDE POST

Nothing but lice will cause the old hen to leave
her eggs when she has settled down.

Setting hens are lice breeders. This is one
reason why the incubator is to be preferred for
hatching chickens.

The chickens are free from lice to begin with
and it is not such a difficult matter to keep the
lice in subjection.

Stop the red mites with liquid lice killer before
they get started—prevention is better than cure.

Hatch the eggs in an incubator or with hens.

Don’t have ventilators.

Don’t try to keep your birds warm. They
have ample protection from the coldest winter
weather if you only keep them cold all the time.

Don’t feed hot mashes that will sweat them.

Keep them healthy, feed them properly, and
the eggs will roll out.

Try marketing your birds alive. We don't
know of a more nerve-racking job than picking
a lot of broilers without tearing the skins.

Many times you can get as much for them
alive as you can for them dressed. The labor
saved is a big item. i

Broilers are going down in price, and the mar-
ket is calling for larger birds, two and one-half
to three pounds each month.

March hatched chickens should now be leaving
the brooders, and if they have been properly
hardened, will take quite airy roosting coops.

Chicks of the Plymouth Rock, Wyandotte, R.
*. Red and some other varieties hatched this
month can be brought to laying by November

Page Thirty-six

Ist, if pushed with plenty of Growing Feed.
Outdoor brooders must be kept under a shed
or some kind of sun protection to maintain the
even hover temperature desired. In teaching
young chickens to run in and out of outdoor
brooders regularly, use a sod or pile of dirt for
them to run up and down on. Also when build-
ing their first yards make them A-shaped, with
the apex at the opening of the brooder, then the
chicks will have no corner to bunch up in dur-
ing the bright sunshiny days, and their education
takes much less of the attendant’s time.
Growing chickens in the hot months, too young
to roost, will thrive much better if they sit on
the ground; that is, if their ccops have no floors.
Plant Dwarf Essex Rape this month. Care
for it as you would young cabbage plants, until
the plants are a foot high, then break or cut off
the leaves as wanted daily for the poultry. The OD aes
new shoot will spring up again and continue _ Ge? 3S

x Zins Gee we

the process until the hard freezing weather of | BUA IY
October and November comes. Four pounds ENE aie
of seed, for an acre of land. pew ey

If you are through hatching, break up your =
pens and market the old cocks, all but the very All headed
choice ones that you are expecting to use another to the Hole

year. They are a nuisance with their quarrel-
some habits and are a continual bill of expense.

Be liberal enough with your estimate and have
chickens enough and to spare. If you have
twenty-five percent to spare when filling your
laying houses they will always find a ready
sale, and this gives you an opportunity to cull

Page Thirty-seven

Wat
closely and reserve only the best for yourself.

Be careful of them on cool nights when first
put out; see that they do not pile up and smother
one another.

January and February chickens intended for
early market should have grass runs and Grow-
ing Feed before them during the balance of their
lives.

Have a closely woven wire door to each of
your chicken houses and don’t forget to close
them at night, or some rat, skunk, owl, fox,
cat, mink or weasel may deplete your stock.

Loi) {lh
fel

POULTRY GUIDE POST P-e2

MAY ‘DISEASES

White diarrhcea is quite contagious among the

newly hatched chickens. Raise them in heatless
brooders and burn the brooder if any trouble
appears.
We think this is an inherited disease. Don’t
breed from any hens that are not in the best of
health and be careful where you buy eggs for
hatching.

Be sure you know that any stock you buy
is better in health than your own before you
part with any of your good money.

We should take chances with a little inbreed-
ing from strong, robust, hardy stock, rather than
take chances with unknown, over-advertised out-
siders.

If your hens have pale combs look for red
mites or spider lice in cracks and all around the
roosts and nest boxes. Use liquid lice killer.

Indigestion—See April hints on Liver Trou-

bles.
Page Thirty-eight

=

STARTING IN JUNE
STARTING in June, if you want winter laying, it
- will save time to purchase chickens in place of
hatching them. Get them out on a good grass
plot with shade and sunlight where they can get
whichever they choose when they reach the age
of discrimination, and feed liberally. They
should be laying in December if pushed with lib-
eral feeding.

Eggs for the family table come as soon as the
pullets are located and get to eating freely. Give
them all the table scraps after each meal.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

The days begin to get hot; see that the brood-
ers are in the shade, that the chickens have shade
also, that they all have an abundance of water
and green food. Both are cheap and almost
equally important. One-third of the growing
chicks living will be from green food if given
a grass run, and how much cheaper the gain on
this ration is easily figured.

Whitewash the chicken coops. Disinfect the
hen houses with a good disinfectant at least once
a week, and continue through the hot months to
come.

Page Thirty-nine

A

Z 8 ais
Da ls get hot

keep In
the shade.

A good
Suggesuon
for olialy Calor

| POULTRY GUIDE POST be ae

When dressing poultry be careful to cool the
carcass properly, else it will heat and result in
loss. “Cool well, keep well,” is the rule.

From June ist to July 4th is the top of the
market for roasting chickens. January and
February roasters, capons and pullets should all
be turned into money while the price is at the
highest point. They should bring from 30c. to
33c. per pound, and here is where we think the
roaster has great advantage over the broiler.
These same chickens in April were broiler size,
and would not have sold for a great deal more
per pound that month and were weighing only

.. two pounds each. They now weigh four to five

pounds each, and the last two or three pounds
have only cost eight to ten cents per poundmres
feed, giving a profit of from twenty to twenty-
five cents per pound, or from forty to seventy-
five cents per bird. No mortality and a hand-
some margin.

Look hard after lice and use liquid lice killer
and lice powder freely. Don't let the™ amas
Seta stale.

Cats and chickens agree sometimes, but stray
cats are always subject to suspicion and 1f you
are losing chickens and can trace them in no oth-
er way, set a box trap, and bait it with a dead
chicken. If the cat takes the bait, your suspicion
is correct. Dispose of the cat with as little delay
and disturbance as possible.

A box trap is made of boards and illustrated
below. Most any boy that is handy with tools will
make one in an hour or two and most country

Page Forty

boys have used them to catch rabbits and other
game. They need no directions or suggestions.

Remove males from breeding yards as soon
as the season is over. Keep the best for another
season. If you have three or four, put all to-
gether in an open yard on a good hot day at noon
time and let them “scrap it out.” Ina few min-
utes they will find the master, and all future dis-
putes will be referred to him for settlement.
Keep them by themselves until wanted for breed-
ing pens.

Begin to work off the less valuable and more
broody of the hens.

This is a good month to caponize.

Market all the broiler stock on hand.

Have you provided shade in the runs? Fail-
ure to do so results in chicks that won’t feather.

Get the layers to drink all the water or milk
you can. Eggs are very largely made up of
water, and the birds cannot lay heavily without
a constant supply. Frequent changes induce
frequent drinking.

Milk, (skimmed, sweet or sour) is one of the

best feeds for growing chickens and it will pay u/s

double the profit when turned into poultry that
it will when fed to pigs.

If you want to use brooding hens, this and
next month are good months to set them.

They will raise a greater percentage of chicks
during the hot weather than brooders, and, if
allowed to take their own course, will raise these
and go to laying again during August and Sep-
tember, when eggs are paying a good profit.

Page Forty-one

{ronan

hye

i" Provide a
Good Grass
plot with

shade and sunlieht

|

ea 7 POULTRY GUIDE POST =
Eo | PouLTRY GUIDE Post |i

We have no use for the hen in hatching dur-
ing the cold weather, but she will be found to
do good work during the hot months in brood-
ing chickens. Give her a corn field, orchard or

Gi patch of weeds in which to grow her family,
and she will nearly pay for herself before cold
weather gets her.

JUNE DISEASES

Sudden deaths during hot weather are many
times the result of last fall's cured (2) easec
Of Top:

The Barred Rocks seem a little more prone
to these troubles than other varieties. |

Late chicks not growing is usually the result
of carelessness, unclean brooders, or yarding
them in the same yards the early chicks used,
or from mixing the young and older chickens
together.

Be sure to keep each age by themselves, and
be just as enthusiastically clean with these late
comers as with your first born pets that came

in March.

Page Forty-two

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is.

StmRliING IN JULY
STARTING this month we should purchase large
heavy pullets if for the table eggs alone, de-
pending upon using them upon the family table
during the months of August and September,
when they begin moulting. It is rather late to
iiaecas breeding stock for another year. We
would advise purchasing chickens and pushing
them along so they would get to laying in Jan-
uary. This can be easily done if new runs,

plenty of shade, feed and green stuff are pro-
vided.
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

If you will see that all your chickens that are
not old enough to perch sit with their feet on
the ground during the hot weather, you will
avoid colds and roup among them.

There is a wonderful amount of blood passing
through their feet, and if the ball of the foot
rests upon the ground (the earth being a remark-
ably good conductor of heat) this keeps their
body temperature down, and prevents sweating
and consequent colds.

Board floors are necessary in the early spring
months to keep the coops dry, and are de-

Page Forty-three

Keep their
feet on the

G fe pas, is POULTRY GUIDE POST

cidedly wrong in hot weather, for the above
reasons.
The demand is for heavy chickens and heavy
fowl.
Spread the growing youngsters out over the
Good toad hay fields this month after the hay is cut and
you will lose nothing, next season’s crop will be
better for it, and if you lose some of the second
crop it will be fed to better advantage to the
chickens than to any other farm animals.

Do not think that the chickens can live on
grasshoppers; give them all the feed you can
get them to eat, with the grasshoppers as an
extra.

After this season of the year it 1s sayceou
thing to send broody hens to market.

July is termed a late month for hatching lay-
ing pullets, but if you have not ample stock,
by all means get out enough to “make good.”
If these chickens are given as good care as out-
lined for June chicks, they will mature in Jan-
uary and February and make the best of sum-
ORG mer and early fall layers. It is useless to expect
Aes the early hatched pullet to keep laying all winter
a! 3 , and spring and still keep at it through the hot

YF

on the

: es weather. Really, these late pullets are nearly
Age A or quite as profitable as the earlier ones, for
‘yi Ws they lay splendidly during August, September

and October, when fresh eggs bring good prices
and at a very small cost. Do not despise the
late chickens.

About this time put the caponized males in
yards fifty feet square for fifty birds, push them

Page Forty-four

\

—— POINTERS
Aue.

with fattening feed and plenty of meat scraps,
with liberal feeds of corn and barley. Do not
hold them too long. When they reach the weight
of 5 lbs. each alive, get market quotations. Re-
member, as a general thing, the price per pound
is going down after they reach this size, and it
is up to you to get your money out of them at
the earliest opportunity.

For instance, a 5-pound chicken sold in August
will usually bring 18 to 20 cents per pound, while
if the same cockerel is kept until November,
then weighing 6 pounds, he will be hard and not
worth 12 to 15 cents per pound. In other words,
you have lost three months’ feeding by holding.

Allow chicks the run of swamp land during
hot weather, but get them into upland brooding
coops at night or colds may result.

Keep the house as cool as possible.

The most profitable hens, as a rule, are not
the stylish ones.

Lice like to hide away under the end of the

roosts. Every time you spray, lift the roosts oe me

and give the pests a dose that will drive them
out for good and all.

Women make the best of poultry keepers and
all find the work interesting, pleasant and very
profitable.

There ought to be a law forbidding over
twenty-five chicks together.

Renew the nest material frequently.

Send the broilers to market as fast as they
are ready. Write your dealer for quotations

Page Forty-five

A ( POULTRY GUIDE POST bez,

and get them into money, giving the pullets more
room.

Look out for mites in all your new coops and
houses as well as in the old ones, but they seem
to thrive better in the old wood. Use liquid lice
killer all around cracks, nests and roosts of lay-
ing houses and roosting coops.

Shady nooks are relished by the hens.

JULY DISEASES

Apoplexy—same as sudden death in June
hints. Old stock going light—results of last
fall's cured) (2) cases of [colds and inom

Summer colds and snuffles among growing
chickens are the results of too hot sleeping
quarters.

Be sure their feet rest on the ground, and
not on board floors, and that they are never
over warm.

About all they need is wire to protect them
from the skins, ete.

Page Forty-six

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SIAR TING IN| AUGUST

STARTING in August for table eggs, we should
not recommend purchasing matured birds as it
is just in the middle of the moulting period, and
moving them about would result in stopping their
laying altogether. Better get the house ready
and purchase some early hatched pullets that
will get to laying in September or October.

For breeding stock, this month is a good time
to pick up some yearlings of some good reliable
breed that suits you. They will make ideal stock
for next season’s use, begin laying in November
or December, just in time for broilers and early
winter work.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

When the poultrymen all find out that the
first year of a layer’s life is the most profitable,
they will begin to market their old hens as fast
as they start moulting. They should push them
hard the first year, then buy or raise pullets to
take their place. Early moulters are frequently
slow moulters, taking eight to ten weeks for the
process, while the later moulters will get through Keepup egg laying
in half the time. Send them along to market as Or goto market.

Page Forty-seven

POULTRY GUIDE POST j

soon as they show signs of moulting and get
pullets to fill their place. All the old surplus
stock should now be marketed.

It 1s somebody’s fault if the little summer
chicks are dying.

The tender little fellows cannot withstand heat
and lice combined. Protect them from the sun
and get after the lice.

The old rooster crows well, but he is a tyrant.
Either sell him or get him away from the laying
hens some other way. He pesters them so that
they cannot do their best.

Hot, dry weather. and larger chicks in with
them, make it a hard condition for the later
broods to catch up with the early ones, and a
good many times it causes the owner to say,
“Late chickens are no good anyway.”

Late chickens are all right and as good money
makers as the early ones, if properly cared for,
but they must have radically different treatment
when hatched in hot weather.

With the early birds we must take care to
keep the pens dry, and their feet off the ground
when being brooded. Late chicks must be kept
cool, and after a few weeks old we must be
careful to keep their feet on the ground when
being brooded.

See that the growing stock has plenty of
room to expand. Be sure that every chicken
you own has plenty of elbow room to grow in
and see that he is never overheated after night-
fall. This is a bad month for crowded quarters.
Often the seeds of next winter’s crop of roup

Page Forty-eight

Ear SSex[ rowrers EVES]

are sown in this month, simply by keeping the
youngsters crowded into quarters about the right
size for one-fourth the number. Results: the
chickens are too hot at night and take cold by
getting out on a chilly morning in September
and waiting around for the sun to warm them up.

August is a good money making month.
Prices of poultry are at good paying figures;
eggs bring better returns and chickens hatched
this month make splendid roasters during Feb-
ruary and March. August hatched pullets will
be found rather more profitable if turned for
market than kept as layers.*

Shade, green stuff and plenty of water are all
very essential for August chickens of all ages and
sizes. Keep the different sizes by themselves.

There is no crop we know of that will produce
such returns in green feed for poultry as Dwarf
Essex Rape. Sow at any season of the year,
wet or dry, hot or cold. Frost does not hurt
it, and it will make a satisfactory growth any-
where, but with good rich soil and plenty of
room the plants will soon rival cabbages in size,
and remind one of loose-headed cabbages. Ask
your seedsman for the seed.

Tell your neighbors of the results you obtain Keep ee
from good feeds and supplies. It will help Oplaying
them, and in helping them you help yourself, 3
for if your neighborhood has the reputation of
producing top-notch quality you will get better
prices for your stock.

*A “layer” is a hen or pullet devoted to market
eggs, not destined to be used in the breeding pen.

Page Forty-nine

Se | POULTRY (quIDE Post | TEe oe

Begin to market the old hens as they stop
laying. Be sure that they are good and fat, as
per suggestions in July.

This is a bad month for mites.

Use a sprayer for applying liquid lice killer
and some disinfectant to the various houses and
runs. A good sprayer makes thorough, quick
and easy work. Pay special attention to spray-
ing the nest boxes and the perches.

AUGUST DISEASES

Whenever you can do so, separate your chick-
ens into smaller flocks, and if you want any
particular lot to develop especially quick, divide
them once more.
fA Whe smaller the number- together, /ilnemless

Jf we trouble, and the most results.

fi yE\ it
i

Tell your neighbor
about your success

Page Fifty

STARTING IN SEPTEMBER

STARTING in September, buy pullets for family
eggs, and yearling hens for the best breeding
stock for another season. Buy house and other

appliances as in other months, but support the — \—
house on posts and get sand or gravel in early ~Anis

: : : =A » Chg
before the fall rains wet it. House your birds SUNN

feu a/4
I aS

Mieeare witended only for laying, but let the oy 4.
breeding stock have all the range outside the ae
house that you can provide. TT

Hatch a few broods of chicks this month.
They will lay in March and keep at it until Fall.
Winter them in a house by themselves, with
piety Of food by them at all times. Sell the
cockerels in February.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

Get the early March-hatched pullets that you
plan to use for layers into winter quarters by
the middle or last of this month.

There never will be too many good poultry- 2)

’ cn “4 Se
men; do not be afraid of that. Be one of the z
ae Establish Pullets
It is not too late to get another litter out of iw
the hens that have not moulted yet. NOW

Inter Quarters

Page Fifty-one

eae BS ; . BGs) rae
2M | PCULTRY GUIDE POST |i Ye x UG

Pullets are worthy of your best attention. Get
the early ones into winter quarters, and con-
tented this month.

It checks them less to move them before they
begin to lay.

Yard the cockerels by themselves; not only
the market stock but the ones you have selected
for breeders. They grow much better than when
placed’ with the pullets or hens. If they begin
to get scrappy, put in one of the old cocks with
them. He will maintain order, and is tickled
with. ““His) job)

This is the time the wet mash hen goes to
pieces, so to speak. While her dry fed sister
is laying right along, she takes a complete vaca-
tion, loafs around, neither an ornament nor help,
demonstrating the truth of our claim of health-
ier flocks by this system of feeding. We repeat
last month’s warning; keep the chickens cool
nights, do not let them pile up or sweat, see

: them personally at least once a week, and pro-

pao aT vide plenty of room. Get them out of the trees

ear as soon as the nights get frosty; put them in
Keep them winter quarters, but keep the house cool.

Health Keep working off the old hens, watch your

y flock of growing youngsters. If you find a

number that lag behind the others, put them by
themselves and see that they have a little better
Chamcens

Have your houses all cleaned out, and put in
about six inches of clean sand or loam.

Keep the hens happy and healthy. Use liquid
lice killer, and some good disinfectant.

Page Fifty-two

Hens with scaly legs are undesirable mothers.

Get the capons to market, for prices are now
on the downward scale, and it does not pay to
hold them once they are in condition.

March pullets should be laying this month.

Keep track of the different lots of cockerels,
and your different breedings by a system of
banding the birds.

We do not advocate warm poultry buildings,
but we do insist that they must be dry and free
from draught.

Now the July pullets of last year will give a
nice yield of eggs at prices that pay handsomely.
If for table eggs let the birds stay in the house
all summer, in fact after they go into winter
quarters never let them out of the house again,
and you will get a larger egg yield.

Begin to get things pulled together for win-
frei is some ways off but it will soon be
here.

Eges getting scarce and higher.

September-hatched chickens should be brood-
ed in small brooders and coops.

Prepare the hens now for fall and winter lay-
ing. Prepare the pullets also.

Fach brood of chickens from one year’s end
to another should have a new spot of land to
grow on, but this is particularly true of late or
hot-weather hatches. Be sure all roofs over
Your plant are tight; if not, make them so.
Change the sand or gravel before the fall rains,
and whitewash or disinfect all winter quarters.

Page Fifty-three

POINTERS Wwe Le

| POULTRY GUIDE POST I.

Most buyers make the mistake of not provid-
ing enough space for the youngsters after they
hatch.

Get the regular fall cleaning done and by the
latter part of the month have everything neady
for a quick shittit tere tsinecd:

More birds start in the wrong direction and
toward a winter sickness in September than in
any other month.

Keep up a spraying.

Feed every atom they will eat.

SEPTEMBER DISEASES

The way to cure colds and roup is to prevent
them. See that your stock is always cool at
night with plenty of roosting room, and watch
them carefully when you move them—that they
don’t get overheated in bags or boxes.

“Going-Light” is a diseased condition that is
hard to cure, cattsed by too much poor quality
meat supply. The axe is about the best remedy.

Page Fifty-four

STARTING IN OCTOBER.

Starting in October, get your house in order
as soon as you can. Then buy well matured pul-
lets to provide table eggs, and the mixed varie-
ties will do just as well as the more expensive,
full-blooded breeds. For breeding stock, pur-
chase only full blooded. either yearlings or well
matured pullets will be satisfactory. Give breed-
ing stock plenty of exercise out of doors daily.
Lavers should be kept closed in.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

This is the right month to have your winter
layers start in. If they begin much earlier than
this they are not as good layers as a rule, and
sometimes get broody and moult.

Divide the pullets into small flocks, being care-
ful to keep each size and age and color by itself,
for best results—unless mixed colors have been
raised together. The smaller the flock, the fast-
er they will develop.

Eggs steadily advancing in price and giving
good profits, in fact as good as during the cold
winter season.

Page Fifty-five

Eoos stead thy
Increasing
In price.

This is your

Tault,
Look. in

POULTRY GUIDE POST SE

Live poultry dealers in all the large cities take
care of all the odds and ends. Send them the
old hens, old cocks, chickens, surplus pullets,
in fact, everything you wish to turn into cash.
Ship them alive.

Keep only what you can properly feed and
care for—especially feed.

Use plenty of good litter, the birds need exer-
cise to keep in the condition that means profit-
able poultry.

Many bad cases of roup are started this month
by allowing the chicks to lie around under the
bushes in damp places. Better yard any that
show a tendency to act this way, feed liberally,
and use Roup Cure in drinking water.

Keep the late chicks in the coops these frosty
mornings.

Feed them early before letting out.

Tf breeding from pullets, mate with lance
healthy, 2-yr. old cocks. There is no better
mating than this.

Some chickens grow one end at a time and
during their early days are sometimes all legs,
while later they mature into quite well propor-
tioned stock; then again some of them have the
appearance of standing still and making little
progress for a month or more, when they shoot
ahead again. All these should be weeded out,
and a quick-growing, hearty-eating bird that was
well proportioned at four or five pounds chosen.

Select your next season’s breeders now, and
choose the ones that have made the most rapid
growth as youngsters, 1. e., the ones that have

Page Fifty-six

‘ POINTERS

reached the four to five pounds’ weight in the
least number of days.

This does not mean the undersized, small, pre-
cocious chap that gets “cocky” when very young.
These are the very ones that you should avoid,
for they will run the size of your stock down
very rapidly if bred from. Choose rather ‘the
male bird that does not discover that he is a
male until six or seven months of age. He has
been busy putting bone and muscle together and
he will make the right kind of chickens that do
not “go hard” young.

In the latitude of New England poultry should
be in their winter quarters this month and
everything snug and in shape for the cold
winter which is now liable to come at any time.

The secret of success is hard feeding and
cleanliness. Keep up their appetites and keep
down the vermin.

Gather the leaves for litter.

The farmer will have some cabbage that did
not head up very well. It is just what you
want. Spread it on the north side of the ¢
house and cover with about a foot of hay and
leaves.

Never allow anyone or anything to scare the

chicks or fowl.
If you are not getting a satisfactory egg yield
see if you are housing and feeding your stock
right. Be sure all the chickens are out of the
trees before the cold rains start in, and when
changing birds from the trees into the houses,
see that the houses are as cold as they can be

Page Fifty-seven

| CSE rourtry cuine ros | O IO |

Windows out
substitute,
water proo

sheeting.

4
ve
Wess w7,
\
ws Ag aye
a)

kept during the nights without having draughts
striking the birds on the roosts.

All your birds should be in winter quarters
this month. The earlier March hatches should
have been under cover last month and should
now be laying quite steadily. It is always bet-
ter to house them a month or six weeks before
they begin to lay, for fall laying is against Na-
ture’s law and on the slightest provocation she
steps in and puts an end to the unnatural pro-
duction and it is hard work to regain the ground
lost.

OCTOBER DISEASES

The one worst feature of the long houses is
the tendency to draughts, and the likelihood of
canker and other contagious troubles working
from one pen to another. We prefer isolated
flocks for money making every day in the year.

When you move’the pullets into winter quar-
ters, be sure that they are cool at night. Take
out the windows. but see that they are not in a
draught on the roosts.

Page Fifty-eight

fovember

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STARTING IN NOVEMBER

STARTING this month, we find eggs at the ex-
treme high figures of the year, and pullets or
yearlings are very slow in commencing to lay.
The night constitutes almost two-thirds of the
twenty-four hours and it is hard for the birds
to eat enough in the brief day to make up for
the long nights and lay eggs at the same time.

Get your house in position as quickly as pos-
sible.

Be sure to have plenty of litter, so that your
birds’ feet never get on the cold ground; but 15 FEEDING HoukRS
still don’t overdo it, for they will not scratch JN OUMME
as well if litter is too deep. Just right is when
they scratch down to the gravel every day.

Buy your breeding cockerels this month, and
get the first selection, and also be ready to get
out the early broilers.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS
9° FEEDING Hours
IN VANE

Be sure every old hen is marketed before this
month is out unless you want them for breeders
another season, and fill up with pullets that pay
better.

Years ago, and not so many at that, we all

Page Fifty-nine

POULTRY GUIDE POST

got up early, a lot before daylight, and started
boiling water under the big kettle. Then we
lugged the mash around to each pen, and we
put down just what they would eat up clean in
five minutes. We had shutters for the windows,
roosting closets, every crack and crevice sealed
up tight, warmed the water and the grain.

Stop all Think of the steps we took, and then we didn’t

draughts get half as many eggs as we do today with Egg
Feed, open front houses, and cold water, Egg

Feed fed once a week, and the hens are a lot

healthier, our health is better: too, and our profits

are more than double.

November is a month of long nights and short
days; while during the summer months the birds
are on the roosts eight hours or less and are
busy eating the other sixteen, now the reverse
is the rule and they should not be kept waiting
a iminute for the owner or attendant tompeca
them. The dry ground feed is always there,
and as soon as it is light enough they can begin
filling up, and naturally they are at it from
morning until night. No chance for ’ayfease

then a famine, as under the old system. This

LITTER is why results are so much more certain with

| FOOT THICK aoe ;
this method.

1 FOOT © EARTH Thousands of women are engaged in poultry
keeping, finding it a sure and profitable method
of making money, and city markets for live poul-
try remove all the disagreeable features of kill-
ing and marketing the birds.

See that your house is banked up around the
bottom so as to avoid draughts.

Page Sixty

paren Tat oh Sas

One of the best helps toward keeping the
quarters dry in winter, at a nominal cost, is to
have the floor well littered to the depth of from
three to six inches with dirt, cut straw, hay or
leaves. This protects against loss of heat and
prevents cold currents from below, and may also
be used in which to scatter the grain to keep the
fowls active.

You should be getting a good supply of eggs
from March and April pullets and the May-
hatches should be starting in. Keep the differ-
ent ages by themselves so that the younger ones
are not “bossed” around. Kept separated they
will mature much faster.

Push everything to market early this month,
as the late holiday markets are seldom satisfac-
tory, except for very large choice eight to nine-
pound fancy capons. These it might pay to
hold, but really they should have gone to market
two months ago when prices were better. July
and August chickens should be pretty well
feathered out and able to care for themselves
if properly housed. Q

Eggs bring long prices this month and poultry >
is at the low point for the year. ae

November is, on the whole, a bad month to oe
market fowl and chickens. Turkeys have the
right of way, and so many unposted producers
rush in fowl and chickens that the market is
usually glutted and prices run low.

The more vigorous the male, the larger the
percentage of good pullets from the mating.

The poultry will stand almost any degree of

Page Sixty-one

ete) I no
i! ULTRY GUIDE POST =

cold, but draughts mean sure trouble. If there
is any sign of a cold, use some roup cure.

Keep the hoppers full. The hens are keeping
union hours now. ‘They say the way to a man’s
heart is through his stomach. You must jolly
the hen the same way.

Better gather your eggs for hatching several
times a day; during this kind of weather eggs
quickly chill.

Treat the pullets the best you know how and
your reward will be sure and ample.

Give your birds plenty of air, with the south
side open day and night.

It is not always necessary to supply grit, but
as it is so cheap, you cannot afford to take
chances. The hens need it for best results.

NOVEMBER DISEASES

Getting out on the cold ground, walking
around in the snow and slush, damp litter, all
stop your birds from laying. Don’t try to keep
your birds warm but keep them dry at whatever
cost. Keep them scratching.

The circulation of the blood is very active
through the hen’s foot, and she cannot devote
her feed to making eggs if it takes too much of
it to keep her feet warm.

Page Sixty-two

AN lege.
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SlIARTING IN DECEMBER
STARTING in December is much like starting in
January and the same rules as November apply.
Depend upon early hatched pullets to get eggs
this month. Keep the birds dry. Get strong.
fertile eggs from yearling hens. Don’t put over
eight females with a male at this season of the
year.

Get them all out of doors every day and the
eggs will hatch much better. Dig off the snow
in front of the coop, making a space equal in
size to the size of the pen. Feed them Scratch
Feed outside in some litter so they will scratch
in the open air for it. This means some extra
work, but fertile eggs in winter are worthy of
a good deal of extra labor.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

Cut out the leaks, not only in the coop, but
in your business. If you have a lot of old hens
that do not look like laying right away, market
them.

This is the month when “eggs is eggs.”

If you have a lot of cockerels that are not big
enough for breeders, or any old cocks that you
are not going to use, market them.

Page Sixty-three

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Whether you believe
it or not, this
Is allright -

Get your birds into small flocks. Get them
settled down for the winter. Get late hatched
pullets in place of two-year-old hens. They will

pay better.

Don’t let your market egg layers out of doors
under any condition during the winter months,
and keep their pens well littered. There is a
wonderful lot of blood circulating through their
feet, and they won't lay if they stand around in
mud and snow all day.

Keep in airy houses with liberal sized open-
ings in the south side which are never closed
night or day.

In selecting breeders for the broiler or roaster
that is to be hatched next month, choose the
male as per suggestions in October. and select
females that are of good size, hardy, vigorous
breeders, birds that from the shell up have never
known what it was to lose a feed. We strongly
favor the large American varieties for all pur-
poses, for they lay as well and make much better
poultry than the smaller breeds. Select hens,
yearlings, that are well through the moulting and
about ready to lay, or pullets that have been well
matured before starting to lay, thus insuring
good sized eggs; mate not over six or eight
females with a male that has been kept away
from all females until this time, and the chances
are you will get eggs that will hatch those strong,
rugged chickens that will live through tornado,
earthquakes and blizzards.

December and January-hatched chickens ma-
ture in June, bringing highest prices of the year.

Page Sixty-four

= POINTERS
ae.

Keep charcoal in front of your poultry all the
time.

Vigor is only another way of spelling health.
If your breeders are healthy, strong birds, and
your house is open so that they practically roost
and live in the open air twenty-four hours a day,
and if you feed as we direct, the chickens will
be vigorous and healthy, and you will raise every
one you put in small heatless brooders.

Have you purchased your stock of breeding
cockerels? It’s a good time now before the
stock gets culled over.

Keep the hens busy. Dry leaves make the

best kind of litter.

It is nice to have the house whitewashed so ,

that it will not be so dark on stormy days.

Sort over your pullets and if you have more
than you can take care of properly, send the
surplus to market.

Keep an egg record. Try to have an intelli-
gent idea of what your poultry costs you and
what it returns.

See that you have plenty of eggs and that the
poultry is all marketed or is growing along to
maturity for the better prices of another season.

This is the month of highest prices for eggs
and bottom prices for poultry.

It is a good idea to use some roup cure in
the drinking water. “Prevention is better than
cure:” ‘

See that your birds are eating every minute
of the time from leaving the roosts until they
get back on them, for they now spend nearly

Page Sixty-five

for Poult
too.

| cE iS Ort x a MMi Pouttry Guive post | | POULTRY GUIDE POST | GUIDE POST |%22

Dtudy to ee
the hens during

Short feeding
Hours.

two-thirds of their time on the perches and
must eat continuously to get enough to lay all
the eggs you expect.

Accept our hearty wishes for a happy New
Meare

DECEMBER DISEASES

In December practically the only disease to
guard against is roup, and this is really the
only one in the business to fear—and fear this
we must, as it is the worst of them all; in fact
is worse than all the others combined, and at
that it is a disease resulting from carelessness
or ignorance.

PR Give the birds good air to breathe at all times,

treat them as though they were hardy and strong
from the time they are hatched, and they will
be strong and free from disease.

Baby them, pamper them, raise them in heated
sarees keep them in tight houses—and you
will have continuous trouble.

Page Sixty-six

aa.
ihe if ye AeA :

VITALITY is largely inherited, and without vital-
ity our work and pains are thrown away. If
we do not have good, strong parent stock the
chickens will be weak, puny things that are
worse than useless. Experienced poultrymen
will testify that such stock is of no value; in
fact, is a curse to anyone, their care nothing
but a continual worry, and their survival only
a deferred disappointment. Better pay double
the price for good, strong, robust stock than to
have the other kind given to you.

Assuming that you have the kind of stock

described above, and that the chickens are x
hatched, we will try to outline a simple system-s

of care and management that will bring them
to laying in good season.

Now, to get early fall and winter eggs, or in
fact to get any kind of success with poultry:
we must study nature and her methods.

You have all noted that Red-root or Pig-
Weeds that come up in a.vacant lot late in
September or October have a different habit of
growth than when beginning to grow in the
early spring. In the spring the habits of the

Page Sixty-nine

Robin build a nest
during the fall
monibs

| POULTRY GUIDE POST |

plant are apparently on the broad gauge plan.
The branching stalks and main stem are wide
and thick, intended to grow to large size before
bearing seed, and if left unhampered to grow
as started on rich soil, the plant will reach a
height of 5 or 6 ft. before any blossom buds
appear. Now the same seed in the same soil
sprouting in October will grow with another
plan of life altogether. Instead of the thick
stem and branching habit it shoots up a small
dwarf habit stem less than 6 inches in height
before blossom buds appear. This is simply
nature’s recognition of the fact that the growing
season is past, that the harvest time is near, and
whatever seed is borne must be produced in
haste. The plant’s form is shaped with this end
in view, and is brought to bearing in its limited
time and on a dwarfed frame.

Now, the springtime is nature’s season of
breeding. Among practically all the wild ani-
mals the young are produced during the spring
months. It matters very little when your pullets
are hatched, they will lay in February, March
and April anyway. If these chickens are hatched
in May, June or July and improperly fed or half
starved, allowed to shift for themselves, they
will come to laying during these months. The
same is true of August, September or October-
hatched pullets. They too will lay in February,
March and April, but they will not be so well
developed. Their bodies will be small, and their
eggs will be undersized. So too, will pullets
hatched in January and February get to laying

Page Seventy

in May or June. Nature, recognizing the Spring
as the breeding or producing season, hurries
these birds, hatched, according to her calendar,
late on the last growing period, and sets them
to laying, very small eggs to be sure. but eggs,
and eggs that will hatch. Of course the pullets
are small, and never make the frames they would
have grown had they been hatched at the proper
season.

This is simply to show that nature has a period
of seed time, of growth, and another of harvest
or maturity. Now, she times that period of
growth with all her children when the feed is
most plentiful. You never see the robin or blue-
bird, the deer or moose building nests or bearing
young at any other time than during the early
spring or summer when the feed is most abund-
ant, giving the young ample time and feed for
maturing before the winter season.

Now, man in his manipulation of nature’s
laws, as regards the hen, by creating an abnor-
mal appetite and laying habit, has a bird that
under some conditions breeds or produces eggs
in the off season or fall and winter months.
Left to herself to pick her own living the hen
would only lay during the spring and summer
months, and we are sure that those eggs would
hatch much better than those produced by our

Page Seventy-one

yur pe
= eS? a,
ae029>

FE a ee AD:
perpetual machine that is laying five to ten times
as many eggs as Nature intended her to.

The burning question is. why don’t we get as
many eggs during the fall and winter season as
during the spring and summer? Really, is not
the question, WHY DO WE GET ANY EGGS
DURING THE FALL AND WINTER?

If we stop to consider the effects of years of
breeding of our domestic animals we will find
that the improvements have been along the line
of increased capacity for food, resulting in in-
creased productiveness. In the milch cow the
development of her appetite and productiveness
has probably increased her size 200 per cent. to
400 per cent., and her milk yield in the full year
from 200 per cent. to 800 per cent. over cattle
in a state of nature.

ww
ore”

In the horse we have the largest specimen,
weighing 2000 to 2500 pounds, and if we are
We must study to believe the naturalist these have been devel-

nature, oped from animals weighing less than the little
donkeys our children played with. Compare the
old razor-back hog with enormous weight of
some of the show Berkshire or White Chesters
of today, weighing from 1000 to 1500 pounds.

All these cases cited sift down to man’s man-
ipulation and increase in the capacity of the

Page Seventy-two

animal to assimilate more feed than its ances-
tors and put it to the uses sought.

Now, in poultry just as wonderful changes
have been wrought. In our domestic hen in
place of the jungle fowl laying one or two
clutches of eggs. perhaps 25 or 30 eggs in the
spring months, we are not satisfied unless we
get from 150 to 200 and want them all when
eggs are at the highest prices.

Mankind has certainly done wonderful things
with our feathered pets but cannot stand nature
on her head altogether. We must continue to
court her favors and try to lead her along the
road we wish her to follow, but we must remem-
ber that while she is willing as long as we con-
sider her whims and caprices, occasionally she
balks and wrecks our aspirations in mid air,
when her laws are disregarded, and we come to
earth with a dull thud.

In the past, amateur enthusiasts have con-
ceived the idea that the birds laid in spring and
summer because it was warm weather, and figur-
ing on this basis without consulting Dame Na-
ture, they constructed expensive buildings with
elaborate heating systems, endeavoring to try to
convince the birds that spring time had come,
even if the sun did rise at seven o’clock and set
at four. Their attempts have all failed for the
very important reason that the birds were not
adapted to live in stifled air and heated quarters,
and that eggs are not dependent upon warmth.
Colds, roup and kindred ailments put these plants
out of business in short order.

Page Seventy-three

O
Anything that
cackles
Or wears

feathers
will lay in

the Spring.

Z| POULTRY GUIDE POST

To produce this five or ten-fold increase of
egg yield over what nature intended, we must
continue to crowd the right kind of feed into
the birds in about the proportion we expect eggs.

In the state of nature the birds hatched in the
spring laid the next spring. or at about the age
a: of ten months. Now we hear all kinds of pro-

XY r & ond if the pullets do not get to laying at five
YE

and six months of age, and in many cases where
\ they have not been more than half fed at that.
ee ten months to develop in a mild climate
they required very little feed and effort to secure

it, especially as the birds were very much smaller

than our birds of today. One of our American
“* variety pullets should weigh from five to six

pounds at six months of age. The jungle fowl
~ weighed perhaps 2% lbs. at ten months of age.
How much more food must our well-bred bird
consume to double this Jungle fowl’s weight in
half the time?

Supposing our American variety pullets are
hatched in March or April how soon may we
expect them to lay? Nature would start the
Jungle fowl with the intention of bringing her
to laying maturity at ten months of age, and
with a productiveness of perhaps twelve eggs
as her first litter, and a weight of 2 lbs. to make.

ie se ral She would require probably less than 25 per
- ee you cent. food and ten months to get it in, I sea
ey long, slow, growing period with a lighter pro-
eae duction at the end of it, soon broken up with

three weeks of incubation.
We expect Miss Plymouth Rock to start fe

Page Seventy-four

ing promptly at nine o’clock in the morning of
the day she is five months of age, and continue
one egg a day during the short winter days when
she has about 7 hours on the floor of the pen
and 17 hours on the roost, until the next spring
or summer; not only that, but we wonder why
the eggs don’t hatch as many chicks as were put
in the machine, and why the chicks die in the
shell. and why they don’t all live. |

First of all, to bring Miss Plymouth Rock to
laying at five to six months of age and have her
up to the weight we wish, we must pour a con-
stant stream of rich, nourishing food through
her alimentary canal from the moment she is
hatched. Every moment her digestive machin-
ery is without material to build on is lost. If
we start during infancy with scanty feeding,
nature changes her plan from a wide-tailed big
stocky bird to one of two-thirds or half the size,
with a pinched and generally half-starved ap-
pearance.

We are very firm believers in the prenatal
influence of full feeding. We think that to get
heavy laying pullets, they must be well fed dur-
ing their growing period else Nature thinks these
birds are born to endure privation and short
rations, and thus she dwarfs their future pro-
ductiveness to suit the conditions under which
they are developing.

If Miss Ply- py a en pa eee
mouth Rock is MUM AF- os we (R

us f ie) j eS
well started and ALL j dy bhi Yd Ny |

pushed with the a Z

(osm FF).
fi—
4,

Page Seventy-five

<<) GA (ol
fen : { =

right kind of food always within reach she will
easily outgrow her ancestors, and having Nature
always with her to prompt the development of
her system for a period of plenty she will pro-
duce eggs of good size and frequency. But she
must not be held back with unsuitable conditions
or feed for a single moment from the shell up,
and she must be kept in housing conditions that
promote her steady addition to the natural hardi-
ness inherited from her parents.

Hothouse conditions she cannot withstand, but
given a suitable cold house with an abundance
of fresh air, without draught, and plenty of
food always within reach, she will lay more
eggs than her ancestors, and go on as one of
the links in the chain of the better producers
we are seeking.

The birds are ravenous eaters, and what else
can be expected if we consider what enormous
producers they are when conditions suit them.
They must have a large amount of feed to de-
ie velop into this size and in the limited number of
months we expect, and the feed must be rich,
palatable and constantly before them. Whole
grain will not produce the results we are look-

—

ea

~_>NE ing for, since we have so increased the diges-
Nothio doing tive capacity of the intestines, we have not yet
on 1 — greatly increased the efficiency of the gizzard,
nests.

with the result that we must feed a large pro-
portion of the feed in a finely ground state to
give the intestines enough to do. Otherwise
they are constantly waiting for the gizzard to
send along some more material, and the result

Page Seventy-six

is lost ground, lessened growth and limited pro-
duction.

Meat food is absolutely necessary. The
growth and development we seek cannot and
will not come from vegetable sources altogether.
Animal protein we must have; and the only
question remaining is in what form? We strong-
ly advise the mixing of the meat food with the
ground, whole grain, just as we have it in Grow-
ing Feed, years of study and experiment
having demonstrated that this is the most
palatable form, and productive of the maxi-
mum growth without any disturbance of the
liver.

The birds in some sections get quite a little
of their living from the grasshoppers and
other bugs and worms, but be sure that in
addition to this they always have some appe-
tizing food constantly within reach so that
the grasshoppers will be a little dessert and
not the whole meal.

Be sure that a liberal percentage of the
food is meat, from the hatch to the hatchet,

FS A

and let it be meat of good quality. Compare. wie

March or April-hatched pullets of the
American varieties may or may not lay in
September, October or November. If they
have been well fed and properly cared for
they will start laying during these months.
On the other hand, if only half fed, allowed
to find their own living, kept in small, ill ven-
tilated quarters, crowded and stunted, or sub-
jected to any one of the above handicaps, they

- Page Seventy-seven

le jor- backs ”
with
Hogs ot

has POULTRY GUIDE POST | ies — Ss |

Heny ate
TAVENIOUS
i

will very likely hold back their eggs until the
natural time for laying, February or March.

It is very easy to revert to the natural habit
of spring and summer laying only. It requires
good feed and care to overcome the natural
tendency, and splendid returns come to those
who master the problem.

Bringing the pullets along through the sum-
mer months in roomy, cool roosting coops, with
plenty of green food and shade, and an abund-
ance of rich, palatable food, always within easy
access, the early fall months should see them
rounding out into large. well-developed, wide-

ee
Oa EF a EULB 1 Fo mre

tailed, henny-looking pullets that gain the size
of their parents before beginning to drop their
eggs. They have enjoyed full feeding during
the natural growing period, and the fall finds
them entirely matured and in the same state of
development to which a scanty feeder would
bring his birds in February or March.

We have taken advantage of Nature’s teach-
ing to grow the birds during the growing season,
and she has rewarded us with a finished product
in one-half the time she originally took to pro-
duce it. If we take the same pullet all ready to
lay, transport her from one house to another,
radically change the feed and care, our hopes
may not materialize.

Page Seventy-eight

It is not the natural season for eggs, and too
much abuse just as the birds are about to begin
production will sometimes throw them back even
.so far as to wait until the spring season. It is
best to get-the pullets settled in their permanent
winter quarters a month or more before they
would lay, and after they have been placed to-
gether no change of the personnel of the pens
permitted. Strangers introduced from time to
time cause more or less scrapping and disturb-
ance, and all go to interrupt egg production.
During the unnatural season for eggs seemingly
trivial matters and excuses cause the egg pro-
duction to stop, whereas, during the flood tide
of eggs in the spring season apparently one can
go to almost any extreme with shifting, feeding,
et cetera, without affecting the egg yield ma-
terially. |

We may confidently expect eggs during the
off season from early hatched pullets and from
yearling hens that were early hatched the previ-
ous spring; having laid early during the pre-
ceding fall and winter they have been indiffer-
ent layers during the summer months, have
moulted early and with proper feed and care are
ready to begin their second season’s work early.

From the foregoing it would seem that only
one class of pullets are desirable—the carly
hatched. This, however, is not as we see it.
We all like the early hatched, but we find that
if our birds are all early hatched, within a rea-
sonable space of time they will come to laying
together, providing of course, that they all re-

Page Seventy-nine

= pe
Aff» —~

5 ‘months to the day and
mute they expect her
fo get on the nest
and lay.

POULTRY GUIDE POST |x

ceive the same treatment. Again, they would
all moult at the same period and we would be
at a standstill for eggs.

We have seen the habits and natural tenden-

ie a cies with the early hatched pullet. Now let us
consider another class of birds, heretofore re-
are a garded as of very little value——the late hatched,
we -7 y,or the June and July chickens. These have

their work to do, and also do it just as well if
we understand them.

laying maturity in December, January and Feb-
ruary. Beginning later, they go through the
, spring in better form, and when their early
+ hatched sisters are moulting these late birds are
still laying heavily, and as they have three
months’ time to make up, having begun three
> months later, they continue good, strong work
right through August, September and October,
» stopping then for a short, quick moult, dropping
the feathers almost all at once, and getting a new
set very rapidly, whereas, the early hatched birds
We y begin to drop their feathers in July or August

. and take three or four months for a very

A flocd-tide leisurely, ladylike change of clothing. To be
of eggs sure they expose their bodies less, but the
mn the Salome dance ruling does not extend to the
poultry yard, and results of the egg basket rather

‘pring than beauty of bird are what we are seeking.
It will be seen that the late hatched pullet fills

her place and gives us eggs when they are quite
scarce and hard to get. Prices are good and the
eggs come with very little effort in feed and care.

Page Eighty

Now if these pullets be purchased there is
even more to be said in their favor. The early
hatched are the kind that everybody is seeking,
and the price is consequently bound to be high.
These late ones are looked down upon, and not
only bring a less price per pound, but as they
are light in weight the total price is small indeed.

Put into the pens in October or November,
weighing 2 to 3 pounds, they cost 4oc. to 60c.
each, while the early ones weighing 4 to 5 lbs.
cost $1.00 to $1.25 each. Now when the time
comes to go to market the early ones weigh
about the same as when purchased, while the
smaller ones have gained to about the size of
the larger ones, and bring nearly, if not quite
enough to purchase more small pullets to take
their places.

The early ones must take quite a loss, as they
are no more valuable as market poultry, cost .
quite a bit more per pound, and weighed heavier a9
at the start. To be sure they got to laying <t
earlier, but on the other hand they stopped Reet oe
earlier. a

When the books are balanced at the end of : :
the year it will be found that in many cases the Disturbed
late hatched birds have paid as much per head Hens
as the earlier ones. If these late hatched birds stop laying.
be wintered it will be found that they begin
laying very nearly as soon as their medium
early hatched sisters, and carry the same char-
acteristics of late fall laying through the next
season, although for this market egg business
we favor the changing of the full stock each

—— =
=

Page Eighty-one

Kesert-2=-. | POULTRY GUIDE POST | MCC |

fall, either raising or purchasing an entire new
lot.

We have tried to outline the natural tendency
of the different classes of birds. Now, let us
consider what we can do to increase the laying
habit in the off season.

It will be acknowledged that almost every-
thing from a feather duster to one of these new
Easter bonnets will lay during the spring months.
Anything that cackles and wears feathers and
has half a chance to live will lay when Nature
prompts her to do her best. For this reason we
need take no credit upon ourselves for the large
egg record during the spring months. The time
for us to put out our best efforts is when Nature
is urging her birds to “go slow” and take a rest.

We must push the early hatched pullets with
liberal feeding of meat-laden food all through
the growing period. then follow this with every-

i i thing to whet her appetite and increase her pro-
eas : ductiveness while she is laying during the fall
s BR and winter. During the early spring she will

i D lay anyway, for nature tells her to do so. But
after the early spring is passed she is pretty

nearly “all in’ so far as eggs are concerned, and

ee is either broody or loafing, laying very short
(ee litters between fits of broodiness or starting
La slow moults that will last for three or five

months.

Now if in May we give her a change of
diet,—for instance, shift from Egg Feed to a
ration of Growing Feed with ten to fifteen per
cent. of a good quality of meat scraps, the

Page Ejighty-two

change of diet tickles her failing appetite and
she eats ravenously of the new ration, gains
flesh and lays a splendid lot of eggs during the
following sixty days, when to our mind we have
pretty well milked her out and she should go to
market.

Now the late hatched birds as they are not
allowed so much time during the growing period
should be pushed harder, with, say a five or ten
per cent. addition of scraps to the Growing Feed.
They should be given yards and runs in which

no birds have been kept for twelve months at Ze
least, and in smaller flocks than the earlier ones, Y

not over 25 at most.

They have nature with Sheen prompting the <22445

laying in February anyway, so we have only to
encourage them with the extra ration of scraps
to get them going a month or six weeks earlier,
so we are seldom disappointed in their laying,
usually getting eggs before we expect them,
which is always pleasant.

During the spring months, like all the rest of
poultrydom, they will lay under almost any kind
of treatment and feed, so we had better rest on
our oars and drift with the current until early
summer, say about July, when we should begin
the treatment previously outlined for the early
hatched ones.

All our experience with poultry teaches us
that the heavy feeders make the money, and
any addition to the diet which will allow in-
creased feeding with safety will more than cor-
respondingly increase the profit.

Page Eighty-three

BE

Lo:
aes ES

Kest on “your

Gris,
and drift wit
the current SS
ee:

oe

| oppoRTUNITY ae

= —
oa SS =

of Sune tbl tof rere Nag : a 3 :
— 5

THERE is much discussion of the steadily in-
creasing cost of living, and with very good rea-
son,—“‘it hits us where we live.” For several
years past the cost of all kinds of food stuffs has
steadily increased, and this is especially true of
beef, mutton and pork, which have advanced
in price with alarming rapidity in the past few
years. Nor is there any prospect of better con-
ditions in these meat-foods, for the good and
sufficient reason that a steadily increasing de-
mand for food stuffs is met by a steadily dimin-
ishing supply of these products; to the inex-
orable law of supply and demand is due (in
the main) the steady advance in prices.

The population of the United States is in-
creasing at a rate which means that each year
there are a million more mouths to be fed than
there were the year before. Over against this
fact there has to be set the further fact of les-
sened production, due to the settling of the lands
of the far west and south-west, and the turn-
ing of the great cattle and sheep ranges into
small farms which are used for diversified farm-
ing, a factor which effects a change in the pro-

Page Eighty-five

un,

ood,
resh Air
1)

PAR, POULTRY GUIDE POST | Ye X U@ Bal

This suburbanite

thought he had no
room for poultry

keeping.

portion of consumers to producers of food
products, especially in the States east of the
Mississippi River where the concentration of
people in the cities and manufacturing towns
is most marked. As it is apparent that it is the
younger and more vigorous of the population
who move to the towns and cities, so it becomes
evident that not only the number but the effi-
ciency of the producers is being diminished while
an increased consumption has to be cared for.

Statistics furnished by the United States De-
partment of Agriculture tell us that there were
produced in I910, 2,000,000 fewer beef cattle
and 6,000,000 fewer hogs than were produced
the year previous. The shrunken beef produc-
tion is accounted for by the change in conditions
in the west and southwest mentioned above; the
lesser pork production is explained by the ex-
tremely high price, which induced the farmer to
sell his young stock in place of making breeders
of them.

Page Eighty-six

2

cement sbeta,

A natural outgrowth of this lessened food sup-
ply and increased demand is a turning to other
sources of supply, foremost among which stand
poultry-meat and eggs. That these articles of
food are well appreciated is made evident by the
fact that in the single state of Massachusetts there
is consumed each year over $30,000,000 worth
of them, and it is a very significant fact that only
some five millions of dollars’ worth of these
products are grown within the state. That is to
say, the people of the State of Massachusetts
pay out each year over $25,000,000 for poultry-
meat and eggs produced outside its limits.

In view of these facts it would seem wise for
us to consider whether we cannot become pro-
ducers of at least a portion of these foods, for
our own households. Few of us realize the
possibilities of a small flock of poultry in the
back yard, and although we do realize the sat-
isfaction there is in fresh-laid eggs for the break-
fast table, we do not know how easily the eggs

o

Same yard with four

No-Yard houses and

garden.

a eee g
Pas 5 ae)

Page Eighty-seven

An unsightly back
yard, producing

nothing but regrets.

ia FEY came oer

can be secured, nor how cheaply, at a cost of
about a cent a piece for the food. The man
who has a few square feet of room in the back
yard may have the luxury of a constant supply
of deliciously fresh eggs for the breakfast table
and the family cooking at low cost, by simply
taking advantage of the recent developments in
methods of poultry keeping.

We all know the attractiveness, the delicious
flavor of fresh-laid eggs, and how very far short
of that attractive flavor are the cold-storage eggs
which we receive, as “fresh” from the grocer
or provision dealer. If it can be demonstrated
that we can all have the genuine article, pro-
duced right in our own back yard at such small
cost, surely we will hasten to add a small poul-
try house and flock of laying pullets to our pos-
sessions and become independent of the cold
storage and semi-stale eggs previously expe-
rienced. Furthermore, we will eat decidedly
more of them. Finding them eminently satis-
factory, we turn to them again; they are “so

SSS

Page Eighty-eight

different” from the strong-flavored and unattrac-
_ tive eggs which we all eat under compulsion or
because we are still in ignorance of the real qual-
ity of the home-made article.

Does one reader object that he hasn’t room to
give his flock of fowls an outside run? An out-
side run is wholly unnecessary; the birds need
never step foot outside the confines of the poul-
try house. This is one of the recent develop-
ments in poultry keeping, that when the flock is
not kept for breeding but for egg-production
alone the No-Yard system is quite as satisfac-
tory, and gives even better results than where
a considerable amount of ground is given to them
to range over. This No-Yard system of keeping
fowls is a wholly new idea to those who have
been accustomed to see the fowls ranging all
over the farm and garden and over the neighbors’
gardens also. It works out perfectly, however,
where the fowls are kept solely for egg-produc-
tion, the birds being carried through one laying
season only; being gradually killed for the fam-

Page Eighty-nine

Same yard now
paying a large part.

of the rent.

A vacant lot adjoin-

ing a village home.
The taxes were
heavy and the

income nothing.

POULTRY GUIDE POST |f

ily table or sold off to market in the late sum-
mer, and a new stock of laying pullets being in-
stalled in the house each fall. The flock is fed
for eggs and lays eggs, and late in the summer
any that have escaped the family’s growing ap-
petite for fresh killed fowl are shipped to market
alive in time to clean and white-wash the house,
making it ready for the new flock of pullets in
October.

Does another reader object that he sends his
family away to the seashore or the old home in
the country directly after the schools close in
June, and that he does not care to have a tock
of fowls on his hands through the summer? The
birds that are left on hand the last of June can
be closed out to the hen-cart man, at a price
closely approximating the first cost of the pul-
lets, the very day before the wife and children
flit from the home nest. Here is one illustra-
tion:—In the fall an acquaintance purchased a
flock of twenty mixed pullets for twenty dol-
lars and installed them in a small house which

Page Ninety

he had built of lumber from old packing cases
in his back yard. From that date to July 7th
- following, he paid $19.50 for their feed; total
capital and expense $39.50. During this period
he sold to the grocer and used in his family
eggs to the value of $80.89; the eggs used by the
family being credited at the market prices of
the time.

On July 7th, the following year, he moved his
family into the country, to their summer home,
and sold the hens to a hen-cart man for $10.12,
making a total for eggs and hens sold of $91.01.
Deducting the cost of feed bought and pullets
we have $51.51 net profit on an investment of
$20.00. Over and above that was the great
satisfaction of having an abundance of eggs
fresh from the nests for the family table.

An illustration of the rapid growth in popu-
larity of this family flock idea is found in the
experience of a poultryman living just outside
the city of Toronto. A friend living in the city,
having a small back yard to his house, bought a

Page Ninety-one

Same lot now pays

the taxes and a nice

income besides.

Another suburban

residence, the lady

owner of which

POULTRY GUIDE POST Ze

flock of ten pullets from him some half dozen
years ago. This flock gave him an ample supply
of fresh-laid eggs for home use and some to
sell to his less fortunate friends and towards
spring the family began eating a hen now and
then as the appetite craved poultry-meat. When
the family went away to the country for the sum-
mer the remaining birds were sold to the mar-
ketman. The city-man’s friends envied him his
good fortune, in his having fresh-laid eggs all
through the fall, winter and spring and they got
busy to provide the same blessing for their fam-
ilies, the net result being that our poultryman
friend now has twenty-one families to whom he
supplies a flock of ten, twelve or fifteen ready-
to-lay pullets each October. All these families
can credit to their backyard poultry plant greater
health, wealth and happiness.

A man may feel that he cannot easily spare
the time to feed and care for a flock of fowls.
By the up-to-date methods of poultry keeping, a

Page Ninety-two “

OPPORTUNITY

ten-year-old boy or girl can throw out to them
the few handfuls of scratch feed in mid-after-
noon, after coming from school. Then again
it is no small advantage to a family to have an
easy method of disposing of table and kitchen
waste; the table and kitchen scraps of the ordi-
nary family will half feed a flock of fowls, and
gives them a much enjoyed variety of food.
All the rest of the chores can be done in a
few minutes after supper, the most important
part of this last being the filling of the Egg
Feed hoppers and the emptying of the drink-
ing fountains so that the water shall not freeze
in cold weather. In cold weather, too, the
eggs should be gathered from the nests two
or three times during the day to prevent their
freezing.

Another man may say that he hasn’t any chick-
en house. One suitable for a small flock can
be quickly and cheaply built out of lumber from
a few old boxes; if we want something more
attractive, ready-made poultry houses that are

Des

mar

Page Ninety-three

Same yard with

poultry paying all

expenses.

Old style poultry

keeping.

POULTRY GUIDE POST

handy, convenient and attractive can be bought
at moderate cost. These houses are shipped
“knocked-down’’, can be quickly assembled and
erected, and can be easily and quickly separated
into several parts for removal if desired, as in
the case of the family moving to another home.
The No-Yard house is an excellent portable
house, well adapted for a flock of a dozen to fif-
teen fowls. A description and illustration of this
house seems desirable, and we give it on
page 122.

It is not our intention in this chapter to enter
into a discussion of the merits or demerits of
any housing systems, but our experience, com-
bined with thousands of successful poultrymen
has proven to our satisfaction that in recom-
mending the ‘“open-front” house to the public
we are advocating a system that has many ad-
vantages over any other.

A more complete outline of housing is given
in the chapter by that title in this book, pages
BIZ to: 125

——= ?

coopoooo

Page Ninety-four

Seen
= SSD

OPPORTUNITY

A good illustration of the especial point of this
story has come to our notice. A young lady ot
our acquaintance who had run down her health
by too close application to office work in the city
was ordered by her physician to eat two eggs
each morning for her breakfast and take three
eggs raw during the day. ‘The difficulty of get-
ting “dependably fresh” eggs suggested that she
keep a small flock of fowls herself, and have
home-grown eggs. Gaining her parents’ per-
mission to use a few square feet of the back of
their lot for the purpose, she bought a “No-
Yard” house, a flock of fifteen pullets and two
bags of ready mixed feeds. The pullets laid
splendidly all winter, not only giving her the
fresh-laid eggs for her own use and a supply for
the family, but she had a surplus to sell to the
corner drug-store, where they sell for ten cents
per dozen above the market price, and are used
in egg-chocolate and other soft drinks.

This worked out so well that she has continued
each year, fattening and selling off the birds in

Same lot with up-
to-date methods and

No-Yard houses.

Page Ninety-five

SY (Poucray cise Post IS |

The picture that
comes to many
minds when back
yard poultry-keep-

ing is mentioned.

August and September, and buying new pullets
again in the late fall to lay heavily during the
season of high prices for eggs.

She pays her ten-year-old brother a small sum
each week for doing the poultry work and says
that she had not only achieved fresh-laid eggs
for herself, but is making a good snug amount
each year.

We have no sympathy with the “get-rich-
quick” stories of $10 to $50 or $500 profit per
hen in one year’s time which are doing the
rounds of the papers, solely for advertising pur-
poses. We don’t want our friends to get such
greatly inflated figures into their minds, for they
will be disappointed if they do. We do, how-
ever, want them to know that they can reduce
their family living expenses by a substantial sum,
by utilizing the table and kitchen waste and a
small space in the back yard, both of which are
not now used because of lack of opportunity.
You can easily clear from $2.00 to $5.00 profit

=

OO

——

as~s
SS

RAS
DX
eee

ae NEE ere See,

Page Ninety-six

aaL_orpontunity | SESE ee

per year per hen on whatever number you can
care for in your back yard, and the small amount
of time spent with them will prove a recreation
rather than a burden.

On a lot 50x50 feet in size there will be no dif-
ficulty in realizing a profit of from $50 to $500 a
year on an investment of from $50 to $300. The
old style method of poultry-keeping meant a lot
of unsightly “shacks” and tumble-down yards,
unending labor, and with results far from certain.

With our modern methods, of “no-yards” for
the mature market egg birds and scientific feed-
ing, the results are certain, the birds cannot get
by without laying.

These statements sound pretty strong, but we
are sure of our position.

Your garden will not suffer, in fact, both gar-
den and lawn (if you have them) will be greatly
improved by application of the droppings which
are a most excellent fertilizer. The weeds from
the garden, also the clippings from the lawn will

No-Yard system
requires no male
bird to disturb the
neighborhood. It
leaves ample space

for a nice garden.

Page Ninety-seven

The young lady

whose parents

owned this estate
was ordered by the
physician to take

fresh eggs daily.

|} POULTRY GUIDE POST

be greatly relished by the birds in confinement
and less grain food will be eaten by them if they
have the green food.

We well know that if these facts were real-
ized by our friends more than double the poul-
try would be profitably kept and the family liv-
ing expenses appreciably reduced. It takes
years, however, to impress some of the most sim-
ple truths upon the minds of the doubters, mean-
while, the demand for eggs and poultry meat
continues to increase much faster than the sup-
ply. Prices continue to soar and our doubting
friends continue to rail at the beef trust, over-
looking the fact that they have right at hand a
powerful weapon against that organization, viz:
shutting off a part of the trust’s market by pro-
ducing their own meat and eggs and by sup-
plying their friends and neighbors. By so much
they can decrease the trust’s sales, and put a
handsome profit in their own pockets.

So let the consumer of eggs and poultry be-

|

ee

SS ae SS ——

Page Ninety-eight

EST ve OPPORTUNITY | Osea

come first the producer. There is money to be
made, health to be gained and recreation and
happiness will go hand in hand. While held in
the city by the demands of the present day civ-
ilization, the back-to-the-farm yearning may be
all but realized in the little back yard flock of
poultry.

ee see i A poultry house
—— EE was substituted for

\_\ aN the unsightly view
fe aud of a neighbor’s back
ea

yard, and now fresh

- ps7. Ee sia? eggs are a regular
¢ 7 morning delicacy
for all the family.

Page Ninety-nine

THE success or failure of any poultry keeping
undertaking really rests upon the skill of the
feeder, for successful poultry keeping is only
dependent upon two things, keeping the birds
healthy and feeding them properly. We have
shown the proper methods of housing and gen-
eral care in other chapters and will try to give
the outline of a safe feeding system or plan that
will enable all to gain success with their birds.

One of the first principles to be always remem-
bered is that your results are dependent upon
liberal feeding and by liberal feeding we mean
feeding all the birds can be coaxed to eat of the
right materials, and we must consider feed as
material and egg, poultry and breeding stock as
the finished products.

There is no question that a newly hatched
chicken is a delicate and tender object, keenly
sensitive to neglect, but particularly sensitive to
improper food. Properly fed and surrounded
with half way right conditions as to temperature
and air, he goes ahead at a wonderful rate—but
improperly fed, he stands still and dies.

Practically speaking, his life horoscope is de-

Page One Hundred One

ab

He AVY feeders
make the

Toney

PE LTRY GUIDE POST Seu De
WA Pout - POST | |

cided in the first ten days to three weeks of his
existence. dn this length of time, if sie
good husky fellow. he will eat from three to
four cents’ worth of feed.
N If the chickens consumed the chick feed dur-
0 cook

ing the first month in their lives in the quan-
tities they use when from three to five months
of age, there might be a little excuse for look-
ing for inexpensive rations, provided it did not
imperil the lives of the youngsters, but when
we consider that a pound of the best chick feed
will put a chicken beyond the danger period,
or up to three weeks of age, what excuse is
there for the saving of a quarter of a cent a
pound when it endangers the entire season’s crop
of producers? Really a poultryman would be
better off in many instances if he paid double
the price for the best chick feed, in preference
to the gift of many of the feeds on the market.

Every experienced poultryman realizes that
the first two or three weeks is the crucial period
one in the lives of his chickens.

: a oe Te. aoe PP Upon the health and thrift

» f the chickens during these
2 8 Ww on S

ai et SY ae es Sor 3 few weeks depend the pro-
SO
¥

+ = fits of the whole season,

and of the year’s business.

An all grain or vegetable diet is not natural
to any age of poultry and it has been found
highly beneficial to young chickens to combine
a small amount of dried codfish or meat and
add it to the cracked grains and seeds used in
making up the chick feed ration. Certain prep-

Page One Hundred Two

2

arations of codfish being used after having been
put through a special preparatory process that
eliminates all the fat, it supplies the newly
hatched birds at the crucial age when most
needed with animal protein, without the animal
fat.

The yolk of the eggs not being fully absorbed
until the chickens are ten days old and consist-
ing largely of carbo-hydrates, furnishes all the
materials of a fatty nature that is desirable.
- Thus if we add the commercial meat scraps con-
taining more or less fat, there is very sure to
be trouble, while in shredded codfish properly
prepared not an atom of fat remains. We thus
furnish just what the rapidly developing bodies
require without any white diarrhoea—so fatal
in some sections. .

Cooking the food for chickens or grown poul-
try, only serves to render the starchy parts of
the feed more digestible, but by so doing, throws
the feeds out of balance, and while the chicks
apparently thrive better for a few days, they
later receive a set
back that leaves —~<
them not so far
ahead as the birds
fed on raw foods
from the start.

With so much of our entire season’s work and
profits depending upon the chickens, realizing
that they are going to be worth from one to two
dollars each when grown, and that after they are
three weeks of age very little mortality ensues—

Page One Hundred Three

them

(aes, MEA Pouttry cue post

it would seem folly to consider any feed for

them but the BEST and most nourishing rations.

A coarser chick feed may be fed after the

chicks reach three weeks of age, being fed in

connection with Growing Feed. If the very
highest perfection of development is desired

The first lO Days with your birds, give alternate feeds of the
decide my fate best fine chick and of a coarser chick feed
until the birds are eight weeks of age. Keep

the Growing Feed continually before them.

Ga INF Remember that stuffing the birds to their limit,

Ce 4 7 studying their habits and whims, all with the

eazy ‘idea of getting more food into them by increas-
= ing their early growing habits, is a successful
q poultryman’s aim. If you get a two-pound

chicken at eight weeks of age, instead of ten or
twelve weeks’ time, you have gained from one
to two weeks’ feed, and the chances are from
3 five to ten cents per pound in the selling value,
as the market declines very rapidly during the
spring and early summer months, and if your
chickens are not in the market any earlier or
better than the one thousand other poultrymen

ae °

8 shipping to the same market you are not going
to receive any better prices than they get.
NINE-TENTHS OF THE CHICKENS HATCHED DO

NOT CED HNOUGH TO] #Am

Why so many chickens are hatched, and so
few really fed, is a great problem, but we think
that the improper feeding and poor quality of
unbalanced rations are largely responsible, for
all will recognize the fact that most of the teach-

Page One Hundred Four

ings of ten years ago,—and in many cases of to-
day,—are to keep your chickens “on edge’, or
hungry all the time.

Your chickens should never be hungry, as
the term is generally understood. HUNGRY
BIRDS ARE NOT GROWING.

Almost without exception in all other forms
of bird and animal life the growing period is

_ the fattening period of life. In other words,
the birds or animals carry more fat on them
during this than any other time of their lives,
eiGeid tae face of this, the old teaching told
us to “keep them hungry.” Is it any wonder
that the hens did not lay, that the youngsters
did not get to standard weight, or that poultry
keeping did not pay? | :

Hen-reared chickens, when running at large jm ‘
with the mother hen, are fed a continuous n
stream of bugs, worms, grains, seeds and
grasshoppers, from daylight to dark. There
is no interval of fasting; only brief warm-up §&y {¥ poate
recesses or naps; the entire day is spent in Se =
trying to “fill up.” The feeding system we IR Sy
advocate gives these same conditions. After ik
the chickens are ten days to two weeks old Change of
provide them with ground Growing Feed which Dj
furnishes them with a continuous ration which Iet
should be made up of a happy combination of
the strongest and richest grains and meat food
ground together in the most appetizing form for
the chickens to so please their palates that they
will stuff themselves from one week’s end to the
other, and grow evenly and rapidly into highly

Page One Hundred Five

74\| POULTRY GUIDE POST 4 % A

developed pullets, cockerels, or capons, in one-
third less time than they would under any other
system.
Nes Upon a properly balanced Growing Feed
2y ration, cockerels reach ten and twelve pounds ~
@ weight in six months, thus representing a
ays! growth in each day of their lives equal to two-
thirds of their entire weight when hatched into
this cold, hard world.
To make this growth, conditions must be right,
YES and the feed must be rich, abundant, and always
within reach. It must also be present in a form
that is not only palatable to the growing chick-
ens, but in such form as will digest most eco-
({{| ? nomically and completely. Now it is easy to see
that wet food cannot be kept before them con-
% ) stantly and remain sweet.

Poultry rations that have been in use in the
past for growing stock are too restricted, and
do not fully nourish all parts of the rapidly

NO growing system, and some of the chickens break

down at all ages. |

Fanciers recognize as an almost universal fact

3 ge a ie ee a ae a are ae
KE, est colored and the best formed of any o
LD a yi their broods, and their problem has been get-
AS —F ting them to standard size in season for the

a es winter shows.

i 2 This rapid growth and full development is
& just what a properly prepared Growing Feed

SS will do, giving a wide variety to feed upon, and

so fully nourishing every part of the growing

stock that they are always in good form and

Page One Hundred Six

well feathered with unlimited stamina that will
reproduce itself in next season’s breeding peu
with even better and greater strength.

Added to this is the big item of saved labor
over the expenditure of time in preparing and
“serving wet mash mixtures.

This enormous saving of time and food is not
at the expense of any vital function, but rather
the reverse, for the stock will rapidly increase
in strength and vitality under this treatment, and
after you try it a season you will find your old
stock one to two pounds heavier, and your pul-
lets laying a month earlier.

Give your chickens a chance to show you how
skillfully you did your mating last season, and
the only way you can do so, is to feed them to
the limit.

Remember, full fed chickens are paying chicks.

The Scratch Feed should be compounded to
balance the Egg Feed and should always be very
carefully screened and composed of a combina-
tion of the very best and sweetest grains and
seeds, which pleases the taste of the hen and at
the same time keeps her everlastingly scratching.
The exercise she gets in this way increases her
activity, develops the muscles and blood vessels,
helps digestion and circulation, reddens the comb,
and assists in a general way to strengthen all the
functions of the body. A scratching hen is like
a whistling boy or a singing girl—always hap-
py, and generally busy. We believe in giving
poultry plenty to do.

A variety of grains more fully nourishes the

Page One Hundred Seven

Ny r
‘ .

rs
x

ZEN. Ss) : ss
= POULTRY G —
ae) Toe| (O)j=_’

Study to stuff
the hens during

short feeding
Hours.

many complicated parts of the bird’s anatomy,
and results in larger and stronger fowl with in-
creased vitality. When confined to a restricted
ration, young stock do not fill out as well: are
more subject to disease, and fail to reach the
size that they would attain if fed liberally upon
a carefully balanced mixture. Laying hens are
more subject to disease, acquire pernicious hab-
its of egg eating, feather pulling, etc., simply as
a result of the natural craving of an appetite un-
satisfied. Given a carefully balanced ration, they
acquire none of these bad habits and show their
appreciation in full baskets of fertile eggs
throughout the year.

For instance, buckwheat in itself is one of the
best egg producers on the entire list of grains,
but if fed to excess, and without other grains to
counteract the tendency, produces eggs with very
pale yolks.

Wheat is an excellent egg producer, but fed
too freely reduces the strength of the germs and
vitality of the chickens hatched.

Nothing but long experience with the birds
gives this information, and makes it possible to
counteract the weak features of each ingredient
with the strong features in some other material.

An egg is the product of a very wonderfully
developed and sensitive organism, containing the
nucleus of undeveloped germs for generations
upon generations to come. This action of the
generative organs is a very heavy drain upon
the hen’s system; nothing parallels it in Nature.
A milch cow is an approach, but she is not draw-

Page One Hundred Eight

ing on her reproductive organs as often as in na-
ture, but the hen has, by man’s careful manipula-
tion, increased her reproductive capacity many
times since becoming a servant of mankind.
This saps her vitality and we can only hope
to keep her wonderfully made machinery in op-
eration without interruption or breakdown by
placing within her reach an abundance of such
food as she likes, without having any “stop-
watch” on her to tell when she has eaten enough.
Instead of being “used up” with that tired
feeling in the spring season when we want
strong eggs for hatching purposes, she is stead-
ily producing eggs that hatch well, and chickens
that live well. She skips all the ailments and
diseases caused by improper feeding, and con-
tinues to contribute to the prosperity of her own-
er for the full twelve months of the year.
Scratch Feeds are usually made the dump of
refuse grains that cannot be sold in the open
market, and when making comparisons with
prices of feed keep in mind that every kernel
of grain in your mixture should be sweet, and
that they contain no sweepings or weed seed.
For the best results in egg production we rec-

15 FEEDING HOURS
IN SUMME
AGAIN

9 FEEDING Hours
IN WINTER

ommend one or two Feeders containing Egg |

Feed constantly before the birds, and a feed
of Scratch Feed in litter an hour or two be-
fore roost time at night. This gives an oppor-
tunity to fill up at the time of day when Nature
warns them that they need a full crop to last
them until morning. They do not have a chance
to gorge themselves early in the day and then

Page One Hundred Nine

Results an the
Log basket

rather thant
beauty of

bird are what
we are ae

| POULTRY GUIDE POST Lbs

dope around, but are always on the move be-
tween feed hopper and litter looking for some
of last evening’s remnants, and have no time to
line up in the sunlight as wet-mash fed hens are
prone to do on a cold winter day after a hot
mash in the morning.

Years ago a wise old poultryman = said,
“There’s more in the feed than in the breed,”
and he was certainly right. We would say that
it is all in the feed. Perhaps that would be too
strong a statement, but certainly all will admit
that the breed counts for very little, or nothing,
without the feed. The best bred hens cannot—
and will not—lay if not fed, and the poorest
scrub will lay quite plentifully if properly fed.
Feed has more to do with the paying end of a
poultry plant than anything else, and the only
feed that is cheap is the feed that. predmees
results.

A properly compounded Egg Feed always
will produce eggs at a lower cost per hen than
any other feed. After carefully experimenting
for years we have demonstrated that egg eat-
ing, feather pulling, going broody, getting over-
fat, and “going light’ may be—and are—largely
overcome by its use.

These points should be given constant and
careful consideration, and the requirements fol-
lowed out regardless of the cost of the proper
materials.

A fluctuating grain market does not mean that
high priced ingredients necessary to the proper
balancing of feeds be left out of these mixtures;

Page One Hundred Ten

this would be poor economy. A proper Egg
Feed should give you the results you are look-
ing for every day in the year.

The proper blending of ingredients is as 1m-
portant as to have the proper materials. Feed-
ing your birds the right materials in the wrong
proportions will just as surely throw them out
of condition, resulting in a train of ill success,
infertile eggs, weak chickens and low vitality
among your stock, as feeding the wrong mate-
rials.

In purchasing feeds, watch your protein analy-
sis. A low protein feed at a low price costs
you more per feeding value than a high protein
feed at a much higher price, and we emphasize,
tes) PROTEIN MUST BE ANIMAL
PROTEIN; NOT VEGETABLE PROTEIN.

Formulas have been put out by various exper-
iment stations embodying the use of vegetable
protein in combination with animal protein,
thereby lessening the cost over some rations
which depend upon animal protein altogether.
These vegetable protein rations, while good, will
not maintain the highest volume of efficiency,
nor will they maintain the birds in the best of
health. In confirmation of this we would refer

ge
C7

you to the report of the Massachusetts Agri-

cultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 122,
March 1908.

“For laying hens the rations con-
taining animal food proved superior to
others in which all the organic matter
was derived from vegetable sources,

Page One Hundred Eleven

* * *K * *

It appears also that
while a cheaper vegetable food ration
can sometimes be made to equal or sur-
pass in efficiency a ration containing
animal food by supplementing it with
suitable mineral matter, there are plain
limitations to its economical use. For
laying hens, some animal food appears
necessary for continued good results.’
Judging from our own results and
from those obtained by Wheeler, it
seems safe to conclude that animal
albuminoids as measured by produc-
tion possess a much higher degree of
efficiency than those derived from vege-
table materials.”
Start your pullets on a ration of Growing
Feed and Egg Feed, half of each, when they
are about one month from laying, dropping the
Growing Feed as they begin to lay. Keep the
feed in one or more hoppers, boxes or other con-
trivances, in light, easily accessible parts of the
pen, and do not let them go empty. Feed a lib-
eral quantity of Scratch Feed about an hour
before they go to roost in litter, inducing them
Cut out the hot to scratch freely. Encourage them to eat liber-
Mash ally of the Egg Feed, at least as much in bulk
as of the Scratch Feed, cutting down the Scratch
It Spells TROUOLE Feed until this is brought about, but getting
every ounce of feed into them you can, and
your egg basket will show the results we all look
for. Egg Feed and Scratch Feed make a com-
plete balanced ration, but if you have cabbage or

Page One Hundred Twelve

ON ° 5 =
Ss eon ees

clover it is well enough to feed it, although the
Dry-Mash itself should contain a liberal amount
of Alfalfa. Simply furnish shells, grit, and an
ample supply of water in addition.

In the newer settled portions of the country
we find a disposition to relax all mash feeding as
soon as the grass eomes in the spring, the owners
knowing that the hens always lay at this season
of the year anyway.

They overlook the fact that the hens now lay
by Nature’s bidding and in many instances take °
it out of their bodies in reducing their fat, de- SS :
pending upon their resting period in raising a ;
flock of chickens to restore them to natural
weight.

Now the owner perhaps does not wish to have
them incubate and “breaks them up” and starts
them laying again, they lay a short litter and
start setting again. When broken up a second
time they are very likely to hold off from laying
for a considerable time, as not being fed upon
a rich ration they have little incentive to lay and
if running at large they are too busy seeking
grasshoppers and insects to think much of laying.

If the owners of these birds would keep up
their winter feeding right through the year, they Increasing
would get heavy egg records all summer and in price
fall and double their profits over their present j
system. Hens are gluttons, they produce from
five to ten times their weight each year in eggs
if fed properly. Your profits depend upon their
eating. Increase your profits by increasing the
eating process.

Page One Hundred Thirteen

., <X
SKY t

POULTRY GUIDE POST |!

To get the maximum number of eggs from
the number of birds, confine them in small lots
of from 15 to 30, allowing them three or four
square feet floor space to each bird. See that
they get a liberal amount of pure air through
one opening in the south side at all times, night
and day, winter and summer. . Do not let them
out of the house from the time they go into it
in the fall until they go to market the next fall.
Feed as directed above and you will get more
‘eggs than ever before.

We cannot tell you why, and do not attempt
to reason it out. Wecan only state that we have
found more eggs and at a less cost result when
no yard was used with this system of feeding.
This very materially reduces the expense of con-
structing and maintaining a poultry plant, leaves
much more room for the growing chickens, or
doubles the number of birds kept on an acre of
land, and works a wonderful advantage when the
pullets are bought each season, and we have only
words of praise for the system.

Think of the labor saved! Think of the cap-
ital saved! Think of the worry saved! One
man’s labor alone will care for 2,500 birds on
this system. If you have an empty house or two,
buy a lot of mixed pullets, try out this system,
and tell us if you have not opened a way to com-
mercial poultry keeping on a business basis.

Page One Hundred Fourteen

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THousANDS of families would start keeping
poultry if they realized how simple the No-
Yard system really is.

When poultry is suggested they immediately
think of all the detail and trouble incident to
raising chickens,—the annoyance of the crowing
of the cocks, the unsightly back yard, and the
neighbors’ protests in general.

It is our purpose here to show that not only
can poultry be kept in a neat and tidy manner,
but that the original outlay may be almost noth-
ing if one is a little handy with tools and has
the time to put into the construction of houses
out of boxes or waste lumber.

Pages and volumes of matter have been writ-
ten regarding shape, sizes and styles of poultry
nouses, and the subject is well worthy of all the
attention paid to it. The success or failure of
many plants is determined at the outset by the
style of building adopted. |

Some writers and practical poultrymen advo-
cate and use the long building, claiming economy
in construction cost, and of labor in operating.

We will concede the slight saving in the cost

Page One Hundred Seventeen

Nothiio doing
on tne
Nests:

of construction, but when considered as a twelve
months’ proposition, we know that houses on the
colony plan will give much better returns on the
capital invested.

We must consider the bird’s comfort twelve
months in the year, and what would seemingly
be best for a blowy January day would be stifling
on a hot day in July.

What would serve to the best purposes the
comfort of the bird in August would be alto-

\. gether too exposed in December. Windows
are out of the question, as they make a very

cold quarters after dark, bringing two extremes
of temperature during a single day, a shock no

“A at ee building when the sun is shining and equally

Ul bird can stand, and keep in condition.

We have tried about every size, style and type
of building that has been advocated, and have
found that the small portable building brings the
most uniform success to all users.

These houses make the birds comfortable in
the hottest day in summer, or the coldest day in
winter, and require practically no attention.

Poultry, and in fact everything wearing feath-
ers, are of course, creatures of the air, and the
importance of right air conditions surrounding
the birds is recognized as of paramount import-
ance in keeping the birds in health.

Poultry in health, properly fed, produce re-
markable results; in fact, a hen working along
smoothly is the greatest producer in the animal
kingdom.

This may seem a broad statement, but think

Page One Hundred Eighteen

HOUSING

of it! In twelve months’ time she will produce
from five to ten times her weight in eggs, and
that means practically five to ten times her
weight in flesh.

Thus, our study must be to maintain her
henship in the most perfect health.

The best way to cure sickness is to prevent
it. Nine-tenths of really bad poultry diseases
originate from bad air, and can all be prevented
by right air conditions.

Your birds will never have influenza, colds,
roup, catarrh, canker or chicken pox if always
‘surrounded with proper air.

/ Now to produce the right air conditions we
\must carefully study the shape and diagram of
‘our house.

' The main part to consider is that one-third
‘of the south side shall be open to the weather in
all climates and under all conditions, and that
the opening be covered with one-inch wire net-
ting on the front
of the door, and
that the opening
be equally distant
from each side of
the pen and from
the roof and bot-
tom of the pen.

This prevents the whirlpooling of the air in
the house, which would occur if the opening
were next to one side of the pen and the wind

was blowing against the front of the house from
an angle.

Page One Hundred Nineteen

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As to the exact form of the house, almost any
size or plan seems efficient so long as the south
side opening is the only one in the pen, and is as
described.

Set the building up on posts when it arrives,
or if the ground is frozen too hard to make it
possible to dig post holes, simply set it on four
corner stones or wooden blocks, scraping off the
snow and filling the house in six inches to a feot
above the bottom edge of the siding with fairly
dry sand or gravel. If the ground is not frozen,
set up on four corner posts, fill in with earth and
gravel, and bank up the outside two or three
inches above the lower edge of the house. Put
six inches to a foot of good litter on top of the
sand or gravel. Leave the cloth door open every
day, unless the storm is coming from the south,
(assuming that your building faces the south),
and you are ready for your live stock.

Improper housing is one of the things that fig- a

ures strongly against profitable poultry.

In climates as severe as New England we rec-
ommend that not less than one-third of the entire
south surface of the house be constructed of wire
only, with a light frame covered with cheese
cloth or waterproof sheeting, for use on nights
when the temperature ranges below zero; or for
use during the driving storms when the house
is very narrow so that storms beat in onto the
birds on their roosts. At other times, day and
night, cloth doors should be kept fastened back,
so as to give a free circulation of air.

For climates less severe than New England,

Page One Hundred Twenty-one

Stop all
draughts

beh
J} FOOT THICK

1 FOOT & EARTH

FES|| POULTRY GUIDE POST |teeey <a ORs a

ranging to summer conditions, we should modify
this plan only by increasing the amount of wire
on the south side.

cover to For southern states, California and other
CL over mild climates of the same character, we
should recommend that the entire south
side of the building be constructed of wire

Removing the only, without any cloth whatever.
a ( : We should aim to err in the direction of —
ba always giving the birds more air, if the
slightest doubt remains in our minds on
that point. This method of housing will
make a world of difference in the health of

your flock.

We especially recommend the “ No-

Yard” house shown on page II4.
This ‘“No-Yard” poultry house is 6 feet
ZZ wide, 8 feet deep, 61%4 feet high at the
ea front and 4 feet high at the back. The
Putting on the sid hack and two sides are built of heavy,

and root ;

high-grade matched flooring, tongued and
grooved and solidly put together so that it
is impossible for air to enter at any point.
The front is built of the same material and
has two doors opening in opposite direc-
tions, one inside and the other outside.
The inner door is covered with one-inch
galvanized diamond-mesh wire that serves
Putting in roof supports, to confine the hens to the house and at the
efter side of piana = same time exclude objectionable intruders.
or eae res The outer door is covered with water-
proof cloth, and will be found necessary only in
case of a severe storm, when it will effectually

~

Page One Hundred Twenty-two

poveNe ESOESSS

exclude the rain or snow and at the same time
permit a free circulation of pure air. The root
is constructed of heavy one-inch matched lum-

ber, reinforced around the four sides and
down the center by wide strips of the same
ieetale). the entite roof 1s covered by
heavy No. 27 galvanized steel that makes it
impervious to rain, snow and wind. When

the house is “set-up” it is tightly held to- ¢

gether by galvanized steel corner pieces and
with the overhanging edges of the roof it
is “absolutely waterproof.”

The illustration of the interior shows two

heavy roosts six feet long complete with a _
dropping board. The location of these roosts ;

makes it absolutely impossible for draughts
to strike the fowl from any direction. The
laying box hung on the side has three com-
partments that are arranged in the most
practical manner, that permit the hens to
lay their eggs in comfort. The roosts, drop-
ping board and laying box are all easily re-
moved for cleansing.

It will be noted that the arrangement of
the interior fixtures in this house leaves the
entire floor space at the disposal of the hens
for scratching and allows for the accom-
modation of its maximum capacity.

Such a house can be purchased and shipped
“knocked-down” of the supply houses at a

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This eee
outfit can be
made, attractive.

price ranging from. $25.00 to $30.00, or if
second-hand lumber can be had at reason-
able prices the same building can be put up

Page One Hundred Twenty-three

W( POULTRY GUIDE POST ©
PAM [Pourtry cuive Post |

at from eight to fifteen dollars, using roofing
paper for covering the cracks in the sides, back
and roof.

Of course, this price does not include the
labor, as we are assuming that the reader is to
build it himself.

A very satisfactory and acceptable house may
be improvised from a crockery barrel by sawing
off about three of the staves, as illustrated, a
door put in place, and water and feed provided.

This should not cost over 50c. to $1.00, and
makes quite a satisfactory residence for a fam-
ily of five pullets, and you can safely count on
three or five eggs per day with
half the rations coming from the
waste of the table.
<j Another very popular and in-
expensive house can be made of

272Fe

makes a house for six to eight
pullets, and will not cost over $3.00 to $4.00.
We should prefer the houses without floors,
and built on this plan there will be enough lumber
in the original box to build the entire building.
Make the most of the room by building
sheives eighteen inches by two feet in width,
about two feet above the height of the litter on
the floor. Keep water dishes, nests, feed dishes
and shell and grit boxes on these shelves, thus
giving every bit of floor space to the birds to
scratch over.
The same general interior plan can be pre-
served and a more imposing outside struc-

Page One Hundred Twenty-four

pe Se) Housine TF PFES7E

ture constructed on
oy the lines shown on
page —. This build-
ing can be varied in
every way to match
-~» the architecture of
the main _ building.
Painted and _— sur-
rounded with shrub-
bery or quick grow-
ing vines it usually
bi adds to the charm of sub-

Hinged door—| urban life.

Ac ga Then again some would-

be poultrymen think of the
long building they see on the large poultry
farms, and really keep out of the business
because of the unsightliness of the long, low
buildings, unrelieved by any change or variation
in design.

The “No-Yard” plan can readily be made to
fit the landscape architect’s scheme by grouping
the buildings upon the rises among the trees in
such a manner as is shown on page 120.

If you are Beicomined to build a long house,
we urge that you build it with absolutely no ~
doors between pens, with tight board partitions
running to the roof, and made as tight as build-
ing paper and boards can make them, the pens
to be cared for entirely from the front just as
in the “No-Yard” house.

Another very good plan is a house ten by
twelve feet in size for thirty or forty birds.

Page One Hundred Twenty-five

-1 Jl POULTRY GUIDE POST |?

This house will cost from $25.00 to $50.00 and
is more adapted to poultry farms than to back
yards, as its increased size renders it rather a
permanent building, while the smaller ones can
be easily constructed on the portable plan.
From the foregoing plans it would seem that |
almost anybody who really wants to keep poul-
try, who is interested in keeping the cost of
living down, might start now. The business is
simplicity itself when the No-Yard plan is -
adopted.

This method of housing and caring for the
birds opens up the possibilities of the business.
In the case of the farmer’s boy desiring more
spending money, he can build a house in most
any out-of-the-way spot, provided the land is
dry, and he never need worry about the hens
getting out of their yard and into the garden
or doing other mischief while he is away at
3} school. By increasing the number kept, he can
|S make enough money to take him through col-
lege, at the same time learning principles of
business that will prove of inestimable value
to fina etiap later atu.

For the farmer, desiring to make use of every
ounce of fertilizer and every foot of space upon
his farm, this system appeals most strongly; in
fact, it is the only system that gives him absolute
control over the birds; preserves all the fertiliz-
ing value of the droppings, and enables him to
make use of his land to the best advantage. He
will find that if he invests $100, $500, or $1,000
in poultry and poultry building, follows the sim-

Page One Hundred Twenty-six

| HOUSING |

ple suggestions in this book, it will return him
more profit than four times the money invested
in any other branch of farm work and his re-
turns are immediate and continuous.

The housewife also may provide herself and
home with many luxuries and spending money,
rendering herself in a measure independent of
the head of the house. The business will be
found particularly adapted to women desiring
to retain their independence, or those on whom
the burden of life rests heavily with others de-
pendent upon them. The maternal instinct,
prominent in women, and practically unknown
to men, makes them much more successful in
rearing chickens, and we must
invariably take off our hats to
them in this line.

Back-yard poultry keepers have
a great advantage in some ways
over the more. fortunate farmers
that are farther away from mar-
ket. We have frequently noticed
that there. is- a constantly in-
creasing demand for strictly fresh eggs, and the
man or woman who takes up poultry keeping in
the thickly settled communities may rest assured
that the surplus eggs he has to dispose of will
bring from 5 to 25 cents more per dozen than
the wholesale prices.

With the “No-Yard System” these back yard
and vacant lot plants are becoming much more
common, as by this system no unsightly bare
spot of land is left to mar the landscape.

Page One Hundred Twenty-seven

ag [Pouttry cue Post |PMCS0 |

No chickens being raised, no male birds are
kept and the neighbors have no complaint to
make of his early crowing.

It will be found in most cases that the table
waste from an ordinary family will furnish
nearly one-half the living for a dozen hens, and
the waste and our feeds make an ideal com-
bination for full egg production.

With the premium the neighbors so willingly
pay for eggs “right out of the
nest” and this saving in the
feed cost, we are safe in saying
that from $2.00 to $4.00 profit
can be realized on each laying
pullet.

Not only are the profits assured, but the dif-
ference in flavor between the eggs gathered daily
and the eggs to be obtained from the store will
more than repay the care of the flock.

There is hardly a good-sized lot on which the
owner or tenant may not make a profit of from
$25 to $200 per year with a few minutes’ time,
night and morning, devoted to poultry keeping.

Page One Hundred Twenty-eight

aunniiiil is
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Sn jie

We find there has been some confusion in the
minds of readers and the poultry public regard-
ing the advocacy of no yards for poultry.

We decidedly recommend large runs and free
tange for growing stock and breeding stock
wherever possible, but with birds from which no
stock is to be perpetuated—being used for the
production of table eggs only,—the No-Yard
System will be found to give much heavier egy
yields and to require the minimum of care, room
and expense.

Breeding stock should not only have outdoor
exercise 305 days in the year, but should have
good sized yards and a much smaller number of
females to the male than is usually provided
throughout the country.

This system of feeding, housing, brooding and
rearing has made success for thousands of poul-

try plants, and will for you if you will follow —

directions exactly. Do not, however, use a part
of this system and expect best results. Use the
whole system and be sure of results.

Do not institute into your plant a part of the
system, mixing it with poultry paper suggestions,
neighbors’ advice and friends’ criticisms. There
is only one way to take a cold bath,—you cannot
take it piece-meal; take it all over. Where this
system is radically different from what you

Page One Hundred Thirty-one

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WAM POULTRY GUIDE POST See

have been practising, try it in a whole-hearted
manner, just as we outline it,—in one or two
flocks only if you wish to do so before you
try it on the whole lot,—but when testing it,
use it as outlined, and do not let the neighbors
> DUbE Gime

Results are sure when used as directed, but
when diluted and twisted the very purpose for
which the strongest features were introduced
may be frustrated.

Do not attempt to test out a heatless brooder
and put two chickens in it. Neither should you
put in twenty-five chickens and then keep them
behind a stove. Put twenty-five chickens in the
brooder in an unheated room and then follow
directions.

Do not take your windows out of your house
and then put them in again whenever it looks as
though it was going to be a little bit cool, thereby
forgetting the principles that fresh air is neces-
sary all the time.

Do not buy Egg Feed and feed it wet, or use
inferior brands and mixtures of scratch. feeds,
thereby throwing the ration out of balance, scour-
ing your birds, and otherwise putting them out
of condition.

Do not feed Growing Feed and hope to hasten

~the growth of your chickens by adding meat

food. It should contain all the meat ration nec-
essary for the best results.

Do not have any windows in your breeding
pen. Cheese cloth sheeting is much cheaper and

Page One Hundred Thirty-two

means dry, healthy quarters with live air around
the stock at all times.

Do not think that you can neglect your stock
while it is growing, and get big, robust breeding
stock by full feeding a month or so before lay-
ing.

Do not expect that you can milk your breeding
stock with 50% daily egg yield from December
to March, and then get good hatches of chickens
that will live.

Do not put ten, twelve, fifteen or twenty fe-
males with a male and expect good hatches.

Never put two ages of chickens together in any
weather.

Don’t put two chickens together where you
know you should put one, and don’t hesitate to
separate them now, not next week.

Page One Hundred Thirty-three

A OCcale,