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1914

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JAN 14 1914

SUCCESS WITH

POULTRY
IN CALIFORNIA

SOUTHERN
PACIFIC

PRESERVATION
COPY ADDED
ORIGINAL TO BE
RETAINED

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9

Copyrighted 1914, by Southern Pacific Company

Petaluma Prize-winners, Egg Laying Contest in Missouri

Success with Poultry
in California

What Is Aimed At

This publication is not a primer. It is a radical departure from the conven-
tional books of advice about keeping poultry, and seeks to get down to the roots
> of the industry. It assumes that a knowledge of the fundamental ideas developed
: by the progress of this industry is the gateway to success, and that to know the
reasons and laws which determine the management of fowls under the artificial
conditions in which they must be kept for profit, is more important than rules
and stereotyped directions. Details of management can be found elsewhere:
these pages have to do with the vital principles which underlie successful
management.

Little is said about profits in the business, but the conditions of profit are
strongly emphasized. Any one can keep poultry, but if poultry raising is to keep
the owner of the flock, ne must not only know how to manage, but why this or that
is essential.

No attempts are made to "boost" the industry: the aim is to make it profitable.

272619

Laying House, Hopland Stock Farm, Cal.

Want Reasons Rather Than Rules

Rules are for the child; the man asks to know the reason for them; instruc-
tions are arbitrary and will not always fit conditions. In the nature of things,
we must learn from others, but our real knowledge is the product of experience.

Poultry raising is not a kind of happy-go-lucky venture; it is not a quick and
short road to fortune; there is no "knack" of feeding or secret of breeding or
management, and blame for failure to make it pay should not be laid upon the
seemingly perverse fact that now hens will lay and now they won't.

The hen is not a lawless creature; it is only a question of understanding her —
of studying her under confinement and as effected by restraint, by different foods,
by changes of temperature, by over-feeding, by crowding and bad air. She is an
egg layer; this is her business under the changes effected by domestication and
breeding, and success will come from knowing how to treat her, how to house and
feed her and how to work with her along the line of her especial and distinguishing
function as a nervous, sensitive, highly developed organism for the production
of eggs.

The Hen Once Wild and Free

We may not forget this. It is important that we should recall her wild
progenitors, the jungle fowl of India, Southern China and the East Indies, and
along another line of descent, probably an extinct progenitor of the Aseel or
Malay fowl. We must take into account her wild origin; domestication has not
deprived her of all her wild traits, but it has changed her from a mere mother
hen, intent on raising a brood, to an egg-laying bird, a creature whose chief
function is to lay eggs for the people who feed her.

This is not natural — not her primal nature. It is no more natural for the
hen to lay eggs for my breakfast or for the market than it is for the crow or the
wild duck of the marshes to do so.

Black Orpington Cock

The egg-laying hen is an artificial product. She has been educated out of
her maternal instincts, and instead of laying a clutch of eggs and then brooding
them, she goes on laying from one hundred to two hundred eggs per year. She
lays eggs as a business. We have made her an egg machine.

But she will do her best for us only under the best conditions, and these
must respect her wild origin and the necessity of keeping in her the old wild
vigor and abounding health of the fowl of the jungle.

This is a chief difficulty, to keep a flock of hens under confinement, and yet
maintain in them vigorous health; to so feed them in pens as to approximate
natural habits, and have them housed so as to insure fresh air, the maximum of
sunshine, and have them clean, free of vermin, active, pre-occupied, contented,
busy and singing — to care for them and be necessarily about them, yet respect
their privacy — their disposition to lay in secret. These are the supreme diffi-
culties, yet it is from a clear apprehension of conditions growing out of the hen's
inherited traits that the egg basket must get filled.

Missing the Point

The beginner is apt to emphasize a single feature or two of the problem.
For example, the breed. As egg layers, some breeds are better than others, but,
save in a limited degree, success does not depend upon breeds. There are strains
of the best breeds, bred especially to lay, but, while more prolific than some other
strains, success does not turn about the best strains.

Then we pin our faith to a method or system of feeding, and find in turn that
while some ways of feeding are better than others, giving better results, satisfac-
tion does not come from the best methods of feeding.

So hi turn we try this system .or that of housing or of colonizing, only to dis-
cover that there is no one secret of success in this business.

Spring Valley Poultry Farm, Rocklin, Cal.

The fact is that the business of poultry keeping for egg production is a whole,
made up of parts. It is a unity, it hangs together; all features of it are important;
all parts must receive attention and the price of success is the ability to look aft(

a m There ^profit 'in poultry, but the conditions must be met. The modern,
improved, up-to-date hen will lay eggs for you to the point of profit, but upon

her own terms.

What these terms are we may hope to indicate as we go on. _

But before we do this, we must guard against too great expectations from

local conditions, and at the same time emphasize the great opportunity which

California conditions offer the grower.

Climate Not Sufficient

No better climatic conditions can be found than some parts of California
offer, and the State as a whole is wonderfully adapted to promote the healt]
vigor of fowls But California does not produce enough poultry and eggs to supply
her own tables. Not only is this significant but California can show as many
abandoned poultry farms as other States in the Union. Why is this? A larger
proportion of people here have tried to get a living by keeping .poultry without
knowing how or taking time to learn. They were here for the sake of the cl mate
to recoup heJth, and the poultry ranch was a make-shift. They trusted in the
dimate to do two things-make them well, and make hens lay. They confuted
in mild air and sunshine, profited by it physically, but neglected the business side
of the hennery. The flock grew idle or sickness invaded it, and the effort to meet
expenses by renting a poultry farm failed. .

This goes far to explain the chronic shortage of eggs and poultry in a State
that ought to export both. A full explanation would run back into agricultural

White Orpington Type

conditions in California, but it is enough to point to the fact that climate alone
cannot be depended on to make poultry keeping easy or profitable.

The climate is relatively more favorable for the winter production of eggs
than in the colder States, but winter eggs come high in California. Poultry
keepers find that winter egg production is a problem here as elsewhere, and that
hens get cold, and want shelter and sunshine and protection from chilling winds,
and that getting eggs here as elsewhere is a matter of constant attention to details,
and not of dependence upon climate.

The General Situation

It differs in California in important particulars from other sections of the
country at large, and these differences make the California opportunity.

Two features are here: numerous large poultry farms and a home market.
In the Middle West the bulk of the eggs comes from the flocks of the farmers, and is
largely exported. California imports both eggs and poultry. There has been a
large increase in production during the last five or six years, yet the importations
from Missouri River points show yearly several million dozen eggs, and several
hundred cars of live and frozen fowls.

The prices here are usually a little higher than in the Eastern States for both
eggs and poultry, and the situation indicates the possibility of large development
within the demands of the home market. There is room for more poultry farms ; the
market is still unsupplied by home products, and the man or woman who will not
neglect the details of the business in reliance upon the California climate, can
build up a steadily profitable industry. There is no reason why. the consumer
should eat long-refrigerated fowls for the Sunday dinner or eggs from Kansas or
Nebraska that may not have been strictly fresh when they started across the
continent.

Yards at Hopland Stock Farm, California

California's Advantages

These are both direqt and incidental. The one is the natural advantage of
green food all the year. The other, the indirect gain of slight cost in housing
fowls. The flock may be out of doors at all seasons save in time of actual rain-
fall. The "green winter" rarely reaches freezing weather and fowls may have an
abundance of grass pasture or of tender oats or barley sown for repeated cuttings.
Alfalfa is one of the best of "egg foods" and should of course have a corner of the
"chicken ranch." It is not simply a filler — giving bulk — but an egg producer.
The winter season generally need not add to the expense of maintaining the
flock.

Location

There is a chicken belt in California, but it is not well defined and the phrase
is seldom heard.

The term relates in a general way to the coast country, partly because this
offers at once the chief market centers, cool summers and relatively little dif-
ference between summer and winter temperatures.

The little city of Petaluma is "famous" as the "City of a Million Hens," and
this is only about thirty miles from San Francisco and within the zone of high fog
and sea-breezes. But the whole coast region for twenty to forty miles inland is
very desirable for this industry, and many parts of the interior show good results
wherever plenty of shade and fresh water is provided.

This should be counted on here — the helpfulness of the climate. It is one
of the assets of the poultry man.

Climate and Health

'A full egg basket is insured only by healthy fowls, and health comes from fresh
air, exercise in the open and plenty of green feed. More freely than where closely
housed because of inclement weather or zero temperature, large numbers of

Rhode Island Red Hen, California

fowls may be allowed to roam together, or be yarded in perfect health without
fear of disease. In many parts of the world this would mean disaster.

If it be thought that parasites abound in such a climate, it is true but not
markedly so. That is to say, it does not require more effort to keep lice and mites
in check here than elsewhere. No poultry man depends on cold weather to rid
his roosts of vermin. Insect pests must be fought everywhere, and cleanliness
will banish parasites as readily in California as in the colder States.

Growing Poultry Food

Domestic poultry are not only omnivorous but voracious. They not only
eat freely and naturally of grains, grass, green forage of various kinds and meat
foods, but in health seem always ready to eat. They are primarily grain eaters,
but insects of many kinds and raw or cooked vegetables, grass and green stuff
in great variety enter into their dietary. The quantity consumed daily is so
considerable that the question of food supplies is always a serious one.

A first conclusion should be not to keep a boarding-house for hens where
everything is bought, but a farm home, wrhere much of the food is produced. It
is economy to feed the flock at first hand. Have something always coming on
for the birds that are laying eggs, and are always wanting material out of which
to construct them.

Why should the poultry man buy all his supplies any more than the grower
of swine or any other live stock? If the flock is kept on a city lot, part of the area
may profitably furnish green feed. A poultry farm where no poultry food is
grown is a misnomer. "Before you have a single chicken on that dream ranch,"
one California grower well says, "be sure to have the green feed well along," and
as a means of securing the continuous growth of supplies a primal need here is
water; green feed for poultry in California means water for irrigation.

Brooder House at Hopland Stock Farm, California

Value of Green Feed

It is essential to the health of fowls, and if grown on the premises materially
reduces the food bill. . But its value in egg production is beyond debate. One of
the open secrets of successful poultry raising for eggs is plenty of green feed.

It adds to the vigor and health of the flock by supplying variety and bulk,
and where regularly provided, keeps laying hens from eating too much concen-
trated food, which tends to cause over-fatness. It is one of the troubles of the
poultry grower — over feeding by the use of finely ground rations. This is pre-
vented by the use of green forage, and in this climate it is easy to provide suc-
cessive crops of oats, wheat or barley for cutting, while an alfalfa patch for feed
according to the size of the farm or the flock is at once health and money in the
purse. There is no better egg food.

In addition, kale, beets, spinach, rape, lettuce, cabbage, can be readily grown.
Mangels can be cooked and fed with the mash or split open and fed raw. Beets
and spinach can be planted in August, cut and fed in October, and cut again in
November in many parts of the State.

The possibility of providing green feed all the year at slight cost will be
appreciated by every one who knows its value in egg production.

Planning the Business

Poultry raising is not simply "keeping a few hens." It is a business and must
be planned for, and the chief features of it decided upon in advance. A general
or special type of the business must be chosen and a "plant" of more or less
completeness and capacity sketched out.

10

Rhode Island Red Cock

What Breed

We do not venture to decide. We assume that the poultry farm is to
be run primarily as an egg farm. If so, the choice will lie between five or six
standard breeds, and will be decided along the line of personal preference as
determined by looks, by sentiment, by association, or by local reputation. No
matter; if the choice falls upon one of the great egg breeds, it should include the
best of the breed chosen ; not simply an egg-laying strain, bred for egg production,
but a vigorous strain, robust, alive with health.

We speak of one breed, because it simplifies work to keep a single type of
fowl, and insures eggs uniform in size, color and shape, and this is of conse-
quence in the market.

Let us emphasize the importance of starting with the best of a good breed.
The success of the farm does not hinge upon the breed, unless the choice falls
outside a few well-known types. But the best of any particular class of egg layers
is not too good, and the best means not merely that the birds have been bred for
laying, but that the breeder has kept in view the best possible constitution.
Pure-blooded stock must be vigorous stock, strongly built, hardy, meant for
business. The practical grower does not want utility sacrificed for show.

What System

There are chiefly two in California: the colony plan and the intensive system
or method. In the first, a large number of fowls run together; in the second, the
fowls are separated into small flocks each having a separate house and yard. It
matters little which system is adopted. It is the working of the particular plan
that counts — attention to its minutest details, the application of business prin-
ciples, providing for absolute cleanliness of houses and yards for the comfort of
the flock, for pure air by night and exercise by day. This and not the system

11

Feeding-Time on a Poultry Farm

chosen is the key to success. The crux of the whole matter is not in a particular
breed or a particular system of handling the flock, and we say again that it is not
the yard plan or the colony plan that Is important, but the working of the plan.
The poultry man's chief trouble is quite independent of the system he uses and
his success will not depend upon it. Whether he has an acre of ground or twenty
or forty acres, whether he has yards or colonies, his success or failure will turn
upon other features of his management.

Yet there is probably a best way at this point. The yard system has certain
advantages not to be overlooked. Thus, different ages are kept apart; the old
can be disposed of, trap nests can be used more effectively and disease can be
controlled or prevented from spreading. Separate rooms may be as desirable as
separate houses, and a long house divided into compartments and provided with
an alleyway, enables one person to care for more fowls, or for the same number
with less labor, and with more comfort in rainy weather. The yards may be on
two sides of the house, and used alternately, turning over and cleansing the empty
yard. Plans can be obtained or made ; these will incorporate all modern improve-
ments and such use can be made of open fronts, windows and skylights as will
insure the maximum of fresh air and sunshine.

Fowls and Fresh Air

Is the sleeping perch a good thing for humans? It may be equally good for
hens. The problem is how to shelter the flock, provide pure air and avoid draughts.
The hen herself imposes certain conditions. She takes cold as readily as the deni-
zens of a boarding-house, or the members of a furnace heated home. She sneezes,
has watery eyes, a running nose, and a swollen face. The cause? Close and
crowded quarters at night, want of fresh air, draughts from knot-holes or cracks.
Study the instinct of the fowl. She roosts contentedly in the open; she is not
afraid of cold, but dislikes wind, rain and snow. She wants shelter rather than
warmth.

12

Barred Plymouth Rock Pullet

Note, too, that out-door fowls have good health; they seldom have colds,
they lay well except in severe weathers. If, then, hens are vigorous and productive
without houses, what is the chief function of the hen house? To provide shelter
rather than warmth; to protect them from storms and from cold winds, yet insur-
ing a supply of out-door air.

More Fresh Air

It is claimed that chickens require a great deal more fresh air than cattle or
horses in proportion to their size. An authority says that the amount of air
breathed by the hen is three times greater than is required by men or cows per
1,000 pounds of live weight. If true, this is a pointer of great value. Give the
poultry house perfect ventilation without draughts, plenty of oxygen, but no
cracks for the wind to enter.

In some experiments at the Utah Station, a little artificial heat increased the
egg yield, but at the expense of vigor, for the fowls in the cold house weighed
heavier than those in the warm house. This does not mean that warmth is
injurious. Fowls are vigorous in the long California summers, and are at their
best in cold countries when the warm spring days come. But it does mean that
warmth without fresh air affects health and vigor and this should be a sufficient
guide in the construction of a poultry house. It must suit the conditions of the
climate, and it must be healthful, convenient, comfortable and as cheerful as
exposure in the sun and air can make it.

Sunshine in the House

In cities we struggle to secure sunny rooms, and corners providing the most
sun in the living rooms and the chambers are at a premium. Sun is not less
important in the poultry house. Why cut off the rays of the sun by refraction

13

One Shipment, 5,000 Fowls, Petaluma, Cal.

when the direct rays may be transmitted or absorbed by windows and roof,
especially during the dark, cold or damp months of the year. The practical,
twentieth-century house has its roof and windows set to catch the direct light and
heat rays of the sun. Heat comes when heat is needed. Light is had when the
days are all too short for the full capacity of the great egg-producing machines.
Sunshine is the universal antiseptic: give it to the hens.

The Dust Bath

No watchfulness can wholly keep a flock free from vermin. Given access
to a dust box, the hen will use it to free herself from devitalizing and annoying
parasites which come unseen. In her free state she finds a dust hole in the road
and uses it as if she enjoyed it. Provide it for her in confinement. But observe —
the entire flock cannot take a dust bath in one small box and they are usually
ready for this natural and instinctive function at the same hours of the day.
Give them part of the scratching shed for a dust room or make provision for
this exercise in a sunny part of the yard. It is essential to the well-being of
the flock.

Space Per Fowl

There is a tendency to restrict floor space and this goes with a disposition
to keep larger flocks. This in turn means better management. A generation ago
we did not know enough about the hen to manage her in large flocks. It is still
true that the smaller the flock the greater the production of eggs per fowl, while
danger of disease is less. How to determine the size of the flock that will give us
the most eggs with the least labor and risk, no one has yet found out. We know,
however, that it is wise not to crowd the flock at night in the pens, in the scratch-
ing shed or in the brooders.

14

The Light Brahma Type

How Many Acres

The capital available and the ambition or purpose of the grower will determine
this. We have seen 250 hens kept on half an acre; 2,000 have been kept successfully
on four acres. It is all a question of management. But extra care is required to
keep say 500 hens on an acre, or 2,000 on four acres, and this must be reckoned
with. Extra labor or additional help may be required and the area limited upon
which feed may be grown. To keep 500 hens on five acres, raise' the green feed neces-
sary and gradually increase the flock as ability to manage is developed, would
seem to be wise.

The chief danger in crowding is from contaminated soil. The preventative
is the spade and the plow, the shifting of flocks or pens to new locations and the
exposure of tainted grounds to the sun and air. Healthy fowls cannot be grown
on sick soil.

Prevention of Disease

It is one thing to cure disease; it is a better thing to prevent it, and this is as
true in the poultry yard as in the household. The one word under this head that
needs to be burned in is cleanliness. It cannot be made too emphatic. More
failures come from filth in this business than from any other single cause. Every
poultry man and every would-be grower of poultry should read the paper by Dr.
George B. Morse in the Year Book of the Department of Agriculture for 1911.
Dr. Morse writes as a bacteriologist and from this view-point he says that cleanli-
ness is the corner-stone of health and the keystone in the art of healing, and he
urges clean yards and houses, clean perches, clean soil, feeding troughs, food,
drink, air, eggs, incubators, brooders — everything. The only modification of his
statement that we would urge is his advice to "clean out" the flock periodically
by the use of epsom salts. This should be omitted. Physic should be tabooed

16

Laying House

in the poultry yard as in the well regulated household. "Throw physic to the
dogs." But "clean up" regularly, systematically, effectually, and do it over and
over incessantly and persistently, always at it, picking up, sweeping up, raking
up, hoeing up, washing up, whitewashing and spraying, and using betimes hot,
water and old-fashioned kitchen soap. The habit of cleanliness goes a long way
on the road to success.

Is this advice superfluous? The average beginner says: "Of course, I know
enough about poultry to know that everything must be kept clean," yet things
that look clean may not be clean to the eye armed with a microscope, or to the
man trained in the science of bacteriology. In the modern world disease is studied
with a microscope, and it is the microscopic dirt that the poultry man must keep
out. How many would not scruple to toss a bit of moldy bread to his fowls, give
them scraps of meat that "only smell bad," or provide moldy straw for litter in
the scratching shed? "Good enough for the chickens," it is thought, if thought
of at all,, yet out of such practices come diseases — diarrhoea akin to ptomaine
poisoning, mycotic enteritus, a disease, Dr. Morse says, of the intestinal tract,
and mycotic pneumonia, an affection of the bronchial tubes produced by moldy
straw or chaff.

The poultry man cannot equip himself with all the knowledge of a bacteri-
ologist, but he must be quick to appreciate the value of such knowledge and apply
it. Complete sanitation everywhere about poultry houses and grounds is abso-
lutely essential. The first thing in this business is the health of the fowls, and
here cleanliness is a first law. Failure often comes from dirt.

Chick Feeding and Care

The first lessons in cleanliness will be in the nursery. Before buying, or
hatching 500 or i ,000 chicks, the alphabet of feeding, warmth and cleanliness,
should be mastered. The hover is the sleeping quarters of the chicks and rest

16

White Plymouth Rock

and sleep are important to these feathered babies, and should be in a warm air,
yet not "close," a place comfortable, well ventilated and free from draughts.
Thousands of chicks die from bowel troubles caused by cold, by improper feeding
and neglected sanitation. The best brooders, the best food, the right tempera-
tures can be learned from books or poultry men of experience, but the care and
watchfulness must be personal. Musty or sour food, wet mixtures allowed to
ferment, moist crumbly food, given generously, so that chicks over-eat — the
carelessness that permits leavings in uncleaned dishes or in unscraped feeding
troughs — the use of milk, sweet or sour, or both alternately or indifferently, as
one or the other happens to be on hand, these explain the mysterious bowel
disorders which follow quickly and fatally.

It is believed that half the mortality among young chicks is from these two
causes — improper feeding and uncleanliness, and over-heating or chilling in
brooder or hover.

Exercise is important, and very early they will benefit by searching for their
food in finely cut litters. This is strongly recommended by experienced growers.
Commercial chick feed is the result of years of testing and endeavors to find the
best form and combination. One successful grower plows and sows a bit of ground
to oats while waiting for eggs to hatch, and by the time chicks come from the
brooders the green stuff is ready and they are allowed to feed at will. They begin
to stock up at once, and the practice is continued year by year.

Feeding for Eggs

What to feed, how much to feed and when to feed must be learned from
experts and from actual practice. Feeding is both a science and an art — a science
in knowing why, and an art in having the skill to do. It is sometimes thought to
be a "knack," an undefinable instinct, feeling or conviction, that enables one to

17

A Foothill Poultry Farm, California

feed wisely, while another comes short or over-does it. It is not possible to make
definite rules for various breeds, for differing climates, and for varying conditions
of the flock, and it is not easy to decide how much to feed, and to so balance the
rations as to produce vigor, maintain health, avoid fatness and insure egg
production.

Feeding and Exercise

Feeding alone is only part of the problem of egg production. The healthy
man is not made by feeding only, nor the laying hen. Exercise is an important
factor and closely related to the egg basket. The busy hen is the laying hen.
She keeps her crop partially filled, instead of stuffing it periodically, and gets her
exercise as nature provided, while scratching for her food. She takes hours in
feeding, and is busy and contented. The vigorous young fowl must lay if well
bred and given plenty of exercise in finding the grains hidden in deep litter. The
scratching shed with straw or chaff in it is not a fad, but a sensible device with
its basis in the nature of things. Work it; work it persistently.

In France they found that the dark or red meat in fowls was the product of
muscular activity. There is less hemoglobin, or fewer red blood corpuscles in the
white meat along the breast bone, because it is placed where exercise cannot
affect it. These French investigators found also that exercise affects the fertility
of the egg. In close confinement there was a larger per cent of infertile eggs,
owing to lack of virility in the fowl — a falling off of vigor.

Feeding, we repeat, should go with exercise. It should necessitate exercise.
This is the reason for the scratching shed and the deep litter which compels
search for the grain. Provide it, by all means; do not think it unimportant; renew
it and keep it supplied with cut straw, chaff and litter from the barn. Keep the
litter dry; shake it up frequently; see that it is not musty. The use of it by the
fowls will promote digestion, maintain health and tend to secure a continuous

18

Barred Plymouth Rock

egg-yield. For the nervous, alert, finely organized hen, exercise and plenty of it
is essential to vigor and health.

Good Sense and Feeding

Study the food formulas offered by dealers in poultry foods, but do not stay
closely by them at all times. Feeding standards worked out in various sections
of the country at large will be modified by conditions in California. They are
guides only in forming a judgment of what your own flock requires.

Scientists say that food materials should be fed in about the proportion of
one pound of protein to four and six-tenths pounds of carbo-hydrates, or one pound
to five as some say. Now one need not learn the language of the expert, but we
should know what he means and be able to translate it into such concrete terms
as grain, ground bone, meat or meat meal and grass, alfalfa, spinach, lettuce, etc.

Protein is the essential principle of food, and carbo-hydrates the sources of
heat and energy. The one supplies bone, muscle, blood, feathers, eggs; the other,
the starches principally, constitute the bulk of dry matter in almost all foods.
And a balanced ration is thought to be about one part protein to five parts carbo-
hydrates.

The problem is how to divide these two classes of foods. You must use your
judgment and learn by doing it. Skill comes through practice.

Observe that the hen likes certain kinds of food better than others. She
likes wheat better than rye, though the two grains are almost identical in com-
position. Wheat is better for the hen than rye, as tests show. The hen's appetite
is worth consulting.

A Variety of Grains Best

The hen likes variety; give her a chance to balance her own ration. A
variety will prevent her from eating too much grain, for instance, which might

it

Poultry Farm in California Foothills

cause over-fatness. But give her also a variety of grains. Rolled barley, for
instance, is as good as wheat.

Bulk is necessary in her diet, and wheat, bran, clover, alfalfa, or alfalfa meal,
must balance ground grains, wheat middlings, corn meal, oil cake and the like.
Too much indigestible fibre must not go with her ration. It is suggested that
when hens are laying heavily one-third of the ration should be ground grain.
Biddy will not be able to lay eggs and grind her own grain too steadily. Help
her by foods which supply readily available nourishment.

Meat Scraps in the Ration

This is an important part of the dietary, but is an expensive and troublesome
item that is apt to be dodged. Dried milk may be substituted. Experts think
very highly of skim milk, and milk curdled, put in a gunny sack and hung up to
drain and fed as a kind of cottage cheese or "smearcase" is very excellent and
equal in protein to fresh meat. It is, however, only about one-third as rich in
protein as beef scraps. Milk itself is good but contains only about three and
one-half per cent of protein, while meat scraps have from fifty to sixty per cent.
But neither milk nor meat scraps, meat meal nor ground bone can be provided
without some trouble and seldom without considerable cost, and this the
grower will often seek to avoid.

But the diet of the free hen includes insects, bugs, worms, grasshoppers,
young mice, when they can be captured, and these elements in her dietary the
hen in confinement wants. Their equivalent in some form she must have, if she
is to lay eggs freely and steadily.

The necessity of animal matter for poultry has been fully demonstrated. It
relates to the health of fowls and the more rapid growth of chicks as well as the
egg production; experiments a dozen years ago conducted very carefully showed
that in the case of young chicks "the gain in weight was more rapid, maturity
was reached earlier, less food was required for each pound of gain, and the cost

20

Prize Black Minorca Cockerel, Petaluma, Cal.

of gain was less." This fact will more than balance the cost of meat meal or milk
in the food bill. Experts say that "a pound of protein in the form of meat appears
to be more valuable than a pound of protein in any other class of foods," and they
think that skimmed milk at fifteen to twenty cents per 100 pounds is "probably
the most desirable of all meat foods." But it should be remembered that it takes
about six pounds of skim milk to equal in protein value one pound of fresh lean meat.

It is suggested that ten to fifteen per cent of the food dealt out each day
should be meat in some form. The main dependence will be beef scraps because
they keep well and have a large percentage of protein.

Green cut bone is desirable for variety and a little, say one-fourth of an ounce
per day, may be allowed each hen in addition to other meat foods.

Help the Layers

Experiments at Cornell University have given us a pointer in respect to
grits. Grit is shown to have a two-fold function: it not only constitutes the mill
in the gizzard, or the burr stones of the mill grinding the food so that it may be
assimilated, but it also supplies lime in available form. The point to be noted is
that most of the grits on the market do not contain lime or have it in very limited
proportion. Hens will get grit to grind with and lime with which to make shells
on a free range, but both must be provided in yards. Lime must be in a form
which the fowl will use: as a free ranger she gets it from the hard shell of bugs or
the horny legs of grasshoppers; in the yard, crushed oyster shells, soft clam shells
and mortar serve for lime, but clean sharp grit is indispensable.

This is but the alphabet of the hennery. But it is well to know the ABC
of the business.

Separate the Layers

This too is alphabetic, but it is one of the letters that help to spell success
in the poultry yard. You are after eggs for the general market and are not con-
cerned about their fertility. They will "keep" better if they are sterile or gerroless.

21

Poultry House and Yard, Los Gatos, California

The pullets and hens will lay better if there are no males with them, and if this is
the case it is waste of room, labor and feed to run male birds with layers of table eggs.

Selecting Layers

The problem of success is not fully solved until we know how to get together
a flock of working hens. It is something worth knowing and is claimed as a
"secret" that may be, and is, sold. It would be worth nothing to many; to
others it would be worth its cost chiefly after long practice in studying and noting
"points" — the signs and marks in the hen's make-up, but the best evidence of
what a hen will do as an egg layer is what she does, and the careful grower will
find this out. He will do it as a matter of economy; he will want to cut out
drones. He may do it by close watch or he may require the trap nest. This
device requires attention and costs something to install and so is not in wide use,,
but it is in use by many successful growers. It is important to know how many
unprofitable hens one is feeding, but some think we should begin to build up a
laying flock among the pullets rather than at the trap nest. Observe the young
stock in the fall. Select the precocious pullets, the ones that lay earliest. Build
up a working flock by choosing birds that have the function of egg production
strongly developed and that give evidence of this by early laying.

The Maine Experiment Station selected certain April hatched pullets in
August and September, and a flock or pen that began with twenty-nine and was
reduced to twenty-five by four dying within the year, averaged 180 eggs for the
year ending August 3oth. The smallest layer produced 137 eggs, eighteen laid
over 1 60 each and eight over 200 each. The result was a high average, one that
any poultry man would be proud to attain. How was the selection made? The
Report— Farmers' Bulletin 357, says: "They were not selected because of form
or type as indicating egg production, but they were either just picked up as they
were found on the nests, or taken because their combs were red, or because they
tagged the attendant around and prated in the everyday hen language about the work
they were soon going to do.11

22

Black Langshan Cock and Hen

Any one that keeps in close touch with his fowls can do this and secure a
flock that will have no poor layers. The very key to success is the ability to
do this.

It is estimated that in unselected flocks the unprofitable hens average forty
per cent. This is absolutely fatal to any success worthy of consideration. A flock
of layers can be built up, or can be formed by weeding out the idlers. In some
way get a flock of layers; it is another of the inexorable conditions of success.
Eternal vigilance — this alone makes a full egg basket. Watch for the layers;
come back to this point day by day, year by year. Watch the pullets; keep tab
on them; note the signs of promise. The critical point in the whole business is to
be able to select layers. Make a note of this and work up to it. Other things
being well done, this will crown the whole and put money in your purse.

Winter Eggs

Now, with a selected flock, how shall we get eggs in the colder months? How
shall we persuade our hens to lay when others are out on a "strike" and prices
are high? The answer is not easy; if it was, there would be no incentive to get
winter eggs, for others would be "in the running" and prices would decline. It is
the generally moderate output of winter days that makes high prices and to change
that condition radically is perhaps impossible. But it can be changed so far as
to make it contribute to the profits of the wise. It is another of the great objective
points in poultry culture. Get winter eggs. People do not stop eating eggs because
it is winter.

The question runs deeply. See what can be said in answer, i. Secure room
enough to raise green food. Do not rely on drugs, egg foods, patent devices to
stimulate egg production. Depend upon the health and vigor of your flock, and
upon green feed, grass, vegetables, root crops, to add to your normal winter
output of eggs. 2. Look after the moulting period; a hen that will lay in cold
weather or rainy weather must come through the moult early and come through

23

Back Yard Poultry Keeping in California

well. That means that previous care and feed have brought her to the time of
changing her coat of feathers in prime condition, full of vigor and ready to lay
as soon as the new dress is on. Moulting makes a draft upon vitality that must
be met by extra feeding and special feeding. Take extra care of moulting hens,
and help them to get ready for the season of high-priced eggs. They must come
into the season of rain and chilly winds in first rate condition. Experts doubt the
wisdom of "forcing a moult." It is best when hens want to lay to let them lay.
3. Provide for their comfort; secure all the sunshine possible; protect from
winds and the chilliness which comes with rain outside ; allow no more dampness
inside than is in the air; see that dry straw or chaff is in the scratching shed and
that exercise is possible without the feet getting "stuck up" with mud. A hen
will not lay with cold or muddy feet. She will not mind cold weather, but will
seek shelter from winds; see that they do not blow into the scratching shed.

The thing to do is to make Biddy comfortable. Is it spring greens, spring
sunshine, spring temperatures, that fill the nests? Provide these conditions as
nearly as may be and the hens will anticipate the spring months.

It is not easy, we admit, to induce a well-regulated lot of hens to produce
winter eggs freely, but it can be done and will be done more commonly when we
learn to make right conditions for a winter crop of eggs. And among these
conditions the chief one is comfort. Perhaps the other factor in the problem is
just greens, grass, roots, vegetables.

Possible Profits

How much can be made by raising fowls for the table and for eggs, depends
of course upon conditions — the size of the flock, the cost of food, the egg output
of the flock, the brevity of the moulting season, the number of winter eggs" success
in hatching and breeding and distance and conditions to and of the market. But
the inquiry here involves rather a basis for estimating profits, than the per cent
of profit.

24

White Orpington Cockerels

Some Records

Individual hens have laid in one year 254 eggs, 281 eggs and 282 eggs. The
net earnings of such hens would range from $4.00 to $4.50 each at 25 cents per
dozen for the eggs, allowing a little more than $1.00 for cost of keeping.
Professor M. A. Jaffa, of the University of California, thinks $1.25 "much more
correct."

In the Missouri contest in 1912 the average was 134 eggs per pen repre-
senting the standard breeds, and the highest average for a group or pen was
1042 eggs from five hens, or over 208 eggs per hen.

This will serve as a guide — a standard that can only be approximated by a
flock under the best management. We need not be misled by advertisements.
There is a great difference between the phenomenal performance of a few birds,
and the twelve months yield of a whole flock. There is no zoo-egg strain doing
business in the field. It is a goal worth striving for, and great progress has been
made toward it, but it is too high an average.

At Cornell Station some years ago careful experiments showed a daily pro-
duction of eggs from 100 hens of 23.2 eggs and the average yearly production per
hen 129.7 eggs. The average cost per dozen eggs, was 9.2 cents for the year, and
from December to March 16.3 cents. The average cost of feeding a hen for a
year was 99.6 cents, while the annual profit on each hen was $1.31. This has
served as a guide, and it is commonly said that you can feed a hen for a dollar a
year and reckon your profits at a dollar plus. But the first is uncertain and the
last is poor business now, so considerable have been the gams of recent years.
The larger returns are to be looked for; they are to be confidently counted on in
planning a poultry farm. The breeding of laying strains of hens and the better
management now taught makes a solid basis for expecting the larger net returns.

A single additional egg per week will add a dollar to the hen's credit, and if
she has been loafing around the 100 egg mark, the four dozen extra will be a tribute
to your management.

25

Black Minorca Hen

An associate editor of the Pacific Rural Press of San Francisco, recently
said in this valuable journal:

"My wife and I started the poultry venture with $1,275. We bought ten
acres, paid $400 down and went in debt $1,000, and with $875 we built a place to
live in and a brooder house. Then I went to work at the carpenter trade, building
poultry houses and brooder plants on other ranches, and earned enough to buy
hatching eggs in a short time, and by the help of my good wife we raised our first
flock, which consisted of 500 fine pullets. We had a long, hard pull, .with hard
work and sacrifice, but we built up a business that pays well for the extra effort.

"Today we have a beautiful home, with trees for shade, well tilled garden,
and greens for poultry, with 3,000 choice laying hens that have been selected for
egg production, and they make us an income above the average salaried positions."

This is about the goal which good management will reach, starting with
limited means. With knowledge of the business and adequate capital to equip
the farm in an Eastern State, 3,000 hens have paid about $2.50 each net, or $7,500
yearly. This has allowed something for interest on capital invested, and repre-
sents a purely commercial poultry farm, the production of poultry and eggs for
the market.

In a Western State on three acres of ground a grower has for several years
kept 700 hens and these have returned him an average net income of $1,300.

In California on four town lots, 500 hens are the chief factor in producing a
yearly income of about $2,000. The owner's books showed a profit for one year
of a little more than $2,300. In this case a large business is done in hatching and
shipping chicks, and the work is all done by the owner and his boy, save occasional
whitewashing by hired labor.

This matter of hatching and shipping chicks is, so to speak, a by-product,
but helps to increase the income. Where the returns are as good as indicated in
these examples, it must be remembered that years and experience are behind
them, and if we were to repeat equally well accredited instances of success in this

26

White Leghorns. A Petaluma Egg Farm

State, it would all come to this — that success results from building up the
conditions upon which success must rest.

The Dollar Basis to Start With

In this State poultry men are reported as saying that "if a man cannot make
more than a dollar a hen, he ought to quit." But that is debatable. Many a
family can make $1,000 a year by keeping 1,000 hens, and make it easier and more
surely than in almost any other way. They can do it with small capital and
on two or three acres. Perhaps not at once; it is wise to begin with a few fowls
and increase the flock as one increases in ability to manage. Conceit may go with
ignorance, but confidence based on knowledge is strength, and will win out.

Here the rudiments of knowledge go with great natural advantages. Cali-
fornia offers the grower help at every point. Emphasize all we have said of it
elsewhere. Count especially on green feed in reducing the expenses of supple-
mental greens and meals of various kinds. Alfalfa alone is of such value to the
poultry man, and is so easily grown that it ought to insure the success of almost
any beginner who will provide decent shelter and keep houses and yards clean.
It contributes to the production of eggs and to the health of the flock, and one
might venture to begin with an alfalfa field, a hay cutter or food cutter, and a
group of cypress trees for roosting places, and so get well started.

Make the most of the climatic conditions. The hen seems to live to eat, but
under right conditions she eats to lay, and vigorous, active, well-bred young hens
must lay if given in addition to grains and meat scraps plenty of tender alfalfa,
cured alfalfa cut into short lengths and added to the mash, or alfalfa meal. We
touch it again at this point to emphasize our sense of its importance. And we
add our conviction, the result of the observations of half a lifetime, that if poultry
keeping has failed to return a fair profit in this State, there has been neglect in
establishing, by study and attention, by intelligent feeding and by cleanliness,
the conditions of profit.

27

APPENDIX

If any are disappointed because we have left the details of success with
poultry to be worked out in practice, we suggest that in this business, knowledge
should be gathered from many sources — the best poultry journals, the special
articles in the best magazines, and the booklets issued by incubator manufac-
turers and the manufacturers of poultry food, several of whom conduct large
poultry farms of their own, and put what they have learned at the service of the
beginner without cost. We suggest especially that much dependence be placed
upon the literature issued by experiment stations of various States and by the
Department of Agriculture. Much of this is free, in some instances a slight charge
is made, but it is a vital type of literature and the poultry grower cannot afford to
be ignorant of what experts in this industry, are doing and saying.

We append a list which will be of service.

The following bulletins can be obtained upon application to the Superin-
tendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., at a
cost of 5 cents a copy — send cash or money order, not stamps:

41. Fowls. Care and Feeding.

84. Expt. Sta. Work VII. Ground vs.
whole grain for chicks.

97. Expt. Sta. Work X. Animal matter a
necessity for poultry.

107. Expt. Sta. Work XIII. Feeding of
ducks.

114. Expt. Sta. Work XIV. Number of
hens that may be kept in one pen.

128. Eggs and their uses as food.
141. Poultry raising on the farm.
144. Expt. Sta. Work XIX. Condimental

and poultry foods. Dressing and

packing.

177. Squab raising.
182. Poultry as food.

1 86. Expt. Sta. Work XXIII. Rations for
laying hens. Early moulting of hens.

190. Expt. Sta. Work XXIV. Cost of eggs
in winter. The chicken mite.

200. Turkeys, standard variety and man-
agement.

210. Expt. Sta. Work XXVII. Preserva-
tion and value of hen manure.

222.

225.

227.

233-

Expt. Sta. Work XVIII.
foods.

Weight of

Expt. Sta. Work XXIX. Experiments
with turkeys. Mineral matter for
chickens.

Expt. Sta. Work XXX. Poultry
houses.

Expt. Sta. Work XXXI. Condimental
foods. Animal feed for ducks.

236. Incubation and incubators.

244. Expt. Sta. Work No. 33. Methods of
feeding poultry.

237. Expt. Sta. Work No. 32. Amateur

poultry raising.

251. Expt. Sta. Work No. 34. Fertility of
eggs.

281. Expt. S£a. Work XL. Incubation of
chickens.

296. Expt. Sta. Work XLI. Preserving eggs.

305. Expt. Sta. Work XLII. Healthy
poultry.

317. Expt. Sta. Work XLV. Water foun-
tains. Catching hook.

355. A successful poultry and dairy farm.
357. Farmers' Bulletin. Method of poultry

management at Maine station.
374. Expt. Sta. Work LIII. Colony houses

for brooders.
381. Expt. Sta. Work LIV. Gasoline heated

colony brooders.
412. Expt. Sta. Work LVIII. The forced

moulting of fowls.
435. Expt. Sta. Work, Vol. IV, No. 2. Lice

on poultry.

445. Marketing eggs through the creamery.
452. Capons and caponizing.
465. Expt. Sta. Work LXV. Hatching and

rearing of turkeys.
530. Important poultry diseases.
Cir. No. 99. Hatching and rearing of chicks.

Col. of Agr. Berkeley.
Bui. 164. Feeding poultry.

Col. of Agr. Berkeley.

28

In anticipation of inquiries we add
the following notes:

1 . Land can be bought at from $50 to $250 an acre.

2 . If food supplies are to be grown, the land should be a sandy loam, free
in any case from adobe and well drained.

3. Eggs can be bought in every part of the State, and young chicks will be
shipped by reliable poultry men.

4. Locations should have relation to market centers and facilities for
shipping products. They should be chosen, too, for the most favorable climatic
conditions, and perhaps also with respect to supplies of commercial poultry food.

5. The capital required will depend upon location, the acreage desired and
the number of fowls to be kept. A good start can be made with $1,000 to $1,500
by an energetic man.

6. If the beginning is to be "at the bottom," without experience, it should
of course be in a small way, increasing the "plant" as knowledge grows.

7. As questions of location often involve other matters than this particular
industry, the general attractiveness of a region, the increase of values, etc., per-
sons outside of the State may find it important to study locations in advance of
coming. In such case write to Board of Trade at the county seat for information.
Most of the counties publish descriptive booklets. Information about the State
in general can be found in the California Map Folder and California for the
Settler, issued by the Southern Pacific Company. Write to the nearest agent
or to the General Office, Flood Building, San Francisco, Cal.

representative of the Southern Pacific Passenger Department noted below will
be pleased, on application, to furnish further information about California, in-
cluding railway rates and service: —

Chas. S. Fee, Passenger Traffic Manager San Francisco, Cal.

Jas. Horsburgh, Jr., General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal.

F. E. Batturs, General Passenger Agent Los Angeles, Cal.

J. M. Scott, General Passenger Agent Portland, Ore.

GENERAL,, EUROPEAN AND TRANS-PACIFIC AGENTS

Antwerp, Belgium, 6 Rue des Peignes Rud. Falck, General European Agent

Atlanta, Ga., 121 Peachtree Street O. P. Bartlett, General Agent

Baltimore, Md., Piper Building. . W. B. Johnson, District Freight and Passenger Agent

Birmingham, Ala., 1901 First Avenue O. P. Bartlett, General Agent

Bordeaux, France, 46 Quai des Chartrous Rud. Falck, General European Agent

Boston, Mass., 12 Milk Street J. H. Glynn, New England Agent

Buffalo, N. Y., 11 East Swan Street F. T. Brooks, Dist. Pass, and Frt. Agent

Chicago, 111., 55 West Jackson Boulevard W. G. Neimyer, General Agent

Cincinnati, Ohio, Union Trust Bldg., 4th and Walnut Sts. .C. M. Evans, General Agent

Denver, Colo, 313 Railway Exchange Building H. F. Kern, General Agent

Detroit, Mich., 710 Hammond Building Edward A. Macon, General Agent

Genoa, Italy, 117 Via Balbi Rud. Falck, General European Agent

Hamburg, Germany, 25-27 Ferdinand Strasse Rud. Falck, General European Agent

Havana, Cuba, Obispo 49 A. E. Woodell, General Agent

Honolulu, T. H., Wells Fargo & Co O. N. Williams, General Agent

Houston, Tex T. J. Anderson, General Passenger Agent, Sunset-Central Lines

Kansas City, Mo., 101 Bryant Building A. G. Little, General Agent

Little Rock, Ark., 209 Gazette Building W. H. Wynne, Commercial Agent

Liverpool, Eng., 25 Water Street Rud. Falck, General European Agent

London, Eng., 49 Leadenhall St., E. C., 22 Cockspur St., S. W

Rud Falk, General Europen Agent

Mexico City, Mex., Avenida Juarez, No. 12 G. R. Hackley, General Agent

New Orleans, La J. H. R. Parsons, Gen. Pass. Agt., M. L. & T. R. R. & S. S. Co.

New York, N. Y., 1 and 366 and 1158 Broadway. .L. H. Nutting, Gen. Eastern Pass. Agt.

Oklahoma City, Okla C. T. Collett, Commercial Agent

Paris, France, 20-22 Rue du Mail Rud. Falck, General European Agent

Philadelphia, Pa., 632 Chestnut Street R. J. Smith, Dist. Pass, and Frt. Agent

Pittsbnrg, Pa., Park Building, 5th Ave. and Smithfield St..G. G. Herring, Gen'l Agent

St. Louis, Mo., 1002 Olive Street Geo. B. Hild, General Agent

Torreon, Mex., Apartado Num. 286 G. P. Mena, Trav. Frt. and Pass. Agent

Washington, D. C., 905 F Street. . . A. J. Poston, Gen. Agent, Washington-Sunset Route
Yokohama, Japan, 4 Water Street G. H. Corse, Jr., G. P. A., S. F. O. R.

• A 139(1 1-19-13 -25M)
30

SUCCESS WITH

POULTRY P
IN CALIFORNIA

i

\

SOUTHERN
PACIFIC

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GAYLAMOUNT

PAMPHLET BINDER

Manufacture by

GAYLORD BROS. Inc.

Syracuse, N. Y.

Stockton, Calif.

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