LIBRARY OF CO NGRESS. Chap. 01 aguyrin! Bis. Shelf M38 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. i <: o f AX § ( oYetnk Yea, OP pn ta N = daa SUCCESSFUL de 4 [POULTRY RAISING aa: a Fe era IF ee —Srz——— J. D. MARTIN, “a A Farmer and Practical Poultry Raiser, five) BRUCE, Movrtrise Co., ILLINOIS. ia on | ee, td SULLIVAN, ILL.: BN APNE! \The Progress Publishing Company. 2 MO], « : = : I ‘ie OM fe Wels wissen, a Pale eae Wg , ; NRE RTP SANT WIZ 4 NZ - ONS oat Yo 9 ate io MoS OK oo Ko Kos os osk os osko j TR CE Ee ; ee earars or i) : : i "| << a t A gi SOS ONO pees i? Bees ey een ee LS Betis py MARTIN, . \\ A Farmer and Practical Poultry Raiser, BRUCE, Moutrrisz County, I L Y GF C SSPE YR! pe ers of! -- (eCaeT ag 1887 ”y tr of? CITES SULLIVAN, ILL: The Progress Publishing Company. P3887. Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1887, by 3 50a Boe RUBS SoH ad OB be 2 In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. oe ~~ — Sov. ANNOUNCEMENT. To THE PUBLIC:—A book is wanted, which every one who keeps a half a dozen fowls, can afford to buy; and at the same time giving all the needed information in plain, short and direct language. The demand for useful knowledge, acquired by constant and steady practice inthe Art of Raising Poultry, is everywhere apparent. The call for actual facts, instead of visions from impractical theorists, comes from all sections. In answer to this demand I offer this small volume, all of which is respectfully submitted to the reader. THE AUTHOR. “Bi A et ray aan tee = aRT 2 Pearls rs At = he aed ae , TOs cam ; ray . ‘ meres els - , ¢ Spee” = af if eA ‘eo ra ¥ - l herve een, $e Pres es y ate oy a ; i Pet is Baier Bie poet) Hi os ae ane — . a Sees, igs PREP AOE, KIND READER:—In presenting you this small volume on Poultry Raising, I shall not cumber its pages with guess-work nor imaginary theories, neither shall I copy; but shall give you plain, experimental facts that I have learned from close observation in the poultry yard; and, if in its pages I do not *give you my methods of raising poultry, it will be a failure in the execution rather than the plan. The time is at hand when impractical theories must give way to facts, and in giving you my experience I am not located either in the suburbs or heart of some great city, but am located in the center of the poultry yard with the noise of fowls all around me. The hens are singing their daily song and the cocks crowing for joy. The turkey hen is repeating her sweet melody and the voice of the gobbler is startling the air. The “fowls are all doing their duty, happily, knowing that at the regular hours their food will be supplied them. Before attempting to go further with this subject, let me ask you if you are going into the business with the intention of making it a success. Those who will not give their poultry regularattention, shelterthem properly, supply them a variety of proper food in liberal quantities, and pay a strict attention to all the details of manage- ment, need not ever expect to succeed; but if you will follow the directions ee in this book you can not help but succeed. “S00 IKK W=- nn DOr Successful Poultry Raising. ONLY ONE WAY TO LEARN. There is only one way to learn the poultry business and that isto commence at the bottom and go up. Learn as you go. It is one thing to have the true theory but quite another to apply it at the right time and in the right manner. Ifyou have only a few fowls to begin with, all the better. From them you can learn their habits and deeds and increase your flock as you learn. Do not get the poultry fever and buy one or two thous- | and to start with before you have learned the business. All such work ends in failure. If you know nothing of the business six fowls are better to start with than twenty. I know of parties who commenced in the thous- ands, finally quitting, disappointed and financially ruined. POULTRY RAISING AN ART. Poultry raising is an art to be acquired only by con- stant and continual practice and also by close observa- tion, studying the disposition of fowls from day to day. You can, by studying their habits for five minutes every time you feed, soon have the acquaintance of your fowls 8 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL "POULTRY RAISING. so cultivated that you can tell at a glace if anything is wrong with them, and if so, it should have immediate at- tention. This you must do if successful. Then if you have the proper remedies at hand for each and every disease you will have the pleasure of knowing that you can branch out into the business without fear of any financial loss. If you can master GAPES, CHOLERA AND ROwupP and pay strict attention to feed, shelter and general management as herein described you need not loose more than one chicken, either young or old out of a hun- dred in one year. MONEY IN FOWLS. There is money in keeping hens to lay eggs. The every day layers are the breeds wanted for this, such as Houdans, Leghorns, Hamburgs, Spanish and Polish. There is money in rearing the large breeds for mar- ket, such as Brahmas, Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, Langschangs and Cochins. There is money in breeding thoroughbred fowls. Procure them, rear them, advertise them and sell them. No money in giving good stock away. THE Pare ta TING DON ia The first thing to be done is to decide what you wish to procure; what youcan most economically furnish and sell best. If you wish to furnish both eggs and a market fowl you will need two varieties—one of the small breeds for eggs, the other one of the large or sitting breeds. I would recommend, in order to keep each variety pure, to keep them separate and avoid “in and in” breeding by changing your cocks every year or two from one strain to another. Dispense with all the old ones and procure young ones. A cock is in his prime in his KEV TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. 9 second year, though the small breeds appear to mature some earlier thanthe large breeds. In selecting a variety of chickens to buy, by all means procure the one you fancy most. Ifso you will be likely to take the best care of it. It does not pay to have stock of any kind unless you take the best care of it. Feed your fowls daily if you wish to make the most of them. POE TISY rouse, Do you intend to start with twenty hens? If so we must first build thema house to stay in of nights and bad weather. A very convenient one and suitable for twenty hens and five roosters is built as follows: Ten feet long, seven feet wide and five feet to lower eaves, seven feet high in center; door to face southeast with windows on each side of convenient size to admit plenty of sunshine; put two windows on south side also, having them to extend from six inches of the eaves to within one foot from the bottom or floor; side your house with common match boards one inch thick; batton the cracks; cover with shingles. For ventilation: At each end of the house run hollow tubes six inches square on the inside from within ten inches of the floor, perpen- dicularly through and extending above the roof two feet. These tubes act as purifiers by constantly drawing off the impure air from the inside of the house. In cold weather when the house is closed the foul air, which is greatest at the bottom, is continually passing through these tubes, and have a tendency to keep fresh air in the house at all times, which is so essential to the health of your fowls. You must now arrange your roosting poles in the back and about three feet from south side, situating them in northwest corner; place your roosting poles all on a level to avoid each one struggling for the . IO KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. highest perch. For a floor, fill in with dry dirt dug up some where, say from the ditch which is to surround it, making the dirt in floor one foot deep. Then two feet from door, just inside, build a partition across your hen house the narrow way, building it of laths extending from floor to top, having your laths about one and one- half inches apart, so that your fowls can reach their heads through to the feed and water troughs which is to be placed in this small hall on the ground, and in this hall you can arrange a box or two in which to keep feed, gravel, dust, ashes, shells and lime so you can use as you need. Make you a lath door to enter the inside from the hall, to gather eggs and see to keeping things clean. Every morning sprinkle from your dust and ash box fine siftings of dust and ashes over their droppings and be sure to clean your hen house out clean at least once a week. Save these cleanings for your garden and you will be amply paid for your trouble, both from your gar- den and from your fowls. Now just outside your hen house and about two feet from it, dig a trench about ten inches deep so as to have everything well drained. If possible this house and ground should have natural drainage of the surface; if not, see that it gets artificial drainage. It will pay you well to doit. Your run sur- rounding the house should consist of at least one quarter of an acre, fenced in with laths which are cheap, so as to hold your fowls. Ifthey are of the large breed a four- foot fence with laths sharpened at the top will turn them. If of the small breeds your fence must be higher. Make you a gate to enter the yard. Early in the spring plow up your run—or if set in trees spade up—and sow one- half in oats and grass for green food for your fowls during summer. The other half you can plant in pota- toes and in plowing them you will afford your fowls a splendid place to scratch. In the fall sow in rye or wheat and you have a_ splendid grass run all winter. In this way you can keep your KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. II poultry on the same ground year after year and your ground will be yielding you something too. DON'T CROWD. Twenty hens in one flock in any place and at any time is enough and will lay more eggs, keep in better health than fifty would if keptin the samespace. If you keep five hundred let them be in flocks of twenty hens and five roosters each. Fence off your run as desired; place your house in the center; set the ground in plum or dwarf pear trees; set your trees ten feet apart, using the kind that does best in your locality. These two kind of trees do a great deal better where poultry run than where they do not. The curculic attacks on the plum renders it almost impossible in some localities to raise them, but by keeping poultry among the trees this has been greatly overcome and large crops of plums raised. The insects also furnish a large amount of animal food for your fowls, which is so essential to their continuous laying. Your plum and pear trees in a few years will bring you on an average about two dollars per tree and your hens will clear youa profit of one dollar every year. PROCEEDING TO BUSINESS. Presuming it is now the first day of January and our fowls well housed, we will proceed to business, but for fear your house will not be comfortably warm during the winter when the temperature of the weather is below zero and still falling, you must cover their quarters completely over, with straw at least one-foot deep, excepting ven- tilating tubes, door and windows so that your fowls will not be affected by the sudden changes of weather. Be sure your ventilating tubes are working all right so that your fowls will have pure air at all times. You must now feed your fowls three times a day—at morning, noon 12 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. and night. Their morning meal should consist of middlings and meal mixed with sweet milk and scraps from the table, seasoned with black pepper. Their noon meal to consist of cooked turnips and potatoes, adding a small allowance of wheat. At night feed whole corn parched and sprinkled with lime. Feed everything hot, » giving warm water to drink. You must feed shells. Roast oyster or mussel shells in your stove pans, pound them up and feed them in a nice clean place. Your lay- ing hens need all they will eat. Do not forget to give them gravel. Anda dust box they must have. Make it about two feet long, one and one-half feet wide and six inches deep; fill two-thirds full of road dust and ashes; sprinkle two tablespoonfuls of sulphur through, and they will enjoy a dust bath every day if it is kept dry. When they scratch it out fill up again. Nowif you have arranged your nest boxes so that the sun can shine on them, you will get eggs. Youcan nothelp it. If you feed them my Cholera and Roup mixtures, I find they lay more eggs, by feeding it once per week, than where it is not used. It appears like fowls need something like it as a stimulant on cold days. If you wish to set hens this month and not remove them to the hatching room, you must arrange thema very warm nest connected with a place to dust themselves and to get feed and water. A very good plan is to get you a common sized boot box, cover the bottom, except where the nest is to be placed, with dirt about three inches deep. In the end you place the nest put about what will make, when pressed down, three inches of manure fresh from the stable; on top of this put two inches of dirt, placing some fine straw on top of the dirt and be sure to shape the nest so that the eggs will not roll out. Now cover half of the entire length of the box with boards nailed on, com- mencing at the end in which the nest is situated. Now place a drinking vessel containing water and feed in the box. Everything is now ready to set the hen, provided REY TO SUCCESSFUL ‘POULTRY® KAISENG. 13 you have placed your box in the hall as instructed in building poultry house. About dark is the best time to remove the hen from laying nest to setting box. Nearly one hour before you intend to remove the hen heat a brick very warm and lay it in the nest until it has thoroughly warmed the nest; have your eggs warm—not too warm—and place them in the nest and remove your setter, putting her on the nest very easily; now cover the other half of the setting box with laths, leaving plenty of room between them so that the hen will have fresh air. Do not nail the laths on but have them movable so that you can feed and water the henand inspect the nest to see if everything is working nicely. Sprinkle the eggs once per week with milk warm water. The day before the brooder comes off, which will be on the twentieth day, you must dip the eggs in tepid water and then put back in the nest and you will have but very few chicks die in the shell. On the twenty-first day you will have added to your stock of poultry a nest of nice chicks. Your object should now be to keep them that way, but here the trouble commences. MANAGEMENT OF THE CHICK. As soon as the chick is hatched it is exposed to the lice which infests the hen, unless you have used pre- caution and entirely rid them from your hen house. If you have mixed my Gape preventative with coal oil and rubbed all roosting poles and sprinkled over hen house and kept it perfectly clean, not allowing droppings to accumulate over one week, they will be free from lice; but if not, the lice from the hen will now lay hold of the chick and in a short time it will be gaping. To avoid this gaping business, lice or no lice, apply my preventa- tive as soon as the chick is dry and in fifteen days after you use it, your trouble is over. For extended treatise 14 KEV TO: SUCCESSFUL ‘POULTRY - RAISING: on Gapes see another place. You must now clean the nest box out clean and replace with dry dirt; replace the nest with some clean straw; sprinkle three or four drops of carbolic acid, diluted in water, around all parts of the box. As the weather is now generally cold you can leave the hen and chicks in the box. Feed and water is all your trouble now. You must not feed the little chicks in the box where their feed will co-mingle with their droppings—this must be distinctly understood—for right here lies one of the secrets of success. Should you follow feeding in this manner you may expect disastrous failure. Every time you feed them while they are in this setting box you must lay aclean piece of paper, shingle or board of some kind in their box to eat from. After they get one week old you can use a saucer and it can be washed clean after using and then used again. Give them milk to drink and at this age it must be given sweet. Give also plenty of water to drink, witha little lime added.. This is very essential and you should see that they get it. The growth of the bones and feathers consume lime and they must have it in some form. WAS ALO. FEEL, If young chickens are not fed with some regularity and with food that is nourishing, indigestion sets in and they pine away and die. You should not feed them until twenty-four hours old. When first hatched they need hovering more than feed, and should the hen be restless and not wish to brood them, first feed her all the corn she will eat, giving her plenty of water to drink and she will generally remain contented. If at this time you have set two or more hens and you wish to put all of the chicks with one hen you can do so by covering her quarters so as to make them dark, leaving them for KREYsTO: SUCCESSFUL POULTRY: RAISING. 15 twenty-four hours in the dark with jnst enough light to see how to eat and drink. If you do not thus arrange, the hen may peck all the chicks excepting the ones she hatched. A good sized hen may care for twenty-five chicks nearly as well as ten, yet they must have more room than ten. After the twenty-four hours have elapsed, if your well-to-do wife has any light bread she must dampen some of it with sweet milk and feed to the new-comers and give them a special invitation to make themselves happy and contented and that she will be at their service for anything they may want. You must be sure now to fulfill the promise you have so faithfully given and when the clock warns you that one hour has passed since you last fed the little’ fellows you must waste no time in getting back with some more light bread and do not forget to take some water with you this time and a small pie pan or some shallow vessel to drink from. If you have not light bread, which is the best feed young chicks get the first day, mix middlings and meal together and scald it with hot water; meal alone should never be given young chicks, ifraw. Feed every hour for the first day you commence to feed. Feed every two hours the second day. Now I wish to make one point clear: you must not feed young chicks more. than they want, as the food will be left to sour and mix with their droppings and be eaten again. In hot weather food will sour very soon. ‘Feed but little and feed it often’ is the point to be noticed now. The second day feed cracked wheat and finally whole wheat when they can swallow it. Such feed is better than soft feed as it will not sour so soon if left by them. Millet seed at this age is one of the best articles of food that ever was given to a young chick. Pa YeoMUST BE BEPLr DRY. Here lies the main idea: After your feed has been given your chicks you do not want to lose your feed and 16 KEY..TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY «RAISING, chicks besides. Therefore, I can not impress too firmly on your mind the necessity of keeping your chicks dry. Your little fellows can not stand to get all drabbled and wet even in August. You must have a shed or coop for them to shelter in during rains and they must not be let out until the grass and weeds are dry. Do not let them out of their coops in the morning until the dew is nearly all gone. WARMTH. The young fowl is very short of feathers and if the weather is very cold will need some protection from the cold. If you have a shed somewhere that you can shut them in, put them there; if not, get, you some cheese cloth or as thin muslin as you can get. Make you a frame eight feet long and two feet wide and about eigh- teen inches high; make it of light material; tack a lath every two feet on top of the frame and then stretch your cloth around the sides, ends and top; cut you a small door for them to go in from. Now you can place your hen and chicks in this and place your roosting coop at the end and the whole thing ona nice grassy plot and your chicks have the nicest little run youever saw. You can move them daily to fresh ground. You must not let your young fowls roost on the damp ground; make your coops with board floors and they will then be vermin proof also. Ifyou have plenty of money and wish to build something more costly than a muslin coop, you can build a low house sloping to the south with top covered with thick glass and you will also have a splendid place for your chicks in cool weather. GREEN FOOD. The craving appetite of fowls for green food of some kind is visible in all poultry yards, and if your young KEY >1Q SUCCESSFUL. POULTRY RAISING. EF fowls are confined where they cannot get green food you must supply them. It will not take long to cut some young grass with a knife and feed to them; cut it about one-quarter of an inch long and throw in where they can get it. Your old fowls when confined must have green food in some shape. ANIMAL FOOD. Animal food in some form young chicks must have if they are confined where they cannot get it. Feed them, daily, a small quantity of meat of some kind; if fresh all the better. Ifyou live in the city get a small piece of offal from the butcher daily and give them. But if you live on the farm your cheapest and best animal food will be sweet milk, and if given in sufficient quan- tities will answer very well for the meat diet. When your chicks get about three weeks old and older feed them any and all kinds of milk, sweet or sour, and when they get of age sufficient to swallow it, let their main food be corn. The mineral part of their food must not be neglected, which is gravel, sand and shells broken in small pieces. This completes the food from the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms and if you keep feeding will in time mature the chick into the full grown fowl. A HATCHING ROOM. If you wish to be successful hatching eggs, you must arrange so that laying hens cannot lay with those that are setting. No eggs will hatch well if the hen that is setting on them must havea fight every day to keep others out from her nest, thus jarring the eggs and prob- ably breaking some. The most convenient way, after the weather gets warm, is to have a room of some kind 18 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. by itself for them. I have rooms, ten by twelve, made of common rough plank one inch thick; roof covered with boards. I have no windows in it, barely enough light to see to eat and scratch. This prevents their quarreling. I have dirt floor filled in ten inches deep, with their nests arranged around the wall. When a hen wishes to set you should remove her about dark from the laying room to setting room; confine her on the nest for the first two days, giving her food and drink; afterwards arrange the nest so that she can get off when she chooses, but do not let her from the room; keep the door closed. You must now provide plenty of food at hand, at all times, where she can get it. Feed mainly corn as it will maintain the heat of the body. Feed some kind of green - food daily. Keep the dust box and gravel handy and do not forget to give plenty of water to drink. They can all eat and drink from the same vessel when not confined on the nest. HINTS TO BEGINNERS. To those who have no knowledge of the poultry business and are thinking of engaging in the same, you will find these suggestions of benefit to you. There is plenty of room and money in the poultry business for those who go at it in a business manner and will use persistent energy to learn it. There is yet room at the top; but there is only one way to learn it. Get some system or work on Poultry Raising; read it over and over carefully until you become familiar with all the de- tails of management. Start with one variety and if only a few of them all the better. Learn all you can about your fowls by close observation. Study their habits and needs daily. After you have been through one year’s work, your experience and practice will be worth money to you. If you have been successful with a few do not increase too fast or you may get snowed under. If you KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. I9 have kept twenty-five on your small lot do not forget that you cannot keep fifty onthe same space. In all my varied experience I find it very easy to get too many. Fifty hens on a twenty-acre tract if kept in one flock is too many; under all conditions and circumstances do not keep over twenty-five head together. If you keep several flocks and will keep them a good distance apart they will do all the better. If you are going into the business you must make up your mind to work. If you cannot bear the idea of work by all means “launch your boat” in some other direction. Success in raising poultry means work, work, work! The successful poultryman is the one who has forethought and patience, who makes up his mind that he is in no small business, reading his poultry book carefully and working out the suggestions contained therein. The unsuccessful poultryman wastes his time in meditating on the empty visions of imprac- tical theorists, who envies book knowledge and neglects practicing the principles that insure success. Don’t think that you are crowded out of the poultry business because you are not located near some large city; don’t let such a false idea rest upon your mind for even one moment. In these days of rapid transit you can get your poultry to afirst-class market in twenty-four hours, if you live on through lines of transportation. If you do not, you will get them there soon enough with a very small expense. First decide what you wish to produce. Then commence right where you are. VENTILATION. The lack of ventilation is one of the most destructive agents. Fowls to do well must not be deprived of fresh air. It is just as essential that a fowl have fresh air as it is with a person. Deprive your hens of fresh air and you will wonder why you get so few eggs. The natural 20 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY “RAISING: law is that they require the pure unadulterated fresh air of heaven. When you construct your poultry house see that it is properly ventilated. The great mistake of farmers is that their poultry become too much crowded. If the size of their house and ventilating tubes are capable of keeping twenty fowls in good condition, they will put about fifty into that space. They get no eggs. Their fowls begin to lose an interest in things about them. They act sleeppy, begin to droop, pine away and die with all the symptoms of disease. All who know that this can be prevented should at once see to it. Properly construct your house, put the proper number into it, give them the proper food and proper tonics to keep them in health and you will find your fowls are paying you a profit instead ofa loss. There are prin- ciples which underlie poultry raising the same as there are principles which underlie farming, and whenever you are trampling these principles under foot you are at the same time trampling your success under foot. WATERING FOWLS. I find the best method of watering fowls is to water them from some old iron vessel, keeping water in the vessel at all times so that the fowls can help themselves when they wish. Their water troughs should be kept in the same place all the time. If you. change your troughs from one place to another every day or two you will have some thirsy fowls at all times. Keep preventives of cholera in their water to destroy the germs of disease, provided you have them. MILK FOR FOWLS. For chickens of all ages and sizes and all varieties, from the miniature Bantam to the largest chicken that KEY TO) SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING: 21 wears feathers—the Light. Brahma—milk to drink is one of the most essential articles of food. It contains nutriment for all parts of the body. For chicks under three weeks old it should be given sweet; after three weeks old they can drink milk either sweet or sour with- out any injury to their health. For laying hens the value of milk to drink can not be over estimated. In- stead of giving all the sour milk to the pigs give at least one-half of it to your fowls and notice which pays you best. Ifyou are raising poultry extensively you will find it largely to your interest to keep several of the best milch cows you can obtain. Sweet milk given to your fowls while the animal heat is still retained is better than if given in any other condition. Feed it while still warm occasionally, if not all the time. The farmer who gives sweet milk to his laying hens has solved the problem of producing plenty of eggs cheap. Try it and in the end you will agree with me. . NESTS. I can not urge too strongly on having good nests for your laying and setting hens. If you have only one kind of chickens, all being about the same size, you only need one size for a nest. Make them a nest with plenty of room; if you do not, you must not grumble when you go out to the hen house and find that your setters have broken two or three eggs each. There are many differ- ent ways of making nests. Make the kind that suits you best, but be sure to make it with plenty of room. After you get your nest made whitewash inside and outside, and if you have my Lice Exterminator saturate the joints and cracks with a very small portion mixed with coal oil. After your nest box is completed put about two inches of dirt in the bottom and on top of this about two inches of oats straw if you have it, if not use any 22 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. kind you have. Then shape your nest to fit the hen’s body. Now if you wish to set a hen put your eggs in, not over thirteen in number for a large hen; put your hen on about dark and remove the nest to the setting room, if you have one; and if not in spring and summer you can place the nest in a good shade out in the open air. In your orchard isa very good place. Then get two planks at least one foot wide and eight or ten feet long. Place them on edge, the width of your nest apart, having them come up closely on each side of your nest and extending their full length on the ground. Then nail laths over the top of them every one and one-half inches apart, the entire length of your plank or you can lay boards on the top and weight them down; you need not nail as you will want to place feed and water in the run daily. Now dig upa place in one endfor her to scratch in. Keep plenty of water, feed and gravel by her and you have one of the most complete places outside of a hatching room I ever saw. You must sprinkle the eggs twice per week if the weather is dry and do not forget to sprinkle them thoroughly the day before the brood comes off. Ifthe weather is windy it is best to clean out the nest, replacing nice, clean straw and leave your hen and chicks in this run a few days, by feeding and watering regularly. SESS Se A SHADE FOR FOW Le: Fowls to do well in summer must have some pro- tection from the direct rays of the sun. This can be ac- complished by setting out both trees and bushes. A fowl prefers the shadow ofa bush to that of anything else. For trees I would recommend setting out either plum or pear trees as they can be set close together. For bushes I would recommend gooseberry, raspberry and currant. Set them around close to the fence and KEY TO" SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. 23 their fruit as well as their shade will be relished by the fowls. If you prefer you can plant sunflower seed, and -as they have a very wide leaf it makes a splendid shade. They will grow in most anv kind of soil and their seed is among the best winter food we can get. I once saw a poultry yard where fowls were kept by the thousand and there was not a shade tree nor a bush in the yard. In a short time I heard of the same party selling out what few fowls he had left and quitting the business financially embarassed. Fowls will not thrive nor do well if they have not a shade of some kind in summer. If you have no shade do not count on much profit in warm weather. The fewer the mistakes you make, the greater will be your profit. Therefore, as they are pointed out to you do not go ahead and make the same mistake. Attention to such things is the true way to success. ROOSTS: It is of the utmost importance that your poultry have good roosts. Some breeders recommend having your fowls roost on the ground; others that their roosts be eighteen inches high. My plan, and I find it very successful, is to have the roosting poles about three feet high, and to build it is very easily done. Get four hooks with hoies drilled in the top end to nail to the top of the hen house. Get four straps of leather or rope; fasten one to each hook and the other end to a cross piece two inches wide and one inch thick. You now have a scaf- fold across which you can place your roosting poles, eighteen inches apart. Let the roosts be in the back part of the house and just in front of your first roosting pole make fast one end of a very wide plank across which cleats are made fast every fewinches. Put the other end on the ground and have your plank of sufficient length that it will not be too straight. Your fowls can walk up 24 KEY TO. SUCCESSFUL ‘POULTRY. RAISING, on this plank and get to the roost without much effort. Your heaviest Brahma can reach the top the same as your highest flying Leghorn. You then have your fowls up from the ground which is so much better for their health as the foul air in the hen house is near the floor, they avoid breathing the worst of it. It does not matter who says for them to perch low, if you arrange as it should be, they will be healthier when perching higher. So do not make a mistake by having low roosting poles or probably none at all. Your fowls with such a roost as described can come down the same as they go up. LOOKOUT (POR: VERMIN: It is too often the case with farmers that they do not provide suitable accommodations for their fowls. Sometimes they have no hen house at all. Others have houses so dilapidated that their fowls are generally more comfortable on the outside than on the inside. Your houses should be so tight as to keep out weasels, minks, skunks and rats. After your patient wife has spent a whole summer working and raising poultry, it is very annoying as well as a great loss to have them half killed by a weasel or mink. Hecomes at the hour of midnight when you are sound asleep, and if you do not have a tight hen house or coop, do not blame anybody but vourself. It is natural for the blood-thirsty weasel to see how many he can kill in one night. He will also take the best as well as the poorest of the flock, but it generally happens that he gets the ones you value most, such as the muffled and “keep-sakes” of the family. If your poultry roost in trees, the owls will claim their share and issue an “attachment” on the same. Rats are one of the worst enemies of the young fowl. If they harbor near the poultry yard take your cats and dogs and commence war on them at once, and do not hoist KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. 25 the flag of truce until the last enemy is destroyed. I have had some very valuable experience with rats and weasels. The first year I raised poultry, in the month of August I lost every young fowl I had and part of my old ones in less than forty-eight hours by a pack of weasels. And Ihave had the rats take my pets one by one. From such experience I learned: ‘what is worth doing is worth doing well.” Therefore, you must be prepared for all emergencies if you wish to make poultry raising a success. AVOID MISTAKES. Now to beginners in raising poultry, you must avoid the mistakes pointed out by others and it will save you time and money. Soif you have no hen house now is the time to build. Make small coops for your young fowls but do not get them too small; make enough to ac- _ commodate the number you intend to keep, and by all means do not put too many im one coop. One hen and her brood of chicks is plenty for one coop, unless it is a very large one; if so you must partition it off so as to keep but few together. Make your coops tolerably high so that your chicks will have plenty of fresh air. You should bore three or four small auger holes in it tor ven- tilation. Make a board floor for a bottom and a door that will close tight and you will then have no trouble with vermin at night, if you keep the door closed. You should build your coops and hen houses before you need them. In keeping poultry you must always look ahead. No “do as you like way” will meet with success. As soon as your chicks are large enough you should get them off the ground by removing them where you intend to winter them. In two or three nights they will be no trouble about housing and will be well pleased with their new situation. 26 KEY TO SUCCESSRUBYPOULTRY RAISING. JUN Ee ACT ORES. If you will handle chickens as they should be, June and July chickens are as easily raised as those hatched in March or April. To hatch them now you need plenty of dirt under the nest and if the weather is dry, sprinkle the eggs oftener than you do in the spring. After they are hatched you must provide thema good shade. Feed them plenty of sand, small gravel and pulverized char- coal. Give plenty of water todrink. My June and July hatches are my best summer layers, and, if allowed torun at large, do not require a great deal of feed. But if con- fined they must have a variety of food. Puilets hatched in June will generally commence laying in January and lay all summer. LOOKOUT. FOR CHOLERA. If you have had cases of cholera in the spring and have cured them, your fowls all being in good health, you must not think they will stay that way all the time unless you use some precautions against it. In summer and autumn you must be on your guard. Keep every- thing clean. In hot weather all the filth that is left on the ground and in your hen house begins to decay sooner than in cool weather, fermentation sets in sooner and there is more danger from cholera. In hot weather your hen house should be cleaned out every other day. Dur- ing warm weather your fowls may have too much looseness of the bowels; if so you should feed more dry feed, Such’ as wheat and ‘corn: ~° Feed more pepper than you have been in the habit of doing. Never let a week go by unless you feed the Cholera Mixture. It is a tonic and a preventive of this dreaded disease. It is now near the time when your fowls begin to moult and if they become diseased it retards their moulting. KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. 2/ fed nO PEE DoW AI LE MOUE TING, Fowls, like animals, shed their coat annually. The drain on the system during the process of moulting is very great and it is of the utmost importance to under- stand what to feed during this period. Early hatched fowls generally get through all right, moulting, but later hatched ones do not always moult safely. In the summer while moulting is going on a few feathers only come out at a time and these are at once replaced with a set of new ones, but later in the fall more feathers come out at once and are not so rapidly replaced. This is why the late hatched bird is in danger while moulting. If you have a comfortable hen house place them in this where the sun can shine on them at least a portion of the time. Their feed should consist of middlings and meal mixed with sweet milk, adding a little charcoal with it oc- casionally. Wheat is one of the best feeds while moult- ing. Feed pepper freely, giving as much sweet sub- stance as possible. Moulting always occurs with the wild bird when it has an abundance of food. Therefore, it is necessary that they should be well fed with a variety of stimulating food. LAYING. Arranged by a providential hand and in behalf of man, the hen brings forth her fruit. It is a kind that is relished by all. The poor can have at hand this valuable fruit the same as the rich. The hen and her fecundity are won, not by paintings and red-tape congratulations, but by protection, quietness and a variety of food. The hen sang forth her lay thousands of years ago according to the divine testimony which has been handed down to us. It has been said that man should have dominion over the fowl. Let us make the most of it by having the 28 KEY ‘TO’ SUCCESSFUE* POULTRY “RAISING, egg basket to decide it. Instances are on record of hens laying annually three hundred and twenty-five eggs. This is told only by the word, enormous. Two hundred, with an average amount of feed and close attention, keeping your hens healthy, is not a very large yield of eggsin one year. If you can not get your every day layers to lay until moulting causes them to stop, you may know there is something wrong and this should have immediate attention. Fora great while I could not account for this ceasing of egg production. I would feed my hens a variety of food, give them shells, gravel and ground bone, and yet I would not get the all purpose that Iwas keeping them for—eggs. My trouble now was cholera or roup, yet I did not know it then, but with the experience I now have I know it was present in the in- Cipient stage. Since I discovered my preventative I never have had sucha thing happen. I keep anaccurate account of all my poultry expenses and all my income and as long as the scales are turning the way they are I am not the man to complain about hens laving eggs. To make the most of our fowls we must have them do- ing something while around us; if we do not, we are loosing. I know there is a vast difference in the pro- duction of eggs from those that are fed and from those that are not, but the greatest difference is between those that are healthy and those that are not. Disease will always stop egg production if it is the vital parts affected. Therefore, the turning point: whether loss or gain for you in the poultry business, is based on this one word—disease. i SeUIN te CHICKENS IN AUTUMN AND EARLY WINTER. Spring and summer is not the only time chickens can be raised with profit. Wecan raise them very easily every month in the year by a little extra preparations KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. 29 and the profits from those hatched from October to the middle of January are greater than when hatched at any other period of the year, if they are sold in large cities for broilers. I live near the banks of asmall stream. I have a poultry house dug out in the bank, so you see it is very warm. It is drained inside and outside so as to be perfectly dry. I fill about four inches of gravel in the bottom and then put some clean straw on top of this. I now cover the top of the hen house completely over with straw, excepting the ventilating tubes. There is a door and window inthe southside. ‘This is now ready for the chicks. But in order to get your hens to set: you must have some of the Asiatic or setting breeds. Brahmas, Cochins, Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes are very good for the purpose; but for raising chicks you need some- thing that feathers very rapidly, as Leghorn or Houdan, the latter being the most hardy. You can set any kind of eggs under your setters and raise any kind you wish. If you have the Langschang set some of their eggs. If you have a comfortable hen house and feed your fowls as directed you can collect eggs on the coldest days. Keep your eggs where they will not freeze and set them when you get ready. Do not forget the stable manure now in preparing nests for setters. Put her in the “setting box” as directed and leave her with the other fowls to help keep warm. Sprinkle eggs once per week with warm water. As soon as your chicks are hatched remove to the house prepared for them; put the hen and chicks in it and they will be as happy and contented as they are in summer. Feed them the same as you do in summer, excepting you must give them green food of some kind and a small portion of meat of some kind. Keep your dust box ready; have water to drink, and keep plenty of small gravel and sand where they can get it at alltimes. Along about the middle of January or first of February you can get fifty cents apiece for your chicks or twenty-five cents per pound, in Chicago. In 30 KEY TO SUCCESSFUL POULTRY RAISING. New York or Boston you can get more. Invest some of your surplus change in this manner and see if it will not pay better than Government bonds. By this method you can raise chickens the year round and have produce to sell every month. In this way, brother farmers, you can soon release the mortgage from the farm, provided there is one on it. If you are not so fortunately situated as to live on the banks of a stream, you can certainly arrange some way to keep the temperature from freezing the little fellows by covering your hen house with sod, straw or sawdust. If your chicks all look alike you will get more per pound as broilers than where they are of all colors, shapes and sizes. Hence, a mighty point in favor of thoroughbred fowls. CONSTITUENT OF AN EGG. To know what the egg is composed of is very im- portant to poultry raisers, as it is of the first importance that our hens must have the wherewith to form the egg if they produce them. They will generally get all of these themselves if allowed free range, but they will not get them in sufficient quantities to produce eggs as they should and we must therefore assist them. Chemically the shell of the egg is composed chiefly of carbonate of lime, with a small quantity of phosphate of lime and animal mucus. The yolk of an egg consists of oil, albumen, gelatine and water. The white of an egg is composed chemically of water, albumen, mucus, soda, sulphuretted hydrogen gas and benzoin acid. The shell material is generally the most difficult for the hen to obtain, but itis a great deal depending upon the situation and soil of the place they are kept. Now if you will feed your hens something that contains all of these materials you will get eggs. A hen is a natural walking machine for producing eggs, if fed egg material. Mid- KEM TOVSUGCESSFUL POULTRY; RAISING: 31 dlings, meal, wheat, corn, oats, millet seed, broom corn seed, oyster shells, ground bone and milk contain all that is required in the formation of an egg. If you will supply these articles in sufficient quantities, your hens being in health, they will lay eggs and can not help it. UNFRUITFUL EGGS. It appears like all hens will sometimes lay eggs that will not hatch. This being the case we should endeavor to find as soon as possible those that are not fertile and relieve the hen of their care. About the eighth day of incubation get a piece of stiff paper and make it just the size to go on outside of your lamp flue; cut a hole in one side about the size of an egg; now put this around your lamp flue; light the lamp, holding the egg between your eye and the light. Ifthe shadow which it forms wavers keep the egg as the wavering is caused by the motion of the chick within. If it remains stationary throw it away and relieve the hen of its care. If the eggs have been fresh laid the chick will be developed earlier than other- wise. With fresh eggs you can, about the fifteenth day, by applying your ear to the egg, hear a grating noise within; but if the eggs are not fresh this will not happen until about two days longer. The nutriment at this time will be gradually entering the body of the chick and in this manner the little chick is nourished until the time appointed by nature for it to workits way out. It keeps pegging and growing until the raised portion on the bill pips or breaks the shell. It then works its way from the shell afterwards the raised portion of its bill drops off. HOW TO PRESERVE EGGS. Get a small sized box, about one foot square. Take common salt and heat it in some vessel, as your stove 32 KEV 'TO