Chapter II: Part 2

The up-to-date broiler plant consists of an incubator-cellar, a nursery, or brooder-house, as it is usually called, and a broiler-house. Both the latter are divided into small pens, about two feet wide and five feet long. In the nursery-house, the top ends of the pens are inclosed like boxes to the depth of about a foot and a half, and have hot-water pipes running through them to furnish heat for the chicks to brood under. A flannel curtain cut into strips falls from the top of the inclosed part to divide it from the rest of the pen, which runs down to the outer wall of the house, where a large window lets in light and sun. The pens should have board floors slightly elevated above the main floor, to avoid dampness, and the divisions are made with a foot board about nine inches high, and one inch netting two feet high above that. The brooder-house is divided in the same way, but the hot-water pipes only run around the walls of the house, as the birds don’t need the immediate heat to brood under, after they leave the nursery, when they are five or six weeks old.

But, until you can afford the proper equipment, one or two incubators can be run in the cellar of the house or an unused room where there is no other heat. Individual brooders can be used in place of the nursery and brooder-house, if you have any light outbuilding to stand them in. In fact, I like the individual brooders better for the nursery period than the pipe-house system, because it is only necessary to heat as many as are needed, and with the pipe system the entire house has to be heated, even if you are only going to use one section.

Most of the different makes of brooders on the market are made with two compartments: A chamber with a round hover, which is heated with a lamp, and an outer compartment for exercise and feeding. The average price is nine dollars, and the machines are supposed to hold one hundred chickens, but seventy-five are quite enough; and even that number should be decreased to fifty the second week, and twenty-five the fourth week--that is, if the chicks are to be confined entirely to the brooder. But if it stands in a warm room, where a small outer inclosure can be made on the floor of the house for a playroom, fifty chicks can be carried through to the squab-broiler age in one brooder.

Chicks hatched specially for the broiler trade have to be steadily pushed along; plump, juicy meat being the main object. The first requisite is warmth. Have the compartment in which the hover is situated heated up to ninety-eight degrees before the chicks are put in and keep it so for the first three days and nights. Keep the door in the outer compartment shut for the same length of time. On the fourth day it can be opened and the chicks allowed to run into it, but the room in which the brooder stands should be warm, and the little ones should be watched toward bedtime, for they are apt to remain in the outer compartment and become chilled.

Being chilled even for a short time is fatal to young chicks, for if it does not kill outright, it causes bowel trouble and gives them a bad setback which will surely delay the day of marketing, if nothing worse. After they are three weeks old, the door in the outer compartment can be opened, so that they can run out on to the floor of the room. Let them have plenty of scratching material. If the weather is fine and mild, it will do them good to let them have an outside run for an hour or two in the middle of the day, but don’t be in a hurry to harden them before they are five weeks old, for it is a risky experiment.

Wyandotte chickens when hatched will weigh two ounces. If all goes well they should gain two ounces during the first ten days; four ounces for the third week; another two ounces in the fourth week, and at the end of the eighth week they should weigh two pounds.

The entire life of a chicken intended for a broiler is so artificial that few if any of the rules for raising ordinary chicks can be applied to them. The great aim is to develop them as quickly as possible, for, to get the best price, a broiler must grow quickly and be plump.

Like all newly-hatched birds, they must have nothing to eat for the first thirty-six hours. After that commercial chick-feed (which is a mixture of all sorts of small seeds and cracked grains) should be their sole diet for ten days.

When there are only small quantities of chicks to feed, and cash is of more value than time, it will be cheaper to mix the feed at home. Take one quart each of finely-cracked corn, bran and hulled oats; mix with the same quantity of golden millet, rape, Kafir-corn and very sharp, fine gravel, crushed charcoal and finely-chopped clover-hay. Mix thoroughly, then pass through a fine sieve, to insure there being no large pieces of the corn or oats for the babies to choke themselves with. For the three days they are confined to the hover department, put a small pan filled with the mixture in each corner and, instead of water, fill a small drinking-fountain with milk which has been scalded and allowed to cool. Leave it with them for ten or fifteen minutes, at morning, noon and again at about 3:00 P. M. It must not be allowed to remain all the time, because the heat from the hover will turn it sour.

After they are allowed access to the outer compartment, mixed grain should be scattered on the cut hay (or whatever is used to cover the floor) so that the chicks will have to scratch which compels them to take enough exercise for healthy growth. The plan is to feed little and often. The milk can be allowed to stand in the outer compartment, but the fountain must be thoroughly cleansed and scalded every day.

After the tenth day, the door of the outer compartment can be opened and the chicks given further liberty, if there is a stove in the building to warm the atmosphere; but if there is not, don’t let them out of the brooder until they are four weeks old. In either case their diet must be slightly changed after the tenth day. Steam some of the chopped clover-hay--about a quart--and add one pint of coarse corn-meal, one pint of ground oats and half a small cupful of chopped liver which has been boiled for five minutes (raw liver is too strong for such young birds, but it should not be boiled more than the five minutes). Feed once a day at noon. Put the mash into two or three dishes, so they can all get a chance to eat at once. Remove any that is left at the end of ten minutes. If it is not possible to get fresh liver, use one teaspoonful of beef-meal or any of the commercial meat preparations which are ground fine. Continue to scatter the dry grains three times a day.

When they are four weeks old, give mash twice a day about 9:00 A. M. and 2:00 P. M., increasing the allowance of meat slightly; and if you have plenty of skim-milk, make cottage cheese and give it to them as an extra once or twice a week. From the fourth week keep a pan containing grit and charcoal always before them. After they are six weeks old increase the quantity of corn-meal in the mash, and correspondingly decrease the ground oats, until all corn-meal and no oats are being used. Also, stop steaming the clover and mix it dry with the other ingredients; then moisten the mash in scalded milk in which suet has been boiled (one pound of chopped suet to four quarts of milk). Boil for fifteen minutes. Feed it three times a day--9:00 A. M., 12:00 M. and 3:00 P. M. The last two weeks before killing, omit all the dry grain; feed nothing but mash, made as before, only as soft as possible without being sloppy. Feed four times a day all they will eat in ten minutes, but on no account leave food before them longer than that, or they will become satiated. Birds pushed along should be in fine condition for market when from ten to twelve weeks old.

Our broilers are never given water to drink, but always scalded milk. Scalded milk invariably checks any tendency toward bowel trouble and is also a strong factor in making the flesh tender and juicy.

THE POULTRY-YARD IN MID-SEASON

Baby chicks are so pretty, and appeal so strongly to the sentimental feeling most people have for infant things, that they are invariably well cared for until they are deposed by new arrivals, or reach the half-fledged, long-legged period of gawky ugliness. Then they are almost surely neglected, especially by the amateur, who does not realise that the intermediate stages are of paramount importance. It is a waste of time and money to hatch chicks and feed hens heavily in the winter, if they are allowed to reach a standstill period during growth.

When chicks are eight weeks old, they should be separated from their mothers, and the families divided; the young pullets being relegated to colony coops, in an orchard or partly shaded meadow, where they will have extensive free range; the cockerels being placed in the semi-confinement of yards, as their ultimate fate is the frying-pan, which necessitates plump bodies, while free range would only develop frame and muscle.

Our colony houses are six feet long, three feet wide, thirty-six inches high in front, and twenty-four inches at the back. They are made of light scantling; the ends, back and roof being covered with roofing-paper, and the front, to within eight inches of the ground, with unbleached muslin, which insures perfect ventilation and prevents rain beating in upon the birds when they are on the roosts, which are fixed a foot from the bottom and nine inches from the back of the coop. Two holes are made, nine inches apart, in the middle of each end of the coop, and a heavy rope knotted through them, to form handles.

The coops having no flooring, and the whole construction being light, they are easily moved to fresh ground each week, and so kept clean with little trouble, an important item when there is a large quantity being used. Having a large orchard, we placed the coops in rows thirty feet apart, as two sides of the orchard adjoin woodland, through which a never-failing spring-stream runs, so the birds have a splendid range.

Twenty birds are placed in each coop. The first week a portable yard, five feet long, is placed in front of each coop so that the young chicks cannot wander off and get lost, as they surely would in strange quarters. During that time a self-feeding hopper and a drinking-fountain are placed inside of the coop. When the yard is removed, the individual vessels are dispensed with, large drinking-tubs and feed-hoppers being stationed midway between every four coops, to reduce time and labour in caring for the birds.

The large hoppers are nothing more than boxes, five feet long, two feet wide and six inches deep, over which is placed an A-shaped cover, made of slats, one inch apart, to prevent the birds getting into the box and scratching the grain onto the ground, where it will be wasted. For water, five-gallon kegs are used, with an automatic escape, which keeps a small pan continually full. Both feed and water are placed under a rough shelter, to protect them from sun and rain. Using such large receptacles, it is only necessary to fill them every other day.

Feed consists of a dry mash, composed of ten pounds of wheat bran, ten pounds of ground oats, one pound of white middlings, one pound of old-process oil-meal and ten pounds of beef scraps, all well mixed. In addition to that, they receive at night a feed of wheat and cracked corn--two parts of the former to one of the latter. About half a pint is scattered in front of each coop, at about four P. M.

Grit is supplied in large quantities. Being near a stone-crusher, we buy the screenings by the cart-load and dump it in heaps on the outskirts of the orchard, where it does not show, but is quite accessible to the chicks.

On these rations, without any variation, the pullets are kept until September, when they are transferred to their winter quarters--houses twelve feet wide, ten feet high in front, sloping to eight feet at the back. Each house is divided by wire netting into twelve-foot compartments, in each of which forty birds are kept.

Winter feeding commences as soon as the birds are settled in their houses, and consists of the same mash as when on range, except that ten pounds of corn-meal is added, and, instead of the ten pounds of commercial beef scraps, sixteen pounds of freshly cracked green bone is used, and, in place of being before them all the time, it is fed once a day, just what they will eat up clean in fifteen minutes.

Until three years ago, we used to moisten the mash and feed at eight o’clock in the morning. Now we feed it dry, at 2 P. M.; at night, wheat, cracked and whole corn, scattered over cut straw, which covers the floor of the house. The proportions are three pounds of whole corn, one pound of wheat and two pounds of cracked corn. The birds are always eager for the whole corn, and, as they run about to pick it up, the cracked corn and wheat get shaken down into the litter, so they rarely get any but the whole corn at night, which fills up their crops and keeps them warm until morning, when the fine grain induces them to scratch--vigorous exercise, which sets their blood circulating and keeps them busy until 8 A. M., when the drinking-fountains are filled up with hot water.

For green food we use Swiss chard, cabbage and rape until frost destroys the supply, after which we resort to clover hay, chopped and steamed. It is fed at about 11 A. M., a large panful to each compartment, and at the same time a pint of wheat and cracked oats is scattered on the floor. Sharp grit and oyster-shells are always before them, and in very cold weather the drinking-fountains are filled up again with hot water at eleven and three o’clock.

If you have no orchard, or other partly shady place for coops, it will be necessary to erect some sort of shelters for the birds to rest under during the heat of the day. Any sort of material or shape will do, so long as protection from the sun is afforded. If free range is quite impossible (as it often is for suburban poultry-keepers), the birds must be given as large yards as possible and supplied with lots of scratching material, over which small grain must be scattered two or three times a day. Fresh green bone will be better than the beef scraps. Vegetable food is most imperative under such circumstances. Sow a large patch of Swiss chard; it is a true cut-and-come-again crop. Oats and rape are also useful crops for poultry-keepers who can give their birds free range through the summer.

A word of warning: If you are reduced to cutting grass, or use lawn-clippings, be careful to have them cut into short lengths of not more than an inch, otherwise the birds may become crop-bound.

The cockerels which go into the market-pen are fattened and sold as quickly as possible, except the few we keep for stock, and these are given large yards and fed in the same manner as pullets on range.

For fattening birds, use ground corn and oats in equal parts, add half a part of charcoal and moisten with skim-milk. Give plenty of green food and sharp grit. Feed little and often. All expedition must be used in the matter of marketing, for every day’s delay after they reach the desired weight is a dead loss.

Constant culling and marketing is one of the great secrets of success. Culling must be observed just as rigidly when selecting winter stock. Discard any faulty birds. There are always some in every flock, even if the parent birds have been blue-ribbon specimens: Crooked tails or feet, ear-lobes which are red instead of white, or white instead of red, according to the variety you may be keeping. Wyandottes, Orpingtons, Plymouth Rocks, Brahmas or Cochins should all have bright-red ear-lobes. Leghorns, Minorcas and Andalusians should be pure white. It is a bright, energetic-looking pullet which makes the best layer, and it is not profitable to keep any but the best layers, so put them into small pens and fatten. The young roosters bring good prices in the fall, and their absence from the farm reduces feed-bills and prevents crowding in the house, which is always disastrous.

Do not delay, after September first, in getting the pullets into their winter quarters, for it is most important that they become accustomed to their new surroundings and reconciled to the change from free range to semi-inactivity. It often takes five or six weeks for them to become accustomed to the new conditions, and, unless they have time to adjust themselves, they won’t start laying until cold weather sets in, which means that the egg-crop is likely to be unprofitably delayed.

JULY IN THE POULTRY-YARD

It is strange that few people except the real poultry-farmers realise that July is one of the most important months in the year. The desire to have eggs in zero weather invariably compels good attention to the hens during the winter. Baby chicks arouse interest in the spring, but as the weather gets warmer, eggs are plentiful, and the pretty, fluffy babies developed into long, lanky creatures, who seem nothing but a nuisance specially ordained to destroy the garden, so the poor things are shut up in small quarters and woefully neglected. During the fall and winter I am repeatedly asked how to make pullets and hens lay, but I can rarely suggest a remedy, because nine times out of ten it is the result of blunders made during the preceding summer.

I don’t believe in sacrificing the garden to the chickens, but I do think they should be properly controlled. A roll of two-inch-mesh wire netting five feet high costs only about four dollars. At the price of eggs nowadays a few dozen will pay for it. Posts can be cut in the wood-lot on most farms, so a yard for a good-sized flock can easily be made for less than five dollars. The best plan is to run a division fence down the centre, so the birds can be confined in one half alternately, for by such means a supply of green food can be kept growing until frost. The ground should be ploughed, and seeded to rye or oats, before the wire is put up. If poultry is to be profitable, the old and young stock must be kept apart, because it is impossible to feed correctly when they are all together. Young birds need plenty of nutritious food to push them along quickly, and laying hens must be put on special rations to bring about early molting, which is the foundation of a good winter supply of eggs.

About July 5th commence to cut down the feed gradually, until at the end of two weeks forty hens are having only a pint of oats and a pint of wheat mixed, night and morning. Scatter it amongst cut straw or some litter, so they will have to scratch for every grain. The first of August commence to increase the rations, and keep it up for a week, so that by the fifteenth they are getting two quarts of mash in the morning, a quart of meat scraps and a pint of cracked corn at noon and wheat and oats or barley at night. Give them just about all they will eat up clean in fifteen minutes. The morning mash should be composed of two parts ground feed (corn and oats), one part white middlings and one part oil-meal, mixed with scalding milk or water. The semi-starvation followed by the heavy feed forces the moulting season and allows plenty of time to feather out and get into condition before October, when their rations should be made up of the essentials for egg-production, which are clover hay, bran, wheat, corn and animal food.

You see, it takes about three months for hens to get rid of their old feathers and put on a new coat, and if the process is not forced in some way, they will not commence before August, which would make it October before they finished. Of course that would be time enough if it happened to be a warm, late fall, but if cold winter weather sets in, as it often does in November, hens would not lay before spring, as moulting leaves them in a more or less debilitated condition.

Lots of people make the mistake of selling off hens as soon as they cease laying at this season, which means that they are usually parting with the birds that would make the real winter layers. Hens that lay through the summer, and do not cease until the fall, will be idle and unprofitable in the winter. It is the general disregard of the moulting period which causes so many failures in the winter supply of eggs. The rule should be to sell off all the hens that have been laying steadily through the summer and commenced to shed feathers in September. Growing feathers is a trying ordeal, and the consequence is that when the hen begins to moult she ceases to lay, for she cannot produce eggs and feathers at the same time.

Feathers are composed largely of nitrogen and mineral matter. That is why the food at moulting time has to be so very nutritious. To feed nothing but corn at such a time is simply waste, as the hen cannot produce new feathers from such a diet. If she is on free range she would have a better chance of gathering the necessary material, but even then, if the feathering process is delayed too long, the hen becomes exhausted, and is susceptible to cold and all sorts of diseases. This is the real reason why roup and swelled head are so prevalent in the fall.

Young birds hatched out in April or thereabouts usually commence to lay in November, because they have not been subject to the drain upon the constitution caused by moulting. But chickens that have been hatched in February or early March are very liable to moult late in the fall, just when they should be commencing to lay. For this reason it is as well to market all the first-hatched chickens, and hold over those hatched late in March or through April, to increase the laying flock.

Cull all young stock down closely. Don’t keep a lot of young cockerels to eat up the profits during the winter. Even pullets which are at all backward should be marketed, for they won’t develop after cold weather sets in, and it does not pay to keep them through for summer layers. Most of the failures made in the poultry business are due to people not having the courage to clean out non-productive birds. Just calculate how many quarts of feed ten growing birds will eat in seven months, and I think you will be convinced that it is unfair to expect the flock to support them and still show a profit. The trouble is that people don’t realise that young stock stand still as soon as cold weather starts, remaining almost stationary until spring. Another evil of keeping undeveloped stock is that they occupy house-room and crowd the older birds.

Now is the time to wage war on vermin, while the bright days last; turn the hens out and have a good housecleaning. Use plenty of hot limewash to which kerosene and crude carbolic acid have been added. If you have two houses, crowd all the birds into one for a few days, and when the empty house has been thoroughly cleaned, commence to catch the birds at night, and powder thoroughly. Use Dalmatian or the home made powder in an ordinary tin flour-dredger, and after shaking a good supply into the feathers, use your hands to rub it well into the fluffy parts near the skin. It is well to repeat the dose about three days after. In thus doing house and birds at the same time, you may be reasonably sure of having exterminated the pests for a few months, at least. Remember to rake up all the falling leaves, to be used for scratching material. A bagful scattered on the floor of the chicken-house once or twice a week will increase the egg-yield and keep the birds healthy during enforced confinement.

Before I forget it, let me remind you not to feed new corn to the fowls. Every year, about this season, I get quantities of letters telling of good, fat hens, the picture of health, which have been found dead. Acute indigestion, brought on by eating unseasoned corn, is the cause. So be careful. If your last year’s supply has run out, it is better to buy a few bags than lose hens on whom you depend for winter eggs. Store all the cabbage or other green vegetables you can before it is too late. Look the house over and stop up all cracks and crevices. A draft from a small hole may give one bird a cold which may develop into roup and infect the whole flock, though an open-front house with only muslin screens may be healthy.

About open-front houses, I don’t believe in them for laying stock. If I were going to carry a lot of young birds or hens which will not lay until April, I might adopt the open-front house as a matter of economy, but not otherwise. I can’t see what is gained by them--that is, in cold latitudes. In the South they are probably all right. We all know that the great percentage of food supplied during cold weather goes to keep up bodily warmth, and that if we expect eggs in zero weather we must supply the hens with sufficient provisions to nourish the body, generate heat and allow a surplus to be converted into eggs. By providing tight, warm sleeping-quarters, we save some of the food which would be used for warmth in a cold house. Plenty of fresh air I do believe in, but everything likes to be warm during the still, dark hours.

I have often seen the argument used that wild birds, which have no houses at all, are always healthy. But how often do we hear about numbers of birds being found dead after a severe storm. What is more, wild birds only lay during the spring of the year. When man upsets Nature’s laws to supply human wants, he should stop quoting Nature’s ways. Our present-day hen, which lays, or is expected to lay, one hundred and eighty to two hundred eggs a year, is a very different creature from the wild hen, and she must be provided with better food, housing and care.

As of course you know, different food materials contain different qualities. Some give us the fat necessary for warmth; others, nitrogenous qualities, which form flesh; still others, minerals, such as lime, soda, etc., etc., needed for bone and muscle. All kinds of animals, birds, and even human beings, require some quantity of these ingredients, otherwise one part of the body or nervous system will be starved, while another will be overfed. With the hen it is of great importance that she have all these different ingredients well blended in her food, as she requires them not only to sustain her in health, but also for the formation of eggs.

We will start with the foods that give the greatest quantity of lime, because it is needed for shell, and some fractional part in the white and yolk, most essential, for it is turned during incubation into bone, the very foundation of the chicken. Clover hay, linseed-meal and wheat bran contain about six pounds of lime in every hundred, and turnip-tops, carrots and all grasses have a goodly percentage. Flesh comes from nitrogenous or albumenal foods, first of which are beef, linseed-meal, middlings, bran, clover hay, wheat and skimmed milk. Fat and heat we get from carbonaceous provenders, among which corn and buckwheat lead, closely followed by oats, wheat, rye, clover hay, linseed-meal and unskimmed milk.

Mineral matter--lime, soda, potash, magnesia and sulphur--is principally formed by the action of digestion reducing the matter containing these ingredients to ash. The usual troubles assailing poultry on most farms come from the feeding of only one of these elements. Poor Biddy has all flesh and no warmth, or all fat and no flesh.

Kill a bird that has been fed on corn only, and it will be heavy with layers of internal fat, but showing a very poor depth of breast-meat. Balancing rations, trying to equalise flesh, fat (warmth) and mineral, is not a very hard proposition when the values of even a few grains and plants are realised.

Having read so far, you will now realise that clover hay, linseed-meal, bran, wheat, oats, beef scraps and unskimmed milk contain practically all the equivalents of summer foods; the addition, therefore, of corn, buckwheat or rye in cold weather is safe and simple if given only as warmth-makers. Never allow the proportion to exceed what is needed for that purpose, or fat will be made and stored, neutralising all your care. In other words, the hen fed on corn only, in order to accumulate the ten parts of flesh and twenty parts of fat needed for the egg, will be compelled to acquire fifty parts more fat than she requires.

Green bone and water now alone remain for consideration. The former is beyond doubt the best of egg foods, qualifying as it does in nearly all the needed elements. Many farmers scoff at the idea of having to pay for a mill to cut up bone for chickens, yet the same men will not grudge a hay-cutter for the horse and cow. Green bone means fresh bone from the butcher, which can be bought for about two cents a pound. The mill to grind it ranges from eight to fifteen dollars.

Green bone contains the natural meat, juices, blood, gristle, oil and mineral matter in soluble condition, which renders it easy of digestion, especially for birds--almost all the components for eggs (white, yolk and shell), in the most concentrated form possible. So, if eggs are to become profitable, the bone-mill must be kept going. When it is impossible to obtain the green or fresh bone, the ground bone sold especially for poultry can be used, though it is not half so satisfactory, because the drying process it has to submit to before grinding leaves little but the phosphate of lime and earthy matter, which clover and bran furnish in better form. At least half the egg is composed of water, surely a sufficient reason for impressing the importance of a generous supply accessible at all times, in clean dishes, of a proper temperature, cool in summer and the chill off in winter.

A FLOCK OF TURKEYS

There are six varieties of turkeys: Bronze, White Holland, Bourbon Reds, black, buff, slate and Narragansett. But the three first are the ones most worth raising specially for market, as they are large birds and the most popular varieties. So it is easy to get good stock, to start with, which is of paramount importance.

A trio of any one of the three varieties will cost from fifteen to twenty dollars, and if only twenty birds are reared the first year for market, they will bring at least sixty dollars. That is placing the average weight at twelve pounds and price twenty-five cents a pound. This is, however, absurd, when you consider that young toms weigh twenty pounds and pullets fifteen, feed could not possibly cost more than ten dollars, which would leave thirty dollars’ profit the first year.

A successful turkey-raiser told me he had kept his birds in yards for twelve years, so I felt safe in adopting the plan. I suppose I ought to have said inclosures, for they covered about half an acre each. The land was shaly, with a rocky background, but there were plenty of clumps of scrub brush and ferns, from the rocks to the top of the two acres they used. The ground sloped to the south; a spot of no earthly good for any other purpose, but perfectly ideal for turkeys.

However, as our farm had no such place, I utilised a strip of poor brush land which had good natural drainage and made three inclosures, each one hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long. An open-front shed twelve feet long and ten feet wide was built in each. They were just rough shelters built out of slabs and the only fittings were perches made out of sassafras poles, none of them less than nine inches in circumference. This is one of the important items in fixing a place for turkeys. Being heavy, large-footed birds, they are uncomfortable and positively suffer if condemned to balance themselves on slight perches such as chickens use.

It took four loads of slabs to make the three sheds, and they cost seventy-five cents a load at the sawmill. Wire netting cost forty-eight dollars, perches and posts were cut in our own woods, and the home help did the work.

I got ten female birds from the Massachusetts farm for fifty dollars and two toms from Long Island for twenty dollars. We sent for the birds early in December so that they should have time to get thoroughly at home in their new quarters before the laying season. Before they arrived, the front of the sheds was covered with wire netting, so that we could keep them shut up at first, but after two or three weeks it was removed and they were allowed the range of the yards. The wire around the inclosure was only four feet high and one wing of each bird was cut to prevent them flying over it.

Early in March a half-barrel was secreted among the brush, in both the occupied yards, so that the hens would be accustomed to their appearance and, we hoped, consider safe hiding-places for their eggs. The plan answered splendidly. About the middle of the month we commenced to keep a lookout for eggs in the half-barrel and for stolen nests. When an egg was found, it was purloined, and a china one put in its place; ditto when the second egg was taken, but after that, no more china eggs were dropped, for two always seemed to satisfy Mrs. Turkey.

Unlike common hens, turkeys are not attracted to a nest by an egg. In fact, they retain so much of the wild bird that they will not adopt a nest that has been used by any other bird, so never distribute nest-eggs as decoys, but only as substitutes for those abstracted.

The matter of feeding the old birds is of great importance and is the rock most farmers founder on. Too often the birds are left to forage for themselves or, at the best, are given uncertain quantities of corn, which means that they are miserably thin and dilapidated or outrageously fat. In either case they lack the components which the egg for hatching should possess. Result, weak youngsters which are doomed to die, no matter how much care is lavished on them.

I once heard an old poultryman say that the care of the chick must commence when its mother is hatched. This may seem ambiguous to the amateur, but it is literally a fact and one which my Massachusetts friend had made me understand was most potent when applied to turkeys. So our turkeys are fed with special reference to supplying the ingredients to be converted into bone and vigour in the birds to be. Breakfast: Chopped clover-hay, steamed overnight, two quarts; corn and oats ground together, one quart; beef-scraps, half a pint. At noon, one quart of oats, Kafir-corn or barley scattered broadcast in the yards. At night, whole corn when the weather is very cold, but as it moderates in the spring the amount is decreased and wheat is used in its place.

These are their regular rations from December to April, when the beef-scraps and corn are entirely omitted. Water and grit is before them all the time. We buy screenings from the stone-crusher and, as it is cheap, dump a lot into each yard twice a year.

I generally steal the first ten eggs from each nest and set them under the hens. However many a turkey lays after that, she is allowed to keep and hatch them. It takes them twenty-nine days to hatch, and large, motherly old hens should be chosen from the chicken-house to do the incubating. It is not safe to put more than five such eggs under an ordinary hen.

When the hatch is over, put the hen into a brood-coop and, in front of it, put a box about nine inches deep and large enough to form a yard for the babies to exercise in. It is, of course, necessary to remove part or the whole of the end of the box which joins the front of the coop, so that the little ones can run in and out. Cover the bottom of the box with coarse sand and put a small drinking-fountain in one corner. Thus the babies will have a safe place to play in the first few days of infancy, when they must be kept dry. After that the box can be removed and the coop moved a few feet every day for the sake of cleanliness.

When Mrs. Turkey’s brood hatches, we treat them in the same way, only the brood-coop is specially made and is much larger than the ordinary hen-coop. The first feed the babies have is stale home-made bread soaked in scalded milk, which is squeezed out of it before it is fed. Like little chicks, they must have nothing for twenty-four hours, then little and often must be the rule.

Never leave food in front of little turkeys, for they are very apt to overeat. After two weeks they need only be fed four times a day; after the fourth week three times a day. After the first two days add a little hard-boiled egg which has been chopped fine, without removing the shell, and a few days later, pin-head oatmeal and ground charcoal; about a teaspoonful of the latter to a cupful of bread and oatmeal.

By the end of two weeks gradually reduce the bread and increase the oatmeal, which should be cooked about half an hour and allowed to dry out, so it is easily crumbled when cool.

After the fourth week, ordinary ground oats, just moistened with scalding milk, may be used. Half-boiled liver, chopped fine, is the best animal food to give. When that is not practicable, use the best brand of commercial ground beef, one teaspoonful to a quart of meal, because it is very strong and liable to produce diarrhea, a disease which attacks young turkeys almost sooner than any other young bird. Watch carefully and at the first evidence of any looseness of the bowels give boiled rice to eat and rice-water or cold tea to drink.

Watch newly-hatched babies for a few days at feed-time, for there is often one or more that needs to be taught how to eat. This is especially so when they are with common hens. But a little patience in crumbling close in front of them and coaxing them to pick it up will overcome the difficulty. After they are eight weeks old we take them from the hens and put them into the third yard, which is kept exclusively for young stock.

At night they are driven into the shed, the front of which is always kept covered with wire netting, so that they can be closed in until they get accustomed to roosting. Of course, the perches in this shed are put nearer the ground and are much smaller than those intended for grown birds. About October 1st they are allowed the free range of the farm and are fed on corn at night and given all the milk they will drink, to get them into good killing condition before Thanksgiving, when they are all sold off, except perhaps a few extra good ones, which we may keep for stock. The old birds are also allowed free range from October until February, but they are fed in the yards at night and are shut in so that they don’t form any bad wandering habits.

In buying stock, be generous and get the very best, from some well-known turkey-raiser. Ordinary farm stock is so apt to be inbred that, although the birds may look all right, it is not safe to buy them for breeding purposes, as a want of stamina will surely show in the youngsters.

For the same reason it is best to get the hen-birds from one place and the toms from another. If you are going to keep Bourbon Reds or bronze, it is advisable to buy half-wild toms. These are the result of crossing wild gobblers with domestic hens, which is done by large breeders to infuse new blood and keep up the vigour of their stock. Personally, I like the White Holland turkey best, as they are domesticated and bear confinement well.

If you are only going to keep a few birds, say a trio or five hens and a gobbler, large yards are not necessary, but a shed over which netting can be put, should always be set apart for their use, so that they can be fed and shut up at night. Never, under any circumstances, keep any of the pullets you raise, unless you change your gobbler. Don’t let two gobblers run with the flock at the same time. If you want to increase your number of birds, you must either put up inclosures or alternate the gobblers every two days.

DUCKS AND GEESE

Ducks are so profitable that I cannot understand why so few keep them, unless it is the mistaken idea that they must have a stream or pond in which to swim. It is true that the old-fashioned puddle duck did seem a miserable creature out of water, but the improved strains are almost as much land birds as chickens are. My stock started with two ducks and a drake which had cost me seven dollars. The first season I raised fifty-eight, sold forty-six, and kept twelve to stock. They were ready for market when eleven weeks old, and the lowest price was eighteen cents a pound.

Ducks must have dry, comfortable quarters, but a splendid house for twenty ducks can be made on any farm for a dollar, or even less. One man who keeps large flocks makes duck houses with hurdles of green boughs for walls and roof, the outside padded with leaves, straw, corn stalks or cedar boughs. Each house is six feet by four feet and two and one half feet high, and accommodates seven ducks and a drake.

Dry-goods boxes, costing ten cents at any village store, can be made comfortable for a small flock. The main point is to keep them dry, which depends almost more on the care given to the covering of the floor than the wall of the house. Good, dry bedding, changed at least twice a week, will keep them warm and happy through the coldest weather.

Ducks’ eggs bring good prices during February and March. You can easily get them to laying by then, as it depends principally on feeding. Ducks, like geese or cattle, must have a good percentage of bulk material and green stuff, as well as concentrated grain feed. Clover hay, or even mixed hay, chopped and steamed, about half a pailful with a pint of coarsely ground corn-meal and the same of bran mixed through it, is about right. If hay is short, chop corn stalks small, and steam. Chopped vegetables of all kinds are good, but pumpkins, potatoes and beets are fattening; so, unless the weather is very cold, omit the corn when they are fed, using more bran or screenings in its place.

In the summer have the children gather plantain, dock, groundsel or any other non-poisonous weeds. Have sugar barrels ready, and pack in the weeds while fresh. Get a heavy, solid board rounded off to fit inside the barrel, put on top of the green stuff, and weight down with heavy stones. Pad up tight with paper, sawdust, straw or any loose material, and replace the head of the barrel. When snow covers the ground, such food will increase the eggs from both ducks and chickens.

Oak leaves, acorns and pig hickories do not take long to gather in the fall, and will tone up the appetites of pigs, chickens and ducks late in January, when they are getting tired of grain feed.

Imperial Pekin, Rouen and Indian Runners have been the best market breeds of ducks for some years past, and are still splendid fellows, both for eggs and table, and their new rivals, the Buff Orpington ducks, quite equal them as utility birds.

Ducks make such bad mothers that it is better to hatch their eggs under hens or in incubators. The first few eggs a duck lays each season are seldom fertile. Eleven are a full sitting, and it requires twenty-eight days for their hatching. Examine the nest every two or three days after setting the hen, for bad eggs. A weak germ that dies causes the egg to decompose, and the odour once smelled can never be forgotten.

Examine the nest when the hen comes off to feed, and take away the eggs that are dark and mottled. If you fancy an egg looks wrong, pick it up and smell it; that and its sticky touch assure you, for the egg is porous. If you have been using an incubator to hatch chicks you can test with a proper tester, and this must be done all the time from the fourth to the fifteenth day.

When the hatch is over at the end of the twenty-eighth day, have ready a box about a foot deep and three feet long, the top out and one end taken off. Place the open end against the coop door, so making a little run, with a board floor covered with an inch of dry sand or earth. Baby ducks need even more protection from damp than chicks; therefore, if the weather is bad, keep the coop and run under cover, and if fine, the shade of a tree is necessary, for the little fellows can’t stand the full sun. After a week the hen can be removed, but keep them within bounds on short grass, not letting them out until the dew is gone.

For twenty-four hours feed nothing. First week: Half a pint of rolled oats, some cracker or stale bread crumbs, two hard-boiled eggs chopped fine, half a cupful of coarse sand just moistened with milk. Feed four times a day just what they will eat in ten minutes.

Second and third weeks: Half a pound of ground oats, the same of wheat bran, one-fourth of a pint of corn-meal, the same of coarse sand, two tablespoonfuls of beef meal, a pint of finely cut green clover, rye or cabbage moistened with scalded milk. They must be fed four times a day.

Fourth to sixth week: Boil a quart of hulled oats for an hour, add a pint of corn-meal, wheat bran, half a pint of fine grit, the same of beef scraps and a quart of clover or any kind of green food. Feed four times a day.

Sixth to tenth week: One quart of corn-meal, a pint of wheat bran, a pint of boiled oats, a pint of beef scraps, half a pint of grit, a tablespoonful of charcoal and a pint of clover. Feed three times a day.

They should be ready to kill the eleventh week.

Do not let the ducks, young or old, get frightened if you can possibly help it. They are nervous things. No matter what you feed, if they are frightened or made to run daily, they will not fatten. If you go about them gently they are the easiest things to drive any distance, for where one goes, all follow; hurry them and they will scatter, and it is good-bye to them for hours.

The feed for those to be kept for stock is the same up to three weeks old, but from that on one quart of ground feed, one quart of bran, half a pint of grit and half a pint of beef scraps. Mix moist with milk, water, sour milk or buttermilk, and feed night and morning. If on a free range this is all they want. If not, you must add clover or vegetables, and feed three times a day. Remember always to have fresh, clean water before them.

When ducks are ten or eleven weeks old they should be in condition for market. Early green ducks should weigh not more than four and one-half pounds, while later ducks cannot be too heavy. As a rule early ducks mature very unevenly, making it necessary to sort them over often.

Ducks are fit to dress for only a short time. They “go back,” as it is termed, for they shed and grow a new lot of feathers, which takes all the fat and all your profit. Hence the importance of turning them into money as soon as possible.

In dressing it is most desirable to dry pick. Although some still scald, dry-picked stock sells better than scalded, especially when the market is dull, for it can be frozen, while scalded stock cannot. For dry picking have a box for the feathers. It may be of any size you wish on the ground, and should be of such depth that the top edge is one or two inches lower than your knee when in a sitting position. To use for cooling the ducks, saw a coal-oil barrel in two; use one-half for cooling, the other half for clear water to put them in after washing.

To kill, catch the feet in the left hand, and the neck near the breast with the right hand, then with a swinging motion (the same as in using an axe), strike the back of the head against a post with sufficient force to start the blood from the ears. Now with a quick motion place the body under your left arm, catching the back of the head and the top of the bill in the left hand. Using a knife with a five-inch blade, make a cut crosswise at the base of the brain, then turn the edge to the roof of the mouth, and slash outward, being careful not to split the bill. Let the blood run for two seconds.

Sit down. Place your knees against the neck just tight enough to keep it in place. If too much pressure is put on, it will stop the flow of blood and give the flesh a red appearance. Hold the feet and wings in the left hand. Commence picking at the vent, then the breast and neck. The feathers are left on half the neck, and on the wings from the first joint out. Pick clean as you go, for once the duck gets cold, it will be hard to pick. Experts use a shoemaker’s knife ground thin, and strop it the same as a razor, to shave the pin and small feathers off.

After picking, put them into ice water or cold spring water until the animal heat is gone; then wash the feet, and wash all clots of blood from the mouth and throat; then put into another vessel of water, which takes all the stains off and gives a nice clean appearance. After they are clean you can put them into a barrel or box with crushed ice, and if left for twelve to twenty-four hours in this condition they can be shipped a long distance with but little ice. To make dressed ducks show up good it is necessary to take them out of clean water at the finish. The second vessel should have clean water put in as soon as it gets cloudy.

When packing for shipment, use flour or sugar barrels. Pack with back down, putting the head under the wing. Pack close, and leave a space on top for ice. Raise the top hoop, place burlap on top, drive the hoop on again, with the burlap under, and nail firmly. Before using, the barrel should be thoroughly washed. Bore two three-fourths-inch holes in the bottom, to drain.