222 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



that the turkey is a large fowl, Tt must have time to grow large 

 and strong before frost, and this, unnatural late hatching prevents. 

 A dunghill hen is not constituted to hatch and mother little turkeys. 

 Her own egg is much smaller than the turkey's and to incubate this 

 big egg, she has a lower hatching heat than the Mother Turkey. 

 She is a louse incubator and is so bughouse that she cares not if they 

 crawl from stem to stern and her lousy feather-bed is not large nor 

 sanitary enough to accommodate the growing poults, which soon 

 lift her off her feet, and, then, in a month, induced by her favorite 

 rooster, she goes to laying and leaves the poults to be cared for by 

 the bungling human who nature-faked the job. But Mother Turkey 

 was created for this work and her wide wings and warm breast and 

 soft, deep feathers, give her babies roomy shelter until they are big 

 and strong and in full plumage and fly upward and roost with the 

 birds. Then, too, what does a chicken know about feeding little tur- 

 keys? She is a scavanger, and has become so depraved that she will 

 stoop to anything to catch the early worm. Her first act in the tur- 

 key tragedy is to drag the sweet-voiced little poult into the cozy barn- 

 yard, to dig them a meal of filthy maggots, vile worms and germs, 

 and to teach them to drink from the cow-tracks in the microbial 

 mess. Then she leads them to the old slat corn-crib, the chicken 

 confectionery, and stuffs them with grease-maker, and from there 

 she takes them to the filthy hog-pen, where if the hogs don't get them, 

 the microbes do. 



But with good old Mother Turkey, how different Her downy 

 darlings are not born in a dusty nest under a lousy, scabby-legged 

 old cluck, but in the fragrant wood, or in a dewy nest among the 

 wild flowers and tall grasses; and they open their wondering eyes, 

 not on an old red mite, or rat-hole hen-coop, but on God's sweet, beau- 

 tiful world. And their natural mother trills them away from bung- 

 ling humans and filthy barnyards to green hills and fields afar, 

 where natural turkey-food abounds, and there, amid shady dells and 

 daisies, and crimson clover and crystal springs, they mature into 

 the beautiful birds the Creator intended them to be. 



FEEDING TURKEY POULTS 



To feed little turkeys successfully, we must follow Mother Tur- 

 key's plan. Sit on the fence and watch her feed them in the field. 

 She finds a bug here, a worm there, a clover-leaf yonder, and how 

 the little fellows run to get the tidbits she offers. What is she 

 feeding them anyhow? She is feeding them protein, the builder; 

 protein, that life-giving principle, that constituent of food that 

 makes red blood and muscle. (See Fig. 8). 



This builder, the main food of most bird life, is found in almost 

 pure state in insects, the favorite food of turkeys; and a flock, as 

 they march in line across the field, make a clean sweep of bugs and 

 wigglers; the pestiferous grasshopper and army- worm being their 

 especial delight. 



The difference between Mother Turkey's feeding method and that 

 of the nature faker is — the latter feeds mostly carbo-hydrates, instead 

 of protein, and the difference between protein and carbo-hydrates 

 is that one builds, and the other fattens and makes heat. That's 

 why thousands of turkey poults die early in the season and thou- 



