678 IOWA DEPARTMENT O'P AGRICULTURE 



chick. When I begin I give them dry bread, oatmeal and chickfeed. 

 Tlie first week they get only sweet milk to drink. In two or three 

 weeks I begin feeding corn meal and chickfeed. I never give them the 

 raw meal, but always bake it thoroughly. It makes lots of work but 

 it pays well. Now, I come to the part of the poultry business I like 

 so well. The work with the turkeys. Almost without exception I hear 

 the people say, "The little turkeys are so hard to raise." I am glad 

 to be able to differ with them. I do not remember having lost any with 

 the baby cholera, the trouble turkey raisers dread so much. 



I keep the big bronze as pure in stock as I am able to get. In selecting 

 the hens I keep the very largest. 



Some have trouble in having the hens wander off to make their nests. 

 After the snow melts and the turkeys begin to leave the barns and 

 come around the house I go out every morning and feed them a little 

 bread. They soon begin to look for it and become so tame they will 

 eat from my hand. Those hens will not wander far from the home place, 

 you may be sure. Like the little chick, the young turkey is not given 

 anything to eat for a couple of days. The feed consists of chopped 

 hard-boiled eggs and onions, using both top and bulb, with a sprinkle of 

 pepper, though I do not think the latter necessary. I use the sweet, white 

 pepper for turkeys and chickens. They get only sweet milk to drink 

 for a couple of weeks and when I begin to let them have water I give 

 them only a little at first. After a while I mix a little dry bread and 

 oatmeal with the egg with always plenty of onion. The curd from 

 sour milk makes fine feed. They are fed regularly every other hour for 

 two weeks. The first two weeks I keep them in a pen made of boards, 

 with a large box in one end for the hen to roost. The pen is only a 

 board or two high, so the hen can be outside. I have it in a grassy 

 place. When I first let the turkeys out I watch that they do not get too 

 far away and always get them home at night. In a few days the hen 

 learns to come home to roost. I then feed them about five times a day. 

 It means some hours of walking, but regular feeding means healthy 

 turkeys. Their first feed all summer long is about four o'clock in the 

 morning. About harvest time they get only breakfast and supper. 

 Even in the fall, when the corn is in the field, I feed them at night, 

 as it makes them eager to come home. When I see a heavy storm come 

 up I bring them home for shelter. When they do get soaked I begin 

 doctoring them at once as I have found in dealing with turkeys "an 

 ounce of prevention is worth a .pound of cure." I take bread, quantity 

 regulated by number and size of turkeys, using -as many as three loaves 

 of bread. For that amount of bread I take from two to three teaspoons 

 of balsam mixed in the quantity of milk needed to moisten the bread, 

 with a generous sprinkling of pepper. In a little while the little fel- 

 lows are as spry as ever. The bread has satisfied hunger, the pepper 

 has warmed them and the balsam has prevented bowel trouble. I use 

 several bottles of the balsam during the summer for chickens and turkeys 

 and like it better than anything I have found. When they begin to 

 eat corn they need plenty of shells. Shelter from the cold fall rains. 



