692 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



All these we carried into the house, turned them heads down, held their 

 bills open and let the water run out. After that they were wrapped in 

 a warm cloth and put in a warm place. Of this unfortunate twenty-one 

 we saved fifteen. 



Then a careless feeding. A friend of mine, newly turned poultry 

 raiser, heard that meat is good for fowls. She boiled a ham, and not to 

 waste the rich liquor left, soaked bread in it and fed it to one hundred 

 thriving chickens. Result: seventy-five cold in death in less than a half 

 hour. She now knows that a quantity of salt in any form is fatal to 

 chickens. 



It is said that every one sometime during his life is attacked bj' 

 the poultry raising fever. I had my first atta«k one year ago and I am 

 still under the spell. 



I wonder if your incubator experience was similar to mine? According 

 to directions I experimented with the incubator for a week before putting 

 in the eggs. Then very carefully I put in fifty eggs. To be sure that the 

 temperature varied but little I watched the thermometer closely by day 

 and twice every night. During the six weeks in which I operated that 

 incubator (for I tried it twice) I became so accustomed to looking at 

 the thermometer at night that several tim.es I waked to find myself up and 

 groping my way toward that hatching machine. 



At the end of the first three weeks I took out twenty downy chicks. 

 (Of the original fifty eggs, I tested out twelve as infertile at the end 

 of twelve days.) A motherly old hen immediately adopted these chickens, 

 and thus was my first venture with poultry launched. 



The food we gave these chickem; was a prepared chick food that we 

 bought here. We fed it dry and it proved to be an excellent preparation. 

 The chickens thrived and there was but little bowel trouble among the 

 fiock. 



At the end of the second week we began mixing dry ground corn with 

 the prepared food, gradually reducing the proportion of prepared food and 

 increasing the corn ratio until by the end of the third week they were 

 on a ground corn ration. We continued to give the prepared food occas- 

 ionally; perhaps two or three times a week, as a change. The chickens 

 continued healthy and the dry. ground corn proved satisfactory, and was 

 more economical than the other preparation. 



As the chickens grew and thrived we reducerl the feed, thus making 

 them rustle for themselves. Most of the time during the summer they 

 had two small feeds a day; one in the morning and again at night. About 

 once a week we mixed a quantity of beef scraps with bran, moistened it, • 

 and fed it to all the poultry. 



The hen is one of the most valuable assets of her owner. Given 

 A^arm. clean, dry, sunny quarters, proper food, and clean, fresh water 

 (\Y-arm in winter), the hen v/ill soon pay for herself many times over. 

 Wiiere ijoultry has free ranee in the summer, they need be fed but little. 

 See that they have an abundance of water and good dust baths. Of course 

 we all know that grit in the form of gravel, sand, or ground oyster shell 

 must be before them constantlv. 



