700 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



small barnyard, keeping them all in every morning until they have 

 depoisted their eggs in their barrel nests that I have arranged around 

 the outside of the interior of the yard. This is usually about 10 o'clock, 

 After that they are given liberty for the rest of the day, but after they 

 have commenced laying in a particular nest it is not necessary to yard 

 them, as they vs^ill always take to the same nest. But should any of 

 tliem get the best of you and steal her nest, just catch her after she has 

 gone on her perch at night and keep her closed up the next day until 

 about 9 o'clock. When you let her out pull off yaur hat, coat and vest and 

 prepare yourself for a chase, for she is going to cut right across lots, 

 straight to her nest, and unless you are somewhat of a lean, lanky fellow 

 she is going to get there before you do. 



HOW TO SECURE UNIFOBMITY. 



No matter how the hatching is to be done, whether by hens or 

 machinery, be sure and make a wholesale job of it. This practice tliat 

 a great many have of setting a hen as soon as they have accumulated 

 eight or nine eggs, doing the same thing again in three or four days, 

 is certainly a great mistake. Yeu will see that by this practice you have 

 your young poults of all ages and sizes, which means that you have to 

 have two or three varieties of feed around, and it also means that the 

 larger one are going to trample on and rob the smaller ones. But the 

 worst feature of it is when you come to market in the fall you will have 

 a very inferior lot of uneven turkeys to sell, and will probably have to 

 take from 1 to 3 cents per pound less than you would if you had saved 

 up the eggs as fast as they were laid, keeping them in a temperature of 

 about 60 degrees and turned them half over every other day until about 

 May 1. At this time onr turkey hens have nearly all finished laying their 

 first clutch. These hens are put right to work doing the same thing over 

 again, for I consider a turkey hen's time too valuable to spend sitting 

 on eggs at this season of the year, so my hatching is done in incubators, 

 and after hatching the young poults are all given to turkey hens, for 

 I consider this the only profitable way to rear turkeys. All farms are 

 teeming with animal life, nature's food, so to speak, and where they are 

 given to the turkey hen to raise they take a range outside of what our 

 common fowl do, which is just the condition we are after. 



CARE OF YOUNG POULTS. 



Where hatching is done with machines a great loss sometimes occurs 

 through their getting chilled, for not knowing the call of the turkey hen 

 they are liable to wander away from the rest of the brood. My method 

 is to leave them in the machine until they are good and strong — say about 

 thirty-six to forty-eight hours after the hatch is all done — and supposing 

 of course, that your turkey hen has been sitting for at least four days. 

 Then the little ones are placed in a comfortable box or basket and are 

 carried and placed under the turkey hen just about sundown. Before 

 morning they will take kindly to their new stepmother. Then about 9 

 or 10 o'clock the next morning the young stock are again placed In their 



