FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 417 



POULTRY RAISING. 



Mrs. B. F. Wilcoxen, Okaboji, Iowa, Before the Dickinson County Institute. 



I am placed in a complicated position, being asked to talk on poultry on 

 the farm, little chicks, the use of the incubator and care of brooder chicks. 

 Therefore, I can not do myself or the subject justice in a few minutes. I'll 

 not go into details, but hope you will get my idea. 



Three years ago I knew nothing whatever about poultry, but had the 

 fever badly, and expect it will have to subside in the show room. The 

 height of my ambition was to have a lot of hens, sell the eggs, and make 

 money. We moved from town on to the farm December 2d. There was 

 not a henhouse on the place. In January we built a henhouse, not a very 

 warm one for this cold climate; bought one hundred Bared Rock hens and 

 placed them in the henhouse. I next racked my brains as to what to feed. 

 1 had read that red pepper would make them lay, and to put carbolic acid 

 in their drinking water. I first made an enormous mash of bran and 

 red pepper. When I put the pepper in I thought if a little was good , 

 more was better. I used the same rule with the carbolic acid as I did 

 with the red pepper. That afternoon a number of the hens were laying on 

 the floor in the henhouse in the greatest agony. My husband said: "I 

 wonder what ails those hens. You must have fed them too much. " I replied, 

 ' 'I do not think so," but all I could think of was red pepper and carbolic 

 acid. That night several of them laid. Those kind lay more and eat less. 

 Nevertheless, I consoled myself with the fact that that was just an old habit 

 that heos have; they preferred death to the ' treatment they sometimes 

 receive. 



We did not get any eggs all winter. The following summer I succeeded 

 in raising eight hundred chicks. The next winter I got lots of eggs, and 

 began to learn how to handle a flock of chickens. The following summer 

 I raised and sold two thousand chickens. This season I expect to raise 

 between three thousand and four thousand, also some fancy birds, having 

 just paid $25 per hundred for barred Rock eggs and Silver Laced Wyan- 

 dottes at the rate of $5.00 per setting. It is the start that costs. Never- 

 theless it will pay in the end and pay well. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POULTRYMAN. 



The poultry business is not one that has its pathway strewn with roses. 

 Many obstacles arise from time to time that almost cause one to seek other 

 vocations in life. There is just as much hard work in it, both mentally and 

 physically, as there is in any mercantile business. Mentally in trying to 

 solve the problem why every egg did not hatch, why some chicks die in the 

 shell, and how and what to feed to obtain the best results. And physically 

 in keeping the poultry houses clean, feeding and watering the stock. 



No season is without its cares, but at certain times lack of care is most 

 disastrous, houses should be cleaned frequently at all seasons. Warm 

 weather increases the degree of filth, and with it lice and mites appear. It 

 io not all sailing on flowery beds of ease. If those who are climbing the 

 ladder of success or nearing its top in the poultry business would tell of the 



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