M5 



CHAPTER VIII 



POULTRY FARMING. 



THE subject of this chapter is a wide one, 

 which appears to act in a pecuUar manner 

 upon some temperaments. The number 

 of people, utterly ignorant of poultry, who believe 

 firmly that a living is to be made by keeping 

 a lot of fowls, and that it is an easy outdoor 

 business anyone can go into and prosper in, 

 and which will exactly suit their health and 

 pocket and disposition, is amazing. At the 

 other extreme are certain writers to whom any 

 mention of poultry-farming, or any advice to 

 faru'icrG to keep poultry more largely and make 

 money by them, seems to act like a red rag 

 before a bull. It is curious also how people of 

 this type always want to insist that poultry- 

 farming, to be called such, must be " pure and 

 simple," as if other farming was anything of the 

 kind. Farming of any sort is of necessity a 

 somewhat complex pursuit, and no one that has 

 ever advised the production of poultry or eggs 

 upon any extended scale — however ignorant or 

 ill-advised he may be — has failed to point out 

 the necessity for some other product in con- 

 nection therewith, if only to utilise the manure. 

 Certainly, the poultry-fattening described in the 

 pievious chapter, when carried on alone, by pur- 

 chasing birds only to be fed in cages, cannot 

 claim such a name, for where there is no land 

 there can be no " farm." But as soon as we find 

 rearing chickens upon land, in connection with 

 even that, and the manure used, and cereals and 

 milk given to tlie fowls, and sold through their 

 flesh or eggs rather than direct, there we have 

 more or less of poultry-farming. We shall 

 dismiss all such quibbles by understanding here 

 as " poultry-farming," land worked more or less 

 in conjunction with poultry, or poultry kept 

 otherwise than in a small pen; not for health, or 

 occupation, or as a hobby, or to provide a {(^v^ 

 eggs for only family use, but with the declared 

 object of making 7noney by the proceedings, and 

 with no other end in view. 



The most obvious phase of this matter is a 

 .crreat extension of the usual amount of poultry 

 upon a farm, and systematic looking after it ; 

 but we are told by some that even this is not 

 practicable beyond a very small scale. To 



quote one well-known writer, " Neither poultry, 

 pheasants, nor turkeys can be reared year alter 

 year successfully upon the same ground," and, 

 therefore, " as many fowls can be kept near the 

 homestead of a small 30-acre farm as can be 

 kept on one of 300 or 3,000 acres," as if health 

 in rearing was not entirely a matter of adequate 

 ground to keep healthy, or as if anyone of 

 common sense would keep the poultry stock 

 of a large farm " round the homestead " at all, 

 or otherwise than spread out over his fields. 

 This is the mere dogmatism of ignorance ; and 

 not a single case has yet been reported of any 

 farmer who has gone largely into poultry m the 

 manner presently described, having had to cease 

 from tainted ground. The real difficulty is 

 quite different and very simple. Previous pages 

 will have shown that in gross return per bird 

 in proportion to keep, a fowl far surpasses any 



other live stock. But it has the 

 The Real tremendous drawback that it is a 

 Difficulty. small unit : the products have to be 



realised in numerous small detached 

 items from small animals, which yet require 

 more care than sheep. Hence the constant 

 liability to small losses and wastes, and the 

 difificulty of organising such oversight as shall 

 prevent these, and the e.xpense of such separa- 

 tion as shall keep things in hand Tlie great 

 difficulty is that of labour, and next to that, the 

 cost of accommodation and fencing. Land or 

 rent is no difficulty at all ; even if devoted to 

 laying hens at the rate of an acre per hundred, 

 it is not rent that will cause failure : it is a 

 question of egg-product in proportion to the 

 cost of food, labour, and interest on capital. 



But while grass land will maintain well and 

 in health 100 fowls per acre in perpetuity, run 

 upon half of it for half the time, and then upon 

 the other half, a dozen fowls per acre can be 

 run upon a farm without in any way interfering 

 with other stock or other purposes ; not " round 

 the homestead," of course, but provided they 

 can be distributed over the farm. We stated 

 this fact twenty-six years ago, to be repeatedly 

 derided for the statement ; but that same fact 

 !S now the commonplace of County Council 



