CHAPTER XV. 



MANAGEMENT OF YOL'NG CHICKENS. 



In keeping poultry on a large scale, there is no one 

 thing more important, or more difficult to manage, than 

 the chicken department. A failure in the yearly supply 

 of pullets, with which to recruit the stock of layers, 

 would be fatal to the whole plan. It is quite an easy 

 matter to raise nearly every chick of a hardy breed, when 

 there are but a few upon an extensive range, but it is 

 the reverse when we are desirous of rearing several hun- 

 dreds upon an acre, and there is, practically, no insect 

 forage at all. If there are persons who consider the 

 occupation of a poulterer as "small potatoes," believing 

 that it needs less thought and skill than to manage a 

 cotton mill or a mercantile establishment, or horses and 

 cattle, let them try once to raise chickens by the thou- 

 sand, without losing money, and find the need of keep- 

 ing their wits as sharp as in more pretentious kinds of 

 business. Yet, all difficulties may be surmounted by 

 thorough management. 



To have strong chickens, it is necessary, while devel- 

 oping the desired strain, to avoid breeding akin, and to 

 keep the breeding stock in a condition as near to normal 

 as possible, securing for them sun, air and exercise, and 

 avoiding a pampering diet. The greater the number of 

 eggs produced by a fowl, the less vitality there will be in 

 each, therefore the first only of a laying should be set. 

 Early chickens are the most certain to live, and this is 

 because force is stored up in the parent before laying 

 commences, sufficient to endow the first eggs or chickens 



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