76 WYANDOTTES. 



when at the point of staggering from other causes. It will be a vast 

 help to him in the absence of experience. It will suggest to him 

 that old fowls are not profitable, that the days of their usefulness 

 have passed, and that the longer they are kept the worse they will 

 getting and the greater the bill of expense. If you want to make 

 a profit on fowl stock, keep no hen after she passes her third year, 

 except she is an extraordinarily well marked bird, or has some other 

 vaftable quality; and if breeding for market, two-year old hens 

 should be fattened and sold in the fall before moulting. If one 

 laboft to procure means of support and something to lay by for old 

 age oppressing necessity, it is a poor plan to keep a lot of old hens 

 which\ay one day and rest six; which have not enough ambition to 

 lose si^it of the corn crib; which, as a rule, are diseased in some 

 way; are lousy and lazy, with huge bunches on their legs, or bag- 

 ging down behind from fat or old tumors in the oviduct, and whose 

 flesh would be as tough as that of a rhinoceros. 



Care has much to do with making fowls profitable and also 

 improving their looks. No one should take on himself the respon- 

 sibility and guardianship of fowls without giving them needed care. 

 Food will give nourishment, repair the wastes of the system, enrich 

 the blood, furnish the material for eggs and nutriment for growth 

 and flesh; but if the birds be neglected, have poor and illy venti- 

 lated quarters, damp and unclean sleeping places or yards, the 

 quantity or quality of the food fed to them will not counteract the 

 effects of bad care. Care, however, does not imply that they should 

 be stuffed like a bolster, or coddled by over zeal or mistaken kind- 

 ness; care is that which bestows with a kind hand an adequate sup- 

 ply for their wants. 



CLEANLINESS. This is the most important duty in the routine 

 of care, and we cannot too strongly impress its observance on the 

 breeder. It matters not how good the stock may be in the beginning, 

 how well they may be fed, if scrupulous cleanliness be not observed, 

 all goes for nothing. There is no dodging or avoiding the effects 

 of uncleanliness ; all the condition powders, elixirs, or chicken 

 nostrums in existence cannot keep a flock of fowls in good health 

 and laying condition while they eat, scratch, wallow and remain day 

 or night in a foul smelling house and " up to their knees " in their 

 own fetid droppings. If one has a heart in the right place, and is a 

 lover of cleanliness and tidiness, he will not allow filth to accumulate 

 in the houses or runs. Many a sickly hen, many which have ceased 

 laying, and many an emaciated and piping chicken, can lawfully 



