The Scrub Hen Turned to Business. 11 



ordinary flock of scrub poultry contains a large number of surplus 

 roosters — too many for any practical use. Lice, starvation, lack of shelter 

 and surplus roosters are the chief reasons why many of these worthy 

 hens remain scrubs. In every such flock there is the foundation for a 

 class of poultry that will be a credit to the farm, and pay better in propor- 

 tion to value than any other stock. If the farmer does not care for the 

 job of improvement some woman or child may well take hold of it. 



What can be done? 



The flock is probably inbred — that is, all of one family. Kill oflF all 

 the roosters and eat or sell them. Pick out 15 or 20 of the best of the 

 hens, and make some good-sized yard where they can have a good run. 

 Make up your mind what class of poultry you want to breed, and then 

 buy a Leghorn, a Wyandotte or a Plymouth Rock rooster from some good 

 breeder. Don't go to a neighbor and "swap roosters," but get a bird that 

 cannot be closely related to your hens. If you can pick out yearling hens, 

 buy a young rooster. If the hens are j'ounger buy an older male. Put 

 him with your selected hens, and use those eggs for setting. You need no 

 other rooster on the farm. If the flock is small you may not want to 

 pen up the selected hens, but unless you do you cannot be sure that your 

 eggs for hatching will be what you want. The improvement made in one 

 season by the use of a good male on selected hens is often surprising. If 

 you can do so, buy one or two settings of eggs of the same breed as the 

 rooster, and hatch them under your hens. Get them from diflterent 

 breeders. Then you can select a good rooster from the chicks for the next 

 year's breeding. As soon as the young roosters are large enough to kill 

 sell or eat them. Keep only one good one on the farm — with your best 

 hens. Do not let the hens hatch where the other hens lay, or send them 

 off to steal their nests. You must control such things if you expect to 

 improve your stock. Find some old building or room, clean it up and 

 handle the sitting hens as described elsewhere in this book. It will take 

 more time to give the hens and chicks this care, but it will pay, as many 

 a farmer's wife has found. When cold weather comes, a warm house will 

 be absolutely necessary. This does not mean an expensive building, but a 

 shelter of any kind where the hens may be comfortable. In parts of the 

 West a frame of poles is set up and covered with straw in November. 

 The hens run inside this warm shelter and do well. In May the straw 

 is taken away and burned, or used for the garden. The success with such 

 rude shelter shows that it is not so much the kind of house, but the 

 warmth and freedom from drafts, frost, lice and foul air that makes the 

 hen think that Spring has come in February. On every farm where there are 

 hens there is some old henhouse. Clean it up and try it. Go at it with 

 hoe and boiling water, and make it clean! Take out the roosts, paint 

 them with kerosene, and swab out the cracks and corners. Make a thick 



