CHAPTER XL 



The Colony Plan. 



By this is meant the plan of letting the hens run at large in a field. 

 They are housed in small buildings scattered about the field — 40 or 50 to 

 the house. Mr. O. W. Mapes keeps about 1,500 hens on the colony plan, 

 and the following story of one day's work will give a good idea of the 

 way such a farm is conducted. Mr. Mapes selects the best hens for breed- 

 ers, and they are kept by themselves in small houses. Under this system, 

 while the hens mingle during the day, they usually go back to their own 

 houses at night. The colony system is best adapted to the production of 

 Summer eggs. Mr. Mapes does not claim a heavy yield in Winter, yet 

 with his systetm of handling his hens averages a profit of over $1 each per 

 year. This is the way the work is done. 



"My son and partner proposes to take full charge of the poultry and 

 pigs, while I care for the cows and horses. This will give us a chance to 

 form some opinion of how much poultry it would require to furnish a 

 full day's work for a man, under better and more ideal conditions. He 

 was up about five o'clock, and had things well under way when I 

 reached the barn. While breakfast was being prepared he proceeded first 

 to mix his morning batch of feed for the hens. There are 1,482 of them, 

 and he dumps four baskets of balanced ration into the box on the old 

 buckboard. '1 his weighs 35 pounds to the basket, making 140 pounds in all; 

 100 quarts of skim-milk are then poured on it, and the whole well mixed 

 with a shovel. This takes about 15 minutes. I have found the follow- 

 ing mixture to give very satisfactory results both where fowls have free 

 range and when confined in yards with nothing else whatever in the way of 

 food, not even green food of any kind. Oyster shells, grit and water were 

 supplied, of course, but I hardly class those as food: Wheat bran, five 

 pounds; wheat middlings, five pounds; cracked corn, 10 pounds; cornmeal, 

 10 pounds ; animal meal, two pounds. To this should be added enough 

 skim-milk to wet into a mash. It makes a very good mixture without 

 milk, using water instead, but milk is an improvement. For small chicks 

 the cracked corn should not be very coarse. It is as well to use coarse 

 ground cornmeal in place of cracked corn for the small chicks. For larger 

 chicks and for hens I prefer the cracked corn in order to give the gizzard 

 a chance to perform its normal functions. He passes the end of the long 

 brooder house on his way to breakfast, giving a pull on the end of a long 

 wire projecting out through the siding. This takes about two seconds, 

 and raises the small drop doors in each of the 10 brooder apartments, 

 admitting about 1,000 chicks to the outdoor runs for exercise, fresh air, etc. 



