CHICKS FROM DYING IN THE SHELL 31 



place on exhibition in September. That is about the time that fairs and 

 poultry shows commence. Put a little gasoline on a rag and rub over your 

 fowls every morning while on exhibition; it will make their plumage shine 

 so nice, and keep the lice from coming over on a visit from their next door 

 neighbor. 



I find another advantage in plucking my fowls in July. Eggs are 

 cheaper then than most any time during the year. Then you will get eggs 

 when prices rule the highest. This is the most pleasing and profitable 

 part of it all, for those who keep poultry for egg production. This year I 

 plucked all of my chickens. I am getting an abundance of eggs and sell- 

 ing them on the market for twenty-five cents per dozen. I did not get any 

 eggs last year at this time except from the hens I had picked in July. 

 Then I resolved to pick them all the next year, which I did with the above 

 results. 



Try this method of forcing a molt, dear reader, and you will find that 

 your fowls will enter the winter in better condition than fowls that have 

 been starved to produce an early molt. Do not fail to give them a tonic in 

 their drinking water. Give good sharp grit. Here is where we often make 

 a mistake. When the ground is snow-covered the fowls cannot get grit un- 

 less we have prepared it for them, and we often forget it until the ground 

 is frozen and then we cannot procure it. Broken glass or chinaware makes 

 a good substitute for grit. 



I saved all the nice clean feathers that I picked from my chickens 

 and made pillows to lie on the porch for the men to use while taking a rest 

 at noon. It is a great deal nicer to use them in this way than to have 

 them scattered all over the poultry yards. 



The White of the Egg Makes the Chick 



During incubation the chick derives its nourishment from the white 

 of the egg and not the yolk. The yolk has nothing to do with the forma- 

 tion of the chick, but is the nutritious food which the newly hatched chick 

 draws upon for sustenance during its early stages of existence. Conse- 

 quently the chick requires no food until from twenty-four to thirty-six 

 hours after being hatched. A chick can live without food for six days. 



IF FERTILE EGGS ARE WANTED If fertile eggs are wanted you should 

 have at least one cockerel to twelve hens of the heavy breeds, but one 

 cockerel to fifteen hens of the light weights, such as the Leghorns and 

 Minorcas, are sufficient; they are a smaller fowl, but they have more vi- 

 tality than the larger breeds. 



