A Great Profit-Yielding Poultry 

 Farm Conducted by a Woman. 



■ RS. O. H. BURBRIDQB. 



CALIFORNIA imports each year from the middle west hundreds of 

 carloads of eggs and dressed poultry, for which high prices are ob- 

 tained in the markets. Why we should not only supply our home 

 demand but also send hundreds of carloads from this State to the 

 East each year has been a source of wonder to me ever since I en- 

 gaged in poultry raising. The prices of dressed poultry and eggs 

 for market use are always so high that the man who does not care for fancy 

 birds can always make a good living furnishing hotels and private families 

 wRh stock. 



I have established on my ranch in Los Angeles a fatting plant on 

 which the birds are fed according to the method used in England, where 

 tfiey are placed in long rows of crates four or five birds to the crate and fed 

 twice a day in troughs placed in front of the crates. For the first week I 

 use the best oat flour and sour milk made into a mash and gradually 

 thinned so that the^food is like thick gruel by the end of the fatting period. 

 This time varies according to the stock, a Mediterranean taking a week or 

 more longer than the American, English or Asiatic classes. For this fatted 

 stock I have never received under thirty cents per pound, and in some sea- 

 sons of the year as much as forty-five cents. This year one of the largest 

 restaurants in Los Angeles has offered me fifty cents per pound the year 

 round for Orpington Ranch capons. The egg market has always been very 

 steady and prices have been high so that a good profit can be realized on 

 eggs alone, by selling off the young cockerels and saving the pullets each 

 year just for market eggs. 



So many inquiries come to me as to poultry raising in California indi- 

 cating that a false notion exists among many Eastern and Northern breed- 

 ers as to the ravages of roup and lice. According to many of the inquiries 

 this part of the United States is referred to as being visited by these two 

 evils. I have raised thousands of chickens myself, taking all of the care 

 of them from the egg to the mature fowl, and have had no trouble with 

 roup whatever. True I have had sanitary surroundings, clean yards, plenty 

 of fresh, cool water for my birds and well ventilated, draughtless sleeping 

 quarters. I have found that with due care the lice are no worse than in 

 any other section, but the watchword of the poultry raiser from the time 

 the egg is entrusted to the incubator or hen until the bird is ready for 

 the table, breeding pen or show room, should be "cleanliness." By that I 

 mean no lice, clean straw to scratch in, clean water to drink, clean houses 

 so no foul odors can disturb the good the day has brought. This habit 

 of cleanliness is easy to establish on a ranch when the work is done system- 

 atically, but a poultry raiser cannot do part of the work one day, nothing 

 the second and catch up on the third. It is necessary each day to do for 

 the comfort of the flock all these little things and the hen is a most grateful 

 creature, repaying kindness by filling the egg basket and incidentally one's 

 pockets. 



I started with a trio of Buff Orpingtons, after a trial of several other 

 breeds, and when I found the chicks were so easy to raise and so sturdy, 

 I purchased eggs from several of the large Eastern and English breeding 

 farms, so my first year I went into the show room with a fine lot of stock. I 

 took three silver cups and over one hundred ribbons on an entry of thirty 

 birds in two shows, and then started to work in earnest to build up the strains 

 f had. I was able to supply a great number of settings of eggs to my 

 fellow fanciers at good prices, and my second year saw me start the breed- 

 ing season with twelve hundred fine birds without a cull in the lot. I had 

 the eggs booked in early January for the remainder of the season and had 

 many orders for breeding stock that I was not able to supply on account 

 of the egg orders. I have always purchased a fine breeder in England or 



