FARMERS' MONTHLY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



HAMPDEN COUNTY VISITED 



Poultrymen Visit Three Progressive 

 Plants 



Nearly one hundred Hampshire County 

 poultrymen visited the poultry plants of 

 Max Axelrod in Westfteld, Sam Hood and 

 E. A. James in West Springfield, Tues- 

 day, August 25. These plants all have 

 up-to-date ideas in poultry production. 



Max Axelrod's Westfield Poultry plant 

 was first visited. All of the stock on this 

 plant is tested and free from Bacillary 

 White Diarrhea. All the chickens are 

 hatched on the place and the sale of 

 certified chicks, both White Leghorns and 

 Rhode Island Reds, is one of the main 

 souixes of income. The chickens are 

 started in brooder houses and as soon as 

 they are weaned from the heat are put 

 in Tolman Open Air Range houses. 

 There are twelve of these houses being 

 used this year with satisfactory results. 

 Water is piped to the range and hoppers 

 are used to save labor in feeding. Rape 

 is used for green feed. Some of the early 

 pullets were laying and were put into the 

 laying houses. Mr. Axelrod is increas- 

 ing his incubator capacity this year to 

 take care of an ever increasing demand 

 for certified chicks. The crowd gave Mr. 

 and Mrs. Axelrod a vote of thanks for 

 their kind hospitality. 



Sagamore Poultry Farm, owned by 

 Sam Hood was next visited. Mr. Hood 

 explained that he was running a commer- 

 cial poultry plant with a capacity of 

 about 2,000 layers. Day old chicks to 

 replace the whole flock are purchased 

 each spring. These are brooded in a 

 permanent brooder house. This house is 

 divided into pens and each pen is divided 

 into two parts: (1) a warm room in 

 which is the brooder stove; (2) a cool 

 room where the chicks may get away 

 from the heat after the first few days. 

 After being weaned from the heat, the 

 chicks are moved to open range houses 

 which hold from 800 to 1,000 chicks. 

 These houses are semi-permanent and are 

 moved but once in two years. The first 

 year the pullets run on one side of the 

 houses and then have a yard on the other 

 side the next year. The following year 

 the houses are moved to a new location 

 and the plan is repeated. In this way the 

 chickens are on a given piece of land but 

 once in four years. All were interested 

 in the two-story hen house which is 

 twenty-four by one hundred feet. From 

 eight hundred to one thousand birds are 

 kept on each floor. The only change that 

 Mr. Hood plans to make is to put four 

 ventilators in the top story to cool this 

 floor off^ in summer. 



The next stop was at E. A. James' 

 Poultry Farm in West Springfield. Mr. 

 James said that he had been studying for 

 years on the problem of eliminating drug- 

 ery from poultry production. He now 



rears 1,600 chicks under a brooder stove, | Ci 

 grows his 3,200 chicks on one-third of an 

 acre of land and keeps about 2,000 lay- 

 ing birds. He finds it profitable to keep 

 his best birds two and three years. In 

 the laying house the white leghorns are 

 allowed about two square feet per bird 

 and are kept in pens of 1,000 birds each. 

 His labor saving arrangements make it 

 possible for him to care for the birds in 

 about six hours each day. During the 

 brooding season longer hours are put in. 

 All agreed that Mr. James had his work 

 systematized to a high degree and cer- 

 tainly had eliminated drudgery from his 

 work. 



MinersiLs in the Diiiry Ration 



t.^ontinu'^d from page 3, column 3 



Another method of studying the min 

 eral requirements of dairy cows is by the 

 more practical long-time feeding trails, 

 using rations of varying mineral content 

 and by supplementing them with diff'erent 

 mineral compounds. 



Many experiments, made even before 

 the importance of minerals was empha- 

 sized, show the inferiority of timothy hay 

 as a roughage for dairy cows. Fraser and 

 Hayden of the Illinois Station found that 

 cows on timothy hay did not keep in as 

 thrifty condition as on alfalfa hay, and 

 that the diff^erence in milk production was 

 17.7 percent in favor of alfalfa hay. At 

 that time the diff^erence was explained as 

 due to a lack of protein, but we are now 

 reasonably sure that part of this diff'er- 

 ence came from a deficiency of lime. The 

 Iowa Station, after comparing alfalfa 

 hay with timothy hay, stated that, when 

 alfalfa hay is charged at 15 dollars per 

 ton, timothy hay is worth 86 cents per 

 ton as a feed for dairy cows. 



Experiments at the Federal Station at 

 Beltsville, Maryland, in which by adjust- 

 ing the concentrates all the rations were 

 made to supply approximately equivalent 

 amounts of proteins, showed that the ad- 

 dition of ground limestone to a ration 

 containing timothy hay as a roughage 

 improved the ration somewhat for milk 

 production, but did not give as good re- 

 sults as a ration in which alfalfa was the 

 roughage. The cows receiving a timothy- 

 hay ration without the addition of a 

 mineral supplement were not able to pro- 

 duce living calves, and the milk produc- 

 tion was greatly reduced. 



The question is often asked, "Is a min- 

 eral supplement necessary when one of 

 the legume hays is used as a roughage?" 

 The evidence on record up to date in re- 

 gard to this is very meager. Some dairy- 

 men have reported favorable results, 

 while others have not been able to detect 

 any difi'erence. This Station started a 

 mineral feeding experiment on the Trum- 

 bull County Experiment Farm, January 

 1, 1923. The herd, consisting of 18 Hol- 

 stein cows, was divided into two equal 

 groups. Both groups receive the same 



Merritt Clark 8C Co. 



Clothiers, Furnishers 



and 



Hatters 



HART SCHAFFNER AND 

 MARX CLOTHES 



144 Main Street 

 NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 



BISSELL'S TIRE SHOP 



IVOUTHAMPTOIV, MASS. 



Miller, Qoodyear and U. S. Tires 



Tires and Tubes 



Vulcanized by Steam 



Qoodyear Service Station 



FRI3E AIR 

 66 KING STREET Tel. 1203-M 



New 1926 5-Tube 



Freshman 



Radio Set 



^39.50 



G. P. TROWBRIDGE CO. 



129 King St., Northampton 



Phone 43 O 



