FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 135 



Culling the Young Stock. 



Apart from the point of a poultryraan's financial ability to carry what stock he has, is the 

 question of the policy of keeping it all. Nearly all pou'trymen even those of long experience 

 and generally satisfactory success, 'hokl more of their stock than is wise. 



Unless a stock has been bred by very careful selection, and is very uniform in quality, 

 there is almost certainly a considerable percentage of both pullets and cockerels not worth 

 reserving for stock purposes. The very backward inferior specimens of both sexes should be 

 relentlessly weeded out. There Is no profit in keeping them. The novice who has thorough- 

 bred stock is likely to think that all being of the same breeding, every specimen must have 

 some value for stock purposes. The inferior pullets he has no use for himself he holds to sell to 

 some one who wants low price stock. They are salable for such purposes if the price is made 

 low enough, but I don't think that in the long run it pays to make such disposition of them. If 

 one is selling thoroughbred stock and wants to make a reputation that will profit him in coming 

 years he cannot afford to let such poor stock go for breeding, at any price much less at a low 

 price. Cockerels of like quality he holds to sell to the trade that buys at $1.50 to $3 each. 

 Neither does this pay. Considered individually, there is some profit in the cockerel sold before 

 spring at $2.50 to $3, but on a lot of cockerels of low grade it is generally impossible to figure 

 a profit that will pay for giving them house room and attention. A few birds lost or unsold 

 in such a lot offset the narrow margin of profit on the others. The novice with no established 

 trade will as a rule find it safe to dispose of all but the best tenth of his male birds before 

 winter. This will seem to many rather radical culling. Let those who doubt the wisdom of 

 such policy keep account with the cheap cockerels they hold over. As to selling any consider- 

 able proportion of cockerels of that grade at this season, it cannot be done. The trade that 

 takes them is on the whole a trade that buys only at the beginning of the breeding season. 



If, then, the reader wishes to put his poultry keeping for the winter on the best possible 

 economic basis, let him dispose of all pullets that are not thrifty and vigorous and likely to 

 begin laying before midwinter, and of all but a few of his best cockerels. These with such old 

 hens as he has selected to keep over should give him a stock that reduces his chances of loss 

 to the minimum, while what be receives from the sale of the discarded stock may go a good 

 way toward paying the keep of the remainder until it begins to be productive. 



Putting the Stock Into Winter Quarters. 



The pullets not already in winter quarters should go there as soon as possible now, for their 

 laying will depend somewhat on conditions being good, and no further disturbance necessary. 



They should not be crowded, but given as much house room as is to be allotted to them 

 through the winter. It is generally found a mistake to crowd them into winter quarters, 

 perhaps to twice the capacity of a house, thinking it will be time enough to reduce the num- 

 ber when they begin to lay. They should have as much house house room now as when 

 matured. 



The Importance of Fresh Air. 



To say that pullets should now be in winter quarters does not necessarily mean that the 

 houses should be operated as in winter. If cold houses are used there will be no difference, 

 perhaps; but if the houses are tight, warm, and are to be shut up in cold weather, the winter 

 method of operating the house is not suitable to present conditions. 



This is the season when colds seem to develop and become epidemic without such plain 

 causes of colds as may be found later on. Most of the cases of epidemic cold developing now 

 are due not to cold, but to heat. The houses are shut up too early, the air in them is close and 

 bad, and the fowls and chickens accustomed to more open coops and houses during the sum- 

 mer, take cold. For years there has been hardly a case of colds reported to me in early fall 

 that was not evidently due to lack of ventilation and fresh air, and reports of results of better 

 ventilation have almost invariably shown improvement as a result of the more air treatment. 

 Better keep doors and windows open until real winter weather comes. 



