190 



aLEANlNGS IN SEE CULTURE 



Mar. 15 



they are, say, a week old and can be left out 

 all night. Of course our yards are closely 

 fenced with inch netting that goes well 

 down into the ground to protect the very 

 young chicks. The next yard to which they 

 are moved when about three weeks old is 

 larger, and has a more substantial brooder, 

 or brooders with more room. Much venti- 

 lation is required here, and so all the small 

 house brooders and houses have more or less 

 inch netting in their construction. We 

 now have five yards in our "progressive" 

 series, the largest being about four rods 

 square. The brooder houses keep getting 

 larger until the last one is almost big enough 

 for the attendant to stand up inside. We 

 have a 70-egg Cyphers . incubator, so each 

 yard contains, say, from 40 to 60 chicks; 

 and when a new hatch comes off, we just 

 "promote" each family to the next house 

 and next yard. As they are all shut in at 

 night we just pick up the brooder or little 

 house and carry it through the gate into 

 the next yard. So far our work this winter 

 has been remarkably successful. We have 

 scarcely lost a chick; no vermin of any sort, 

 big or little, since the possum we caught, 

 mentioned in ihe Feb. 15th issue, 1910, and 

 we have yet to find a single insect on grown 

 fowl or chick. Very likely the "heroic" 

 measures my brother took last summer, not 

 only to rid but to keep away all vermin, has 

 had much to do with it. 



Besides my incubator-hatched chicks we 

 had had more or less hens sitting all the 

 time. In order to prevent jangles about 

 ownership of the chicks we have not more 

 than one hen with chicks in each of the 

 large yards where the laying hens are. Now 

 we keep in stock three sizes of poultry-net- 

 ting — one-inch, two-inch, and three-inch 

 mesh, all two feet wide. All outside fences 

 are, for the lower two feet, one-inch mesh; 

 all inside yards for small chicks are also 

 inch mesh; while the inside yard for lay- 

 ing hens and all adult fowls is two-inch. 

 The three inch is used only for the upper 

 part of the inside fences and sometimes for 

 the lower part also, where we wish to admit 

 the good-sized chicks into the growing oats. 

 Bear in mind what I have told you about 

 the "green pastures "we keep all around 

 the ranch by sowing oats and other green 

 stuff in the ten-foot-wide lanes. 



Well, while the mothers of the chicks can 

 not get into these green lanes and tear things 

 up, the chicks have access at all times*; and 

 I know of no prettier sight than to see a 

 brood of happy chickens pasturing on the 

 oats in these green lanes, and I do not know 

 of any thing that makes chicks grow" as do 

 oats about two inches high. 



MY INDIAN-RUNNEB-DUCK STORY. 



Just as I started on my summer trip to 



* We also have chick feed and water penned off 

 by two-inch netting, so the chicks can always get 

 food and drink without being tramped on and bul- 

 lied by the older fowls. Cosgrove, in the Rural Netv- 

 Yorker, calls these places for chicks, when kept in 

 yards for larger fowls, " cities of refuge." I am glad 

 to be reminded that friend C. Is keeping in touch 

 with his Bible. 



Florida on the 26th of July last, a setting 

 of duck's eggs was just hatching. I think 

 we got about an even dozen from the 15 

 eggs; but before I got back (in 25 days) all 

 were dead but four. Mrs. Root did every 

 thing all right so far as we could discover, 

 allowing them to run with the other poultry; 

 but after I gave them a yard by themselves 

 no more died. We had them expressed 

 down here, and they proved to be two ducks 

 and two drakes, and one of the ducks began 

 to lay about the first of the year, when she 

 was a little over five months old. The other 

 commenced a little later, and both have 

 given us an egg every night with more reg- 

 ularity than any Leghorn or any other breed 

 of hens I ever owned. Well, the back side 

 of our five acres is bounded by a running 

 brook that empties into the bay, so we have 

 a fine place for ducks; but I failed to induce 

 them to go into the water until an accident 

 happened. The books and journals tell us 

 a two-foot fence will hold ducks. It seemed 

 to hold ours until just about the time the 

 first one began to lay. As they were getting 

 old enough about that time to amuse them- 

 selves by chasing my buttercup hens, we 

 fenced them off near the creek with the two- 

 foot netting; but one morning the laying 

 duck was out and at her old pastime. When 

 we tried to drive her back she seemed to 

 have gotten wind of fehe women 's-suflfrage 

 movement (or was she minded to have a 

 ' ' honeymoon ' ' all by herself?) for she sprang 

 up into the air and not only scaled the two- 

 foot fence, but went almost as high as the 

 tops of the pine-trees. Isn't it funny that 

 ducks and chickens, having all the finished 

 mechanism for aviation, seldom or never 

 use it, while man, after ages of vain endeav- 

 or, has only just "got off the ground"? 

 Here I have been, leaving my valuable 

 ducks all this time away "up in the air." 

 Well, when she came down, ducklike she 

 alighted in the water, the first time in her 

 life to get into water deep enough to swim 

 in. I was in a quandary. Her antics in 

 the water surpassed any thing I have ever 

 witnessed in the way of trained animals; 

 and yet when a boy I was an enthusiast in 

 witnessing the feats in the animal shows. 

 Was she going to turn wild duck, and fly 

 away and never come back? I glanced at 

 her three companions, and they were evi- 

 dently wild to follow her example. Think- 

 ing I had better get them all together as 

 soon as possible I raised the netting and al- 

 lowed the whole four to go out into the pub- 

 lic stream, and there they caroused and ca- 

 vorted all night and all next day with hard- 

 ly a moment's stop so far as I could discov- 

 er. They did not seem to get hungry, for 

 they made the discovery that the yellow 

 moss* floating on the stream was good for 



* This moss that floats on the water is a sort of 

 vegetable growth or alga? that often forms on spring 

 water where it is exposed to the heat and light of 

 the warm sun. The water of this brook or drainage 

 canal is probably, a large part of it, from the vari- 

 ous artesian wells along Its course, and this ac- 

 counts for the abundance of moss the ducks seem 

 so fond of. 



