JANUARY 1. 1914 



19 



old. Two hours later 

 we give them a little 

 bit of fine oatmeal. 

 This is given them 

 every three or four 

 hours for three days. 

 After that Ave use a 

 good chick-feed of 

 mixed grains. We usu- 

 ally buy this by the 

 hundred pounds direct 

 from some poultry- 

 supply house, because 

 we find that by so do- 

 ing we can save about 

 a cent a pound. When 

 the chicks are a week 

 or ten days old we 

 start to give, once a 

 day, a level teaspoon- 

 f ul of commercial beef 

 scrap and fine bone for 

 every twenty cliicks. 

 We feed often, but 

 give a very small quan- 

 tity at a time. All the 

 feed is scattered in 

 straw or hay-heads, 

 and the chicks have to 

 scratch for it. When 

 they are about a month 

 old we add wheat and 

 cracked corn to their 

 ration, and give them 

 all they want to eat. 

 We never give chicks 

 any kind of ground 

 feed. 



Next the gapes start- 

 ed among the chicks. 

 We finally settled on 

 the old- fashioned 

 horse-hair method to 

 remedy that. We could 



not always make it work, though, until some 

 kind neighbor told us to catch a small string 

 behind the two little hooks on the back part 

 of the chicks' tongues, and to hold on to the 

 ends of the string with the thumb and first 

 finger of tlie left hand. This prevented the 

 chicks from jerking in their tongues and 

 sending the hair down their throats instead 

 of their windpipes. If the little loop in the 

 hair is dipped in turpentine the worms let 

 go much easier. We never send the horse- 

 hair down their windpipes more than three 

 times. Then we let them sleep in a basket 

 for several hours, and after that try again 

 if they are still gaping. However, we usu- 

 ally find that they have all stopped. 



Our chicks had lice, too ; but we never 

 even touched them to look for lice until they 



Fig. 3. — Mr. Bartlett's method of preparing hives for winter. A super 

 is placed over the brood-chamber containing a chaff cushion held away from 

 the top-bars by means of a Hill device. The super-cover is then put on, and 

 the whole hive ■wrapped in a heavy grade of black enameled felt. The regu- 

 lar hive-cover is put on top, and the whole tied together. Lastly the paper- 

 cover shade-board is put on and weighted down. 



were ten days old. Then we poured a mix- 

 ture of four parts of coal-oil and one part 

 of crude carbolic acid over the bottoms of 

 the coops, and that night picked the head- 

 lice off their heads. This is not pleasant 

 work ; but chicks can't live with lice boring 

 into their brains. We waited until they were 

 ten days old, because then the handling does 

 not weaken them, and we did it at night 

 because they were sleepy and did not make 

 a fuss. 



When the chickens weigh about three 

 pounds we select the pullets we want to 

 keep for laying. As our chickens are Plym- 

 outh Rocks we have to try to guard against 

 the type that gets overfat. We select the 

 active, bright-eyed pullets that have medi- 

 um-large combs, broad breasts, and are wide 



