PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 



129 



171. Fall Management of Laying Stock. The established poultry- 

 man's year begins in the fall. The precise date is not a matter of consequence. 

 Many like to place it at October ist. It is really governed in individual cases 

 by circumstances. It is not always possible to have everything in readiness 

 for winter as early in the fall as one would wish. Every effort should, how- 

 ever, be made to have the laying stock in winter quarters and not over- 

 crowded before the first cold rain storms or sharp cool nights come. The 

 time for these varies with the latitude, and sometimes they are postponed 

 until quite late ; but it is the best policy to be prepared for them. 



By early September pullets intended for early winter layers should be well 

 grown, and beginning to show signs of approaching maturity. Unless there 

 is room and to spare, all under-sized and poorly developed pullets should have 

 been sold. [Late hatched pullets that will come to laying in mid-winter, it 

 will pay to keep, if the stock of early birds is short, and there is abundance of 

 room ; otherwise, the sooner they are sold, after reaching a marketable age, 

 the better. It never will pay to over-crowd stock that might lay early]. The 

 hens reserved to keep through a second winter, should be about half through 

 their moult ; all others should have been disposed of. * 



Both hens and pullets should be well fed. Whole corn may be used now 

 at night quite as freely as in the coldest winter weather. It is a mistake to 

 feed moulting hens short, and a mistake to feed them a too highly nitrogenous 

 ration. Hens moult better on a carbonaceous ration, quite a fattening one, 

 than on a narrower one, and will lay better afterwards. Moulting hens need 

 nitrogenous matter for feathers ; they also need additional heat producing food 

 to keep them warm while growing new feathers. It is better that they should 

 be fat than poor, and safer to keep them a trifle over-fat, rather than barely 

 in good condition. If the weather continues fine, most good layers (non-sitters 

 sometimes excepted) will, if well fed with an ordinary fattening ration, lay 

 every third or fourth day while moulting. The pullets can stand high feeding, 

 because only the most advanced are full-feathered. Few are full grown. In 



pared for outside work as follows : Slake in boiling water one-half bushel of lime. 

 Strain so as to remove all sediment. Add two pounds of sulphate of zinc and one pound 

 of common salt, and one-half pound of whiting thoroughly dissolved. Mix to a proper 

 consistency with skimmed milk, and apply hot. If white is not desired add enough 

 coloring matter to produce the desired shade." 



* NOTE. Right here comes up a point in management which is of particular interest 

 to farmers and to others who keep fair sized single flocks of poultry. It is a common 

 practice with such, when selling poultry, or killing it for the table, to select the best and 

 most salable birds, considering only the question of their immediate use, and not regard- 

 ing at all the effect of this practice on the flock. The result is that nearly always the 

 flock that is to furnish winter eggs if winter eggs are obtained is made up of the 

 "rag, tag and bob-tail " of several seasons. To reverse this method of selection, and 

 keep only the best for layers, would do as much as any other one thing to improve the 

 general average of egg production. This is one of the ways in which those who have 

 little time to give their fowls can secure an increase of profit without extra labor. 



