274 POULTRY CULTURE 



of droppings of perhaps a week or two, their outside run need not 

 be very large to give equally good sanitary conditions. Nor need 

 it be if the grower can give the birds the care which will compen- 

 sate for the lack of the advantages of a range supplying their wants 

 in abundance. This cannot be done when poultry growing is on a 

 considerable scale or on an economic basis. The yard or range must 

 be large enough to furnish green food. A yard that is in grass 

 must be of such size, or so stocked, that the grass will keep grow- 

 ing and be clean. It is not enough that the grass simply maintain 

 itself, tramped down, soiled, and affording no food. In the best 

 practice young chickens are put on grassland which has had no 

 poultry on it during the preceding season. The grass is mowed 

 close when the chickens are put out, and the coops are placed at such 

 intervals that the young chickens will, under ordinary conditions, 

 keep the grass down just enough to make mowing unnecessary. 

 For goslings the practice is much the same, except that it is usual 

 to confine them to a limited strip until they have grazed it down, and 

 then to move them. Ducklings seem less affected by foul ground 

 than other young poultry, but a run on grass, rye, or other young 

 grain will make a marked difference in the quantity of ground 

 grain consumed, and they will show plainly, both in actions and in 

 condition, the advantage of a change from foul to fresh ground. 

 Young turkeys, peafowl, guineas, and pheasants all seem to be 

 even more affected by foul ground than chickens, but it is a question 

 whether, if they were equally docile and contented under restrictions, 

 any difference in this respect could be found. 



Overcrowding in most cases unnecessary. The worst cases, both 

 in the city and in the country, are found where the ground available 

 is more than ample to give the poultry favorable conditions, but is 

 not utilized, either from false ideas of economy or from sheer negli- 

 gence. Young poultry of the smaller kinds, grown in towns or in 

 the suburbs of cities, usually have to be kept in wire-covered runs 

 until large enough to be safe from cats. It is no uncommon thing 

 to see in one of these runs three or four times as many birds as 

 should be in it, and to see the run kept on the same spot for weeks 

 and even months, while all around it there is good grass growing 

 and going to waste. On farms devoted largely to poultry growing 

 it is not unusual to find the young stock grown year after year on 



