VALUE OF ECONOMY 117 



tion, especially the infection of colds and roup. One gentleman 

 who had 3000 fowls told me that letting the water run in a small 

 stream through his pens,- had ruined him in the chicken business. 

 One pen at the top of the hill got roup, and the infection was carried 

 through to all of them. In Kansas one of the worst outbreaks of 

 chicken cholera came from a creek. All the farms on that creek 

 lost all, or nearly all, their chickens, from drinking contaminated 

 water. A faucet in every yard would be cheaper in the end than an 

 outbreak of roup or cholera. 



Economy in Fencing 



Economy in fencing came in very handily one summer. I found 

 I could make a very good temporary chicken-wire fence with posts 

 50 feet apart by "darning" in a lath every eight feet or so, passing 

 this lath in and out of the wire meshes before putting up the wire. 

 This keeps the wire stretched and when taken down it can simply 

 be rolled up and used over and over again, keeping the lath in it 

 ready for the next time. I found chicken-wire and lath quite an 

 economy. I made cat and hawk-proof little pens of this. Bought 

 a bundle of six-foot lath, some two-foot chicken-wire and made 

 most useful little panels six feet long with the laths, stretching the 

 chicken wire on them and tacking it down with two-pointed tacks. 

 I wired or tied the panels at the corners and had a larger panel go 

 over the top made of six-foot wire. I did not have to kill any, cats 

 or have fusses with the neighbors. The little panels were untied 

 and piled up for the winter time and put in the barn, coming out 

 almost as good as new the next season. They were cheap, light, 

 easily handled and very satisfactory. 



Beware of Spoiled Food 



It is poor economy to buy spoiled grain of any kind. The best is 

 none too good, and anything that is spoiled is very apt to bring in 

 diseases. Wheat or any grain that has been moistened will develop 

 fungoid growth ; smutty wheat, etc., is almost poisonous to fowls, 

 while, of course, we know that there is no grain that so nearly 

 approaches the analysis of an egg as does wheat, when it is good. 

 Corn, likewise, if it has been dampened, will commence to ferment 

 and that will disagree with fowls. At one time there was a fire at 

 a flour mill in Los Angeles. A great deal of the spoiled wheat was 

 sold for chicken feed. "Anything is good enough for chickens," 

 was the cry, and hundreds of chickens lost their lives from that 

 wheat. The owners of the fowls thought it was chemicals that had 

 been used in suppressing the fire, but it was nothing but water, 

 some of the firemen told me, that had been used for extinguishing 

 the fire- The dampened wheat became musty and mouldy and it 

 was that which killed the chickens. Again in using beef scraps, 

 meat meal, blood meal or animal meal, be careful to buy the best 

 you can get, and keep it carefully away from any dampness. 

 Dampened or spoilt animal food is poisonous to the chickens and 

 many a fowl has died from ptomaine poisoning from using spoiled 



