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I use old rails built in squares, rail upon rail, until about four feet 

 high, making a slip gap in one side, cover the pen with boards, loose, 

 weighted down in case of heavy wind. I have placed water in drink- 

 ing fountains, some clean sand, some straw in one corner and shelled 

 corn for the hen. At the bottom of the pen I place a board eight or 

 nine inches high to let the little poults inside, the first day or so. I 

 place twenty or twenty-five, never more than twenty-five poults inside, 

 close to the gap, and leave them for an hour or so. The sun shining 

 through the rails is good for them. . They peck the sand, drink a little 

 and pull at the green grass. I feed them first about noon. They are 

 now forty-eight hours old. A little stale light bread dropped in 

 sweet milk, pressed dry, lightly sprinkled with black pepper (table- 

 spoonful to fifteen or twenty poults), scatter around on the sand about 

 five times a day. After two days old add hard boiled egg, once a day, 

 preferably at noon, also some onion tops and finely cut lettuce leaves. 

 As they grow older, oat flake and milk curd, but at no time feeding all 

 they will eat. If weather is clear the second day, I open the slip gap 

 and the mother will come out with her brood. I have a three-acre 

 tract that is kept closely nipped, she has the run of this until poults 

 are two weeks old. On one side a clover field, on another a cornfield. 

 Sometimes you would think she was alone, but call "Turk" and there 

 they come from out the grass and weeds, where they have been filling 

 on bugs and worms. 



The eight-inch board has been removed from the inside just as 

 soon as they have learned the mother's call. She is driven into the 

 pen at evening, about five o'clock, and is not let out until the dew is 

 off in the morning. 



I dust each poult once a week for lice, until past six weeks old. 

 I rebuild the pen on fresh ground, every five or six days, and move 

 the boards from the top each day, when I turn them out, letting in the 

 sunshine. After six weeks they are allowed to roost anywhere inside 

 the lot, unless it is stormy; then they are driven into the rail pens. I 

 feed the hens corn at night, but only to teach them to come home. I 

 do not feed poults after eight weeks, as they come in from range too 

 full. The main cause of loss of poults or grown birds, according to 

 my experience, is overeating and lice. Of course it being understood 

 that they must not get drabbled in the wet grass. Must always be 

 raised with a turkey mother and be given plenty of freedom. They 

 are wild by nature and must be treated accordingly. 



Yet the temptation to fondle them is so great, and to see them eat 

 is so much pleasure that one oversteps, then we pay for it by seeing 

 the most promising youngster, perhaps, come lounging in at night. 

 The next day he is no more. 



This is my experience, by which more than once I have reared to 

 maturity ninety per cent hatched, having cockerels at eight months 

 weighing thirty-three pounds, pullets twenty-one and twenty-two 

 pounds. Mrs. E. M. Scott, Lathrop, Mo. 



I do not think turkeys do as well when they are confined in a 

 small lot as they do if allowed free range. I always let my turkeys 

 go where they please during the day. I bring them home to roost at 

 night. I never put my turkeys in shelter at night, but let them roost 

 out in the open air on some dry place. I do not think it healthy to 



