98 LL550N5 IN POULTRY KLLPING 5LCOND 5LRIL5. 



good chicks at a cost away below what birds of the same quality could be bought for at matur- 

 ity. This chance is attractive enough to make most of us risk the total failure which comes to 

 the buyer of eggs about as often as a satisfactory hatch of chicks that turn out well. 



Buying young chickens is much like buying eggs except that the uncertainty of hatching is 

 eliminated as far as the existence of the number of chicks desired is concerned. The chicks 

 are shipped before it begins to appear whether they would generally live and thrive, and the 

 results at the end of the season are likely to average only a little better than with eggs. That 

 little, however, is an inducement to many to buy new hatched chicks rather than eggs. 



It is not possible to eliminate risks in starting, or for that matter, at any stage of the pro- 

 ceedings. Whichever way one elects to begin, or if he prefers to try them all, there is risk of 

 failure to succeed in any of the attempt". 



Nowhere is persistence more nece.-sary than in efforts to get a start with stock of poultry of 

 the kind one desin s. In what follows I shall try by suggestions and advice to help each begin- 

 ner to avoid mistakes, but 1 cannot as>ure him of any way of certainly avoiding them. I made 

 the common mistake myself, of beginning with a number of varieties, and made no more than 

 the average number of mistakes in buying, yet it took rne two to three seasons to get a good 

 start just a start with a few birds in most varieties, and ' some it took longer than that. 



In many cases the question as to beginning with eggs or stock is better answered by consider- 

 ing it with the question, 



Where to Buy. 



The greater number of novices in poultry culture seem to think they can buy better stock, 

 whether in birds or eggs by sending to some breeder at a distance for it. They see the i'aults 

 some of them in the stock of nearby breeders whose yards they visit. The stock they do not 

 *ee they judge by the breeder's advertisement and descriptive literature which rarely admit 

 that the stock has any serious faults, and his correspondence, which only occasionally refers to 

 the weak points in the stock, and then minimizes, faults more than a disinterested person 

 would. Common sense might teach even the novice in poultry transactions to discount liberally 

 the salesman's enthusiastic recommendations of his goods, but apparently only experience in 

 buying teaches this lesson effectively, and the average beginner in buying poultry will pass by 

 his neighbors and cheerfully pay a litlle higher price, plus a heavy express charge, for stock no 

 better than he could get close by. 



I would not have any reader conclude that there is never an advantage in buying from a dis- 

 tance, for there often is a great advantage in it, but when buying stock of ordinary grades, if 

 you have an opportunity to buy from a nearby breeder whose stock } ou can inspect, within ihe 

 range of prices mentioned earlier in this lesson, the chances are that you will be better satisfied 

 in the end than if you send the same amount of money for the same number of birds to a 

 breeder at a distance. After one begins to be able to judge of the quality of his stock, to know 

 v. here it is weak, and to know something about the characteristics of different stocks of the 

 frame variety, it will be his best policy to buy what be needs where he can get what suits him 

 best, but a considerable part of the present buying away from home is of no benefit to. anyone 

 hut tlie transportation companies. If every poultry keeper who had not a good reason for 

 frending away for breeding stock and eggs for batching would buy at home, sellers generally 

 would sell as much as they do now, and the business would be on a much better ba^is. 



There is another and a strong reason for the novice buying his first stock in his own locality 

 if pos>ible. Fowls, like all kinds of live stock, and like human beings too, are with few excep- 

 tions affected by change of climate. Nearly all fowls are unfavorably affected for a time for 

 a few weeks or months. After that some are likely to be better for the change, some worse, 

 others not notably affected either way. On the whole the period of acclimatization is an 

 unsettled period, and the beginner will almost invariably do better to work with acclimated 

 stock. v 



But not all beginners can buy stock at home. There are still many localities in which thor- 

 oughbred stock is rare. Within a few years I have had a letter from a poultryman in a section 

 where a show, at which he was an exhibitor, had been held annually for several years, asking 

 for a description of White Wyandottes, one of our most popular varieties, and stating that 



