268 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
chicks of different ages should be kept at quite a dis- 
tance from each other for this reason, allowing only 
flocks of same age to feed together. When the chicks 
are six weeks old they may be removed to some other 
part of the farm, where they will have a fresh hunting- 
ground for insects, which will form an important part 
of their food. They should be placed in small, portable 
houses, eight feet long, four feet wide, three feet high 
in front and two feet high in rear, with tight floor and 
roof. The sides of this building should be boarded per- 
pendicularly, leaving one-inch space between each board 
to secure perfect ventilation without a draught. — 
When the chickens are removed to these houses they 
should be placed at quite a distance from, and out of 
sight of, their former habitation; if this is not done, 
they are liable to go back to their former coop. They 
should be moved at night, and shut in the house for a 
day or two, when they may be let out just at dusk, 
always feeding them near their new quarters. After a 
day or two they will be contented, and will always be 
found at night in their new home. If they are placed 
near some cornfield they will do no injury to the grow- 
ing crop, and it will serve as a shelter for them from 
the burning sun. As the season grows later and the 
hay crop is gathered, the colonies may be scattered all 
over the mowing fields to a great advantage to the next 
season’s crop. The chickens will destroy all the insects, 
and the fertilizer that they will deposit will make the 
fields look green. 
FATTENING AND MARKETING. 
Old hens are unprofitable, and should be weeded out, 
and autumn is the time to do it if they were not sold in 
the spring or used for potpie during the summer. They 
will never be heavier and fatter than they are then, and 
the feed they will consume will be all loss. For fatten- 
