INTRODUCTORY 



UCCESSFUL POULTRY KEEPING means more 

 to us than the mere words used as a title for this 

 book. It means to us that we want you, valued 

 reader, to be successful, not only in a financial 

 way but also in deriving satisfaction and enjoy- 

 ment from your venture in poultry keeping. We 

 want you to learn to know the business, for 

 poultry keeping is now one of our most important 

 industries, to have a liking for it and in learning the business 

 to attain success in such measure as your individual efforts 

 entitle you. 



This book is essentially a compilation of the writings and 

 experiences of many practical, observing business men who are 

 poultrymen first, then fanciers or purveyors to the poultry 

 markets as their several interests dictate. We have endeavored 

 to collect the latest and best reUable information for the beginner 

 with poultry, telling him how to start, what others are doing 

 and have done, the best houses to build, how to manage his 

 flock, in fact we try to show him, in so far as we may, how to 

 become a successful poultry keeper. , 



Successful poultry keeping depends upon much the same 

 things that success does in any undertaking or business enter- 

 prise. To be successful in any hne of work slothful, careless, 

 extravagant habits must give way to thrifty, pains-taking and 

 economical methods. Thought must be put into your work. 



Cause and effect must be studied; all the details must be 

 looked after with intelligent care, and the hand that receives 

 the income must constantly watch the hand that pays out. 

 There is m^oney — "good money", as the saying goes — ^to be made 

 out of poultry, but this business Hke any other, must be learned 

 before great things can be accomplished. Like other human 

 enterprises, poultry-raising pays better and better accordingly 

 as you put more and more thought into the business. In the 

 poultry business, above all others, ordinary common sense is the 

 thing most needful. 



It is not within the scope of this book to cover every case, 

 but no matter where we go, certain things are true about poultry 

 and poultry keeping, among the number being these: That 

 poultry and eggs at all times of the year meet with a ready 

 sale for cash; that the price of poultry and eggs does not fall 

 below the cost of production, where intelligent methods are 

 employed; that extra or gilt-edged prices can everywhere be 

 obtained for first quality stock, — ^i. e., for extra choice, uniform 

 and neatly dressed fowls and strictly fresh eggs; that it costs 

 practically no more when one is rightly equipped for the work to 

 produce a first quality article than an inferior one; that by the 

 proper use of ai"tificial means the highest market price can be 

 obtained at all seasons of the year; that by adopting up-to-date 

 methods, hundreds of dozens of eggs can be produced during the 

 season of the year when they will command the higher prices, 

 and that hundreds, yefe, thousands of chickens or ducklings can 

 now be raised with success and profit on a comparatively small 

 plat of ground. A surprising amount of poultry and eggs can be 

 produced on an acre of groimd, while a full-fledged farm can be 

 conducted on a five acre piece, where knowledge and good sense 

 go hand in hand. 



Not all men are qualified to succeed to the same extent, 

 but we claim it is fair to cite exceptional cases of success in 

 the poultry business, where the methods employed and the man 

 or woman who employs them is not a wonder-worker in any way. 



except that he or she has put heart and brains into the work. 

 There are several branches of the poultry business that are sepa- 

 rate and distinct from each other, although a number of success- 

 ful men and women whom we know combine two or more 

 branches of the business with success. What one man or 

 woman has done, or is doing, others can do; hence, when we 

 cite actual cases of success that have come under our personal 

 observation, we feel that we are simply pointing out what others 

 can do. 



It is no doubt true that where one person succeeds with 

 poultry several fail. If this were not true there would be no 

 excuse for publishing this book, the chief object of which is 

 to describe success as it exists, and to explain fully how it 

 was achieved. It is not the object of this book to induce thought- 

 less, heedless persons to rush pell-mell into poultry raising. 

 All such persons will do well to give poultry raising a wide berth. 

 Their habits will not win in this business. We do not mean 

 to convey the idea that it takes a specially high order of intelli- 

 gence to succeed with poultry, for it does not, but we are frank 

 enough to warn the reckless, the shiftless and the indolent that 

 they will make a flat failure with poultry. 



ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC POULTRY 



No one can say positively where, when or how the ances- 

 tors of our present domestic poultry came into being. Some 

 tell us that all our fowls are descended from a common ancestry 

 whose present-day direct descendant is the Jungle Fowl of the 

 benighted Eastern countries. While this may be true the fact 

 remains that this descent or ascent or evolution, whatever you 

 please to call it, must have occupied many, many centuries and 

 today no one has thus far been able to prove his case beyond the 

 shadow of a doubt. Ancient coins struck by ancient coiners 

 500, 600 and even more years before Christ bear the image of a 

 cock bird on them, and these representations would some of 

 them do credit to our poultry artists of today and portray birds 

 that certainly must have had careful breeding at the hands of 

 men. Undoubtedly as long as man has lived in a semi-civihzed 

 or civilized state, having some semblance of a home more or less 

 permanent, just so long has poultry been domesticated and bred 

 by man. The bones of domestic poultry are frequently un- 

 earthed in all of the excavations of ancient cities, in the Orient, 

 and evidence is abundant that many ancient philosophers and 

 writers had a decided leaning toward poultry -keeping. Who 

 shall say what breeds they may or may not have had in that 

 long past age? Consider our own short experience, the poultry 

 business is young in this country even now, for some forty years 

 or more ago the art of breeding thoroughbreds, as we now know 

 them, was having its beginning. In this short time new breeds 

 have sprung up, flourished for a time, even boomed, and then 

 have apparently vanished in-so-far as general publicity is concern- 

 ed. Judging from what takes place in other life channels may 

 not this have been going on for centuries? Many breeds may 

 have hved and died in those ancient times, the history of which 

 is even now most uncertain. 



It may be that in the beginning the small, black, brown 

 and red jungle fowl, itself of uncertain origin, was the original 

 source from which our modern fowls have sprung, but inspection 

 of the present day representative of this root of the domestic 

 poultry family tree, makes it appear quite as far a cry as the 

 evolution of mankind from a long-tailed ape. Still, wonders 



