SUCCESSFUL POULTRY KEEPING 



By following this plan you will have gathered all the re- 

 tarded eggs under the last hen to hatch, which is usually the 

 one with the lowest temperature. Let her be one of the hens 

 to take eleven of the chicks to raise for she will be the one least 

 liable to set the second time. When the nests have been ren- 

 ovated and rebuilt, your quarters will be ready for another set 

 of hens. 



PLAN OF YARDING HENS AND CHICKS 



If you have the land, take your horse and plow and upon 

 a grass plot strike j/our parks or yards, 50 by 100 feet in size. 

 Along the flat side of the furrow string eight inch wide boards 

 and drive stakes (five feet or more in length) so they will come 

 six inches above, four feet wide, inch-mesh, wire fencing. Tack 

 the lower edge of the wire fencing to the board and the top 

 edge to the stakes. When the boards are strung turn the fur- 

 rows back. String a strong wire from the tops of the stakes 

 to lace the fence to between the stakes; this will save half the 

 number of stakes. You now have an enclosure proof against 

 night prowling vermin that in many places 

 decimate our flocks. On the north end it 

 is a good plan to build an open shed facing 

 the yards; the back two feet high and 

 the shed roof five feet high in front, the 

 roof being large enough to cover four feet 

 of grass. Place your chicken coops, five 

 in number, ten feet apart. The chick 

 coops should be 30 by 30 inches with 12 

 inch sides and double roofs, and they 

 should be slatted in front, the palings 

 being 3 inches apart. I say full three 

 inches apart just so the hen may be re- 

 tained. It is a fact that nine-tenths of 

 all crooked backs come from coops being 

 too closely slatted. In squeezing through 

 the chicks sHp their hips — crooked backs and wry tails are the 

 results. After the chicks are ten days old the doors can be 

 fastened open and the hens have their liberty with the chicks in 

 all fair weather. 



WHEN CHICKS GROW OLDER 



When one of the five hens shows a disposition to wean her 

 chicks, take all the hens away. When they are six weeks old 

 remove all the small coops, leaving the chicks to go to roost 

 upon the perch that should run along the rear wall of the shed, 

 eighteen inches from the ground". This perch should be put in 

 when the shed is made, for the chicks will form the habit of 

 roosting there by perching upon it in the day time before they 

 are forced to abandon their coops. It is not a bad plan to 

 arrange poles along the open yards. Did you ever notice how 



young chicks will appropriate a low board border to a walk. 

 It teaches them to roost on an elevated perch, and such chicks 

 learn to roost without setting their keel bone flat upon the perch. 

 All this will prevent huddling and the vitiating effect that comes 

 from it. 



If these chicks are to be confined in these yards, at sixteen 

 weeks take all males to new quarters, that is, all such as are 

 to be retained for breeding stock and exhibition purposes, kill- 

 ing all that are to be sacrificed to the broiler market, leaving the 

 twenty-five to thirty pullets to enjoy each yard alone. Now 

 for the next two months feed these pullets heavily with formula 

 No. 1, with a large proportion of meat. The yards will furnish 

 ample growing grass as vegetaljle for them. As they approach 

 fecundity or when the two year old hens have been marketed, 

 remove these pullets to their winter quarters, made vacant by 

 the killing of the hens. The males sold on the market will have 

 paid the expenses of rearing the whole flock to the age when 

 the pullets commence to lay. 



Thoroughly rake these vacated yards and top them with 

 horse manure after having sowed them down with clover and 



n n D n D 



Partial ground plan 

 described in detail in the 



QUARTERS FOR HENS AND CHICKS 



of out-door quarters for the accommodation of 20 hens and 220 chicks, as 

 accompanying article by Mr. Felch. 



red-top grass. In the early spring clean up the coarse manure. 

 The young grass will come with the original sod and you are 

 ready by the middle of April for another year's business. 



During all the Mfe of these chicks keep their boxes filled 

 with finely cracked oyster shell and charcoal. Of coarse after 

 eight weeks of age they can be fed without cracking the corn; 

 the oats, wheat and barley can be fed whole and mixed in the 

 proportion of an equal part of each. For this dry feed for chicks 

 under six weeks old crack all grain to the size of canary seed, 

 adding canary and millet seed to the compound as directed in 

 the previous pages. 



We have many breeds and are constantly adding new 

 breeds and varieties to the list. The Almighty has given us 

 brains to govern circumstances, and so we may make our flock 

 most productive and profitable, adding alike to our pleasure 

 and material welfare. 



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