SUCCESSFUL POULTRY KEEPING 



MANAGING THE CONTRARY LAYER 



Sometimes White Hollands begin laying in February but 

 usually it is from March 15th to April 1st. If the weather is 

 cold gather the eggs soon after they are laid and stamp the date 

 upon each. Then you can set the oldest first each time. Turn 

 the eggs once a day till you set them. 



If your hen does not fancy any of the nests you provide 

 let her choose one for herself as she will not go far, and being 

 "white" it is almost impossible for her to go to her nest with- 

 out your seeing her. If it is an inconvenient place for her to 

 sit, do not worry. Let her lay her clutch of eggs and begin 

 sitting. I usually remove her to the nest where I want her to 

 sit the first night she is broody, but it would be safer with some 

 to wait till the second night. I have barrel nests arranged in 

 a large, grassy yard under some cedar trees, both for shade 

 and because I imagine the odor from the cedar to be a lice pre- 

 ventive. Carry your hen gently, talk to her and put her in the 

 barrel carefully. Let her see the half dozen nest eggs you have 

 given her and press gently down upon her shoulders, if she does 

 not want to sit down, rub some of the eggs upon her bare breast, 

 continuing to press her down gently. Sometimes it is necessary 

 to bend her legs back carefully and hold her down for a few 

 minutes, talking to her all the time. I have never had but one 

 turkey refuse to sit upon the nest and that time I think it was 

 because of my impatience. 



When the hen settles down fasten her in securely, leaving 

 plenty of room for ventilation, and slip away. Do not dis- 

 turb for two or three days (except to peep in to see if she is 

 sitting). Now she is both hungry and thirsty, take her off 

 gently and away she will go for the corn and water, and you 

 want to have a good big water dish for Mrs. Sitting Turkey 

 always wants to stand in water while she drinks. I do not 

 know whether it is to allay the fever in her feet and legs or to 

 take the stiff feeling out. I simply know her likes and cater 

 to them. Let her drink, eat her corn and pick some grass. 

 This gives you time to exchange the nest eggs for good ones, 

 provided your hen has been sitting all right. I should like to 

 say right here that I often give the eggs to two chicken hens 

 and let them sit upon them for a couple of weeks while the turkey 

 finishes her clutch of eggs. In this way you get your poults 

 a couple of weeks earlier and the turkey makes just as good 

 a mother as when sitting her full time, only you must be sure 

 she is down to business before taking the eggs from the chicken 

 hens. 



Dust your turkey with a good louse powder two or three 

 times while she is sitting and also have a good dust place in her 

 yard. Do not use the powder too near hatching time. 



CARE OF TURKEY MOTHER AND POULTS 



Fifteen or sixteen eggs are enough for the turkey. She 

 can cover more all right, but as nearly every egg hatches and 

 the little ones gxow so rapidly, if she has a larger brood she 

 can not hover them so well in our hea^'y spring rains. 



And it does not take 28 days for them to hatch. On the 

 26th day you will have turkeys. Now do not disturb your 

 hen.' The little ones come out of a small hole and the egg 

 shells never slip over each other as chicken egg shells do, so 

 there is no need to interfere and it always makes the hen ner- 

 vous to be bothered, especially if she is a pullet. 



If the mother turkey does not bring off her brood the sec- 

 ond day, I generally take her off in the afternoon. Reach in, 

 get hold of her legs, lift her straight up and out of the barrel. 

 Then take the little ones out. If it should be a cold, wet time 

 leave the turkey undisturbed till the third day. Take some 

 of the shells from the nest, remove the inner membrane, crush 

 the shell into tiny bits and scatter for the little ones to peck 



at. They will not eat much till they get so they can stand 

 well. It is not best to try to rush them, as the old hen knows 

 best how and when to teach them to eat. 



Their first real food is cottage cheese, made from clabber 

 milk, with a tiny bit of pepper added but no other seasoning. 

 Scatter this on a board near the hen, and she will hold pieces 

 of the cheese in her beak for the babies to take. This is why 

 I begin with the cheese as it seems their nature to look to their 

 mother's beak for their first food. Feed only a little at a time. 

 Here is where so many make a fatal mistake. You must feed 

 sparingly for a few days but feed often. Every two and one- 

 half hours is my rule. 



Their second feed is a few pinches of popular brand of 

 chick food. I scatter it upon a nice smooth place, and sit 

 down to watch the Httle ones eat. I pick up first one, then 

 another. Beginning thus early they never have any fear of 

 you, and my hens having been handled from their youth up 

 fear no danger for their little ones from me. For a couple of 

 weeks I alternate the cheese and chick food, giving three feeds 

 a day of the chick food and two of the curd. Sometimes if 

 we have continued rains so the little ones can not range, I omit 

 the curd as it has a tendency to irritate the bowels if not bal- 

 anced by green foods and insects. 



LET THEM ROAM 



Now, here many turkey breeders will differ with me but 

 I give the hen and her flock their liberty at once, but usually 

 take her some distance from other fowls as little turkeys follow 

 anything that is moving. At night the mother will take her 

 young back to the nest and she will get the last one into the 

 barrel, without help usually, and she never crushes one as a 

 chicken hen sometimes does. I say I give the turkey hen her 

 liberty — and so I do — but I guide her to the pasture or a com 

 field or some place where the grass is not rank. And I do not 

 let her out of the yard till the dew is gone from the grass. 



After the little ones are four weeks old three feeds a day 

 of the chick food are plenty and probably the old hen has begun 

 to wander too far to come up except for dinner and supper. 

 Now, too, begin to mix whole grains of wheat and kaffir corn 

 in with the chick food. In this way you will teach them to eat 

 the whole grains. Right at first they will not like it as turkeys 

 do not like to change from one grain to another. By the time 

 they are six or seven weeks old I am putting oats in, too, and 

 the chick food is omitted. Some complain of oats but I have 

 found no trouble as my turkeys always have grit, shell, etc. 

 I think oats one of our best grains for making size. 



SHADY YARD AND OPEN SHED 



A week or two, at most, is long enough to let the turkey 

 roost in the barrel. Remove the barrel and she will select a 

 place near by for her brood. I think my big shady grassy 

 yard has paid for itself many times. The fence is four feet 

 high and no varmint has ever troubled the turkeys there. There 

 is a low shed at one side, opening to the south, that is covered 

 with roofing paper so it is warm and rain proof. Rainy nights 

 I put my turkey hens under this shed but during fair weather 

 they want all out doors to sleep in. If a heavy rain comes up 

 in the night it only takes a few minutes to gather the little 

 ones into my big apron, and take their mother under my arm 

 and run to this shed. I suppose there is little use in doing 

 this as a turkey seems to know instinctively to choose a roost- 

 ing place that is a little higher than the surrounding ground 

 and her great wings are just like the roof of a house to shed 

 water but I can sleep better if the flock is under the shed during 

 a bad storm. I keep them roosting in this yard just as long 

 as I can, but finally they go to the trees. 



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