SUCCESS WITH POULTEY 



57 



once a week they had a small quantity of ground ginger and 

 black antimony. 



The house was cleaned once a week and the floor sprink- 

 led with air-slacked lime, and the inside of the house dosed 

 with coal oil. 



The dust box was four feet square and filled with sifted 

 coal ashes and road dust mixed. Not one of them was sick 

 or "off its feed" one hour in the whole year, and they are 

 still laying and look as fresh as any of my chicks. They are 

 from my best layers singled out for several years. I breed 

 from none but the best. I have been experimenting for some 

 time on crossing different chicks. I could just as well have 

 entered a pen of full-bloods as cross-breeds, but so many 

 laughed at cioas-breeds I thought I would give them a trial. 



I do not think any of you can do .just as good without 

 extra effort, for those pullets have been petted like children. 

 They never knew in the whole year what it was to want for 

 anything. No males were kept with them. Do not send to 

 me for eggs or birds, as I have none to sell at present, nor 

 this summer. Now, Mr. Editor, I have given you the facts 

 in the case and you must pass judgment. Thanking you for 

 the interest you have taken in the result ,of the contest, I re- 

 main, yours truly, WII»IiIAM G. DOBSON, 



AN INTERESTING OOMMUNIOATION. 



Mr. J. G. Eedkey, of Ohio, won the third prize with eight 

 White Plymouth Eock pullets that averaged 280 eggs each 

 for the year, He wrote as follows: 



Ohio, March 22. 

 Editor Reliable Poultry Journal. 



Yours of the 19th at hand, and in reply to your request 

 for a short article descriptive of my methods of feeding, 

 housing and quality of stock in the late Stockman and Far- 

 mer contest, I have this to say: The varieties I breed are 

 thoroughbred White and Barred Plymouth Bocks, of the 

 Bowman and Boyer strains of White Rocks, and Farmer and 

 Newel strains of Barred Rocks. My pens are composed of 

 some choice birds. 



~ I feed warm food in the morning, composed of cooked 

 meat two parts and twenty parts of cracked wheat, with 

 whole wheat and oats at noon scattered in litter. I feed oats, 

 wheat and corn at night, with clover heads, cabbage, beets 

 or turnips for green food, and cut bone, oyster shells and 

 crushed limestone for grit. 



My houses are built 14x20 feet, with a hall,, 4 feet wide 

 in front and four, six-light windows in front. There is a par- 

 tition in the center, making two pens of 10x10 feet to each 

 house. These houses are double boarded, with tarred paper 

 between, and are roofed with Marietta roofing, double 

 seamed. Eaeh-house is five feet high in the rear and eight 

 feet in front. Bach house has an earth floor filled in with 

 from six to eight inches of pounded clay, with four inchoi 

 of coal cinders on top, which makes a- floor perfectly dry. 



My houses are frost-proof, having withstood a tempera- 

 ture of twenty-one degrees below zero. This, I think, is one 

 of the great secrets of winter egg-production, as my twelve 

 years' experience as a breeder of fancy poultry have taught 

 me that you cannot expect to get eggs in winter with all the 

 feeding and care you may be able to give unless you have' 

 comfortable houses for them. 



There is also a great difference in the laying qualities 

 of birds of tli6 same breed, some strains laying almost dou- 

 ble the number of eggs of others of the same breed. I have 

 been mating some of- my pens with that object in view, viz: 

 eggs, and I have been in a measure suocessfulj as my record 

 in the- late contest shows. I have been giving this my atten- 



tion for the past eight years, and by careful selection have 

 increased the average per hen from 212 eggs nine years ago 

 to 280. In my pens of White Plymouth Rocks and in ' 

 the Barred Rocks I have brought them up from 205 to 264 

 in the same length of time. My yards are each thirty feet 

 wide by 200 feet long, with one house for each two yards. 

 Each pen contains fifteen hens and one cock, except the 

 pens that were in the contest, which contained nine hens 

 and one cock, and ten hens and one cock respectively. 



I have never allowed my hens to raise chicks, as 1 

 hatch and raise all my fowls by artificial heat, and when 

 I have a hen that becomes broody I remove her to a yard 

 prepared for that purpose, containing no nests or secluded 

 corners, and in a few days she can be returned to the pen 

 again, and she will soon be laying again, as though she had 

 never offered to sit. It is my belief that fowls hatched in 

 incubators and raised in brooders, year after year, will lose, 

 to some extent, the habit of incubation, as my Rocks ar« 

 now much less inclined to become broody than they were a 

 few years ago, aiid I firmly believe that were it possible to 

 introduce no other blood in the yearly matings, except from 

 those that were artificially hatched and raised, the results 

 would be much more marked. I may be wrong, but I have 

 in one of my pens a Barred hen hatched in May, 1893, that 

 laid 297 eggs to March 1, 1895, and has never offered to sit. 

 This is an exception, but only goes to prove what I believe 

 is possible. J. G. REDKEY. 



(Note'— Mr. Eedkey is confirmed in his opinion by the 

 report of the United States Consul in Egypt, who states 

 that the native hen of that country (where artificial incuba- 

 tion has been followed for centuries), has abandoned the 

 work of hatching.) 



NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOR. 



Mr. Z. N. Allen, who came off fifth and sixth best in 

 the contest, and an average of 262f eggs apiece from a pen 

 of 24 Single Oomb Brown Leghorns, favors us with the fol- 

 lowing valuable information: 



Pennsylvania, March 25. 



Sixteen years ago this spring I began an egg contest of 

 my own. The preceding summer I had built a good hen 

 house, so I determined to ascertain which of my breeds were 

 the best egg producers. I penned six of each kind, Brown 

 Leghorns, Silver Hamburgs, Polish and Plymouth Rocks. 

 This gave me some experience in feeding and confinement 

 (which lasted four months) and this experience has stood 

 me well in hand ever since. Pens Nos. 88 and 154 in the 

 Stockman egg contest were pullets from good laying stock. 

 Those in No. 88 were hatched the first week in May, be- 

 gan laying about the middle of November. Those in Pen 

 No. 154 were hatched the first of April, and began laying 

 the last of November. They were well fed and cared fof 

 from chicks until the contest ended. Their houses were 

 made as warm as could be done without artificial heat. Their 

 apartments were kept clean and dry and were supplied with 

 grit, ground bone and oyster shells. They had to scratch in 

 the winter in litter, and in summer in sand. One side of 

 their yards was spaded two feet wide. Then wheat was 

 scattered and the sand was shoveled up against the side of 

 the yard. To get the wheat they had to scratch it back 

 until it was about level. This was repealed once a day 

 during the summer unless it was too wet. When cold weath- 

 er came they had to go into winter quarters and earn theii* 

 living by scratching litter. They breakfasted on hot mash 

 in winter and not very cold in summer. A short time after 

 breakfast they went to scratching for life, some singing as 

 they worked. For dinner they had green bone, meat and. 



