THE FARMER'S BEST FRIEND. 



The Mammoth Bronze Turkey So Proclaimed by One who Formerly Would Not Allow a Turkey on His Farm- 

 Turkeys as Pest Destroyers — Selection of Breeders — Hatching and Raising Poults. 



By Mrs. J. M. Randolph. 



CONSIDER the most important thing in turkey 

 raising is good, healthy breeding stock. In se- 

 lecting a torn I look for good markings on wings 

 and tail, a long body, large legs and feet, and as 

 the standard requires heavy weight, as large a 

 bii'd as I can get that meets these requirements, 

 although in my own judgment a thirty-two pound 

 torn is large enough. I think most old turkey breeders will 

 agree with me that there was a great mistake made in de- 

 manding such heavy weight toms. As I believe the poults 

 get size from the hens and markings from the torn, I select 

 the hens with regard to size first, but with markings as good 

 as I can get on large hens. 



About the middle of February or when the hens begin 

 to call — a sound familiar to all turkey breeders — and show 

 signs of mating, I remove them to a young orchard enclosed 

 with poultry netting, and clip the right wing of each hen, but 

 I never clip the tom's wing, as he will not give trouble by 

 trying to fly out as a hen will do if her wing is not clipped. 

 In this yard they have plenty of range, blue grass and 

 clover and I never let them out until the breeding season is 

 over. I believe every breeder should have an enclosed yard 

 or park for turkeys. Much as I should dislike to give up 

 raising turkeys, I would do so before I would go back to the 

 old way of letting them have the run of the farm. I cannot 

 forget long, weary, ofttimes fruitless searches I have had 

 trying to find their nests, only, perhaps, to have them move 

 again in a few days. 



We have a great many osage orange hedges in this part 

 of the country and these hedges seem to be a favorite place 

 for turkeys to hide their nests. I have had them follow the 

 hedge more than a mile and then make their nests. Being 

 in an enclosure not only ensures your getting all their eggs, 

 but they can be gathered often and thus avoid having them 

 chiil during the early spring months. 



TURKEY NESTS. 



Turkeys in this locality usually begin to lay the latter 

 part of March. After confining them to the park 1 take 

 some evergreen boughs and lean them against the poultry 

 netting which adjoins a hedge fence on one side of the park, 

 thus making a scheduled place for them to nest. I do not 

 leave a very large opening, but let them creep in, and they 

 think they are hiding their nests. Usually I keep about 

 twenty-two hens and most of them will lay their first clutch 

 of eggs in two of these nests, but later on when the grass 

 grows knee high they will steal their nests and sometimes 

 elude me for several days or a week, but by that time it is 

 warm enough so that the eggs will not chill. 



HATCHING THE POULTS. 



Although turkey hens seem to be expressly designed to 

 take care of their offspring and know how to do this part of 

 their work to perfection, I have not found them to be as 

 good sitters as domestic hens. For several years I have not 

 waited until I had a turkey want to sit, but as soon as I 

 have enough eggs for several sittings I place them under 

 domestic hen. About two weeks before they are due to 

 hatch I put some hen eggs under a broody turkey hen and 



when the turkey eggs begin to hatch I placed one or two 

 egg:; under the turkey and she would own them without any 

 trouble. 



Last spring I kept breaking my turkey hens from sitting 

 in order to keep them laying and so at one time some turkeys 

 were to hatch in a few days and there was no turkey mother 

 for them. About that time I had another turkey want to sit, 

 so I gave her, without moving her from the nest, two or 

 three small Barred Rock chickens to see if she would own 

 them, placing them under her just at dusk. Next morning 

 she was hovering them and was very proud of her suddenly 

 acquired family, so the next night I moved her to a 

 building and gave her eighteen little turkeys, of which she 

 seemed just as proud as if she had sat four weeks. This 

 was a new idea to me, but I thought why not use that plan 

 altogether and thus keep the turkey hens laying. I did so the 

 balance of the season with eight or nine turkeys, giving 

 them broods when they had sat only a few days and in some 

 instances only over night. Just one hen out of this number 

 refused to own and care for her brood, the others acted as if 

 they had sat the allotted time. I shall try it again this sea- 

 son and I feel confident it will work all right. 



The best success I ever had in raising poults was in a 

 small lot with very short grass and a very large coop or 

 small building in which they could roost. They were kept 

 shut in on rainy clays and in the mornings until the dew 

 dried off, until they were four to five weeks old. Then they 

 were turned out to range, being driven back to their coops 

 at night. For the first few weeks I find clabber cheese and 

 green onion tops, pinhead oatmeal and millet seed to be good 

 food for them. A little bone meal and small sharp grit also 

 is put in their food once a day. I find sand and old plaster 

 is good for them and a load of sand is hauled and 

 placed where they can run to it. No one has any idea what 

 a lot of sand young poults will eat until he undertakes to 

 carry it to them as I did one spring. 



At this season we always have plenty of milk and so I 

 give them new milk every day, first boiling it to prevent 

 bowel trouble. When the little poults are just one week old 

 I pull out all the flight feathers in their wings. By the time 

 they grow out again the little birds have more strength to 

 stand the strain of growing them. Since following this plan 

 I have had much better success in raising them. 



I also go over them once a week and treat them for lice, 

 rubbing a very little lard on top of. the head, in the quill 

 feathers on the wing and just below the vent. I lost a great 

 many turkeys before I knew that when lice and mites were 

 around the last named place they were most fatal. Remem- 

 ber I said a very little lard, for smearing the body with 

 greaso is sure death, as I learned by sad experience. Occa- 

 sionally I use Lambert's Death to Lice instead of lard. 



After they shoot the red and can be driven to the pas- 

 tures and meadows it is surprising to see how they will 

 thrive and grow with only a little food to induce them to 

 come home at night. A more beautiful sight in poultrydom 

 than a large drove of Mammoth Bronze turkeys with their 

 bronze plumage glistening in the sunlight, I cannot imagine. 



