66 



TURKEYS— THEIR CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



use the breeding yards for the young turkeys until they are 

 large enough to drive out on the range, putting fifty in 

 each yard. At six weeks or two months they are driven 

 onto their summer range, driving them home at night un- 

 til they have learned the trick of coming home to roost. 

 There is considerable work getting them started to run out 

 on the range and come home at night. If you allow them to 

 run at large and stay out at night they will wander away 

 to neighbors and sometimes go miles from home, but if 

 they are driven home nightly for a week or two they will 

 soon come home of their own accord, and then your work 

 in the turkey yard is nearly over, as they can take care of 

 themselves, only you must watch that they do not forgot 

 to come home. 



Turkeys like a large range as they grow older, but while 

 young, one to three acres makes plenty of range. You will 

 soon find out when they get dissatisfied with their quar- 

 ters, as they will crawl out or fly into your garden or yard, 

 showing that they are anxious to start on their foraging 

 expeditions. If the hay and oats are cut so that they can 

 get around without trampling things down, or finding too 

 much to hide in, we turn them out. 



Turkeys can be made to go almost anywhere their 

 owner wants them to by driving them to the farthest fields 

 when they are first started out, but they must be brought 

 home nights until they learn to come home. I bought a tel- 

 escope to save steps and I find it a very great help, espec- 

 ially as I have to watch my turkeys on account of the rail- 

 road track. In the early dry part of the season I had a 

 great deal of trouble with my turkeys wandering so far that 

 they could not get back at night. We discovered that they 

 invariably went where they found water last year, and we 

 concluded it was water they were after, so we took large 

 dishes and put out where we wanted them to run, and then 

 they only went about one-half mile away and stayed on our 

 own place. Their going where they found water last year 

 shows that turkeys have memories. I believe animals have 

 much more intelligence than we give them credit for. Only 

 their language and way of giving expression to their wants 

 is all Greek to us. 



To show how turkeys measure time our turkeys invar- 

 iably start for the house in time to reach the west edge of 

 the pasture at four o'clock, and it takes them until about 

 sundown to reach the house near where they roost. Now, 

 how can they tell the time of day, which they seem to do 

 as well as we do? 



I did not learn in a day nor in a year the art of raising 

 nearly all the turkeys hatched, nor until I had lost hun- 

 dreds each year, I acting as pall bearer and chief mourner, 

 and I assure you I filled the position of mourner admirably, 

 weeping copiously over buried hopes (and those hopes were 

 of a well filled purse). 



I hope I shall not have to meet those turkeys in the 

 next world and be held accountable for my unpardonable 

 ignorance, but perhaps by sincerely repenting my past mis- 

 takes the sin of ignorance will be forgiven me. If I can 

 be of any help to those who raise $50 and $75 turkeys it may 

 help condone the past. May our great American Thanks- 

 giving bird soar still higher and grow bigger and reach the 

 thousand-dollar mark. He is sure to have his praises sung 

 in foreign tongues, and the fun of it all is, how is he ever 

 with his stupid brain going to learn those foreign languages, 

 and when they call him to breakfast, dinner and supper, 

 how will he know what it all means? 



INDIGESTION. 



A turkey grows very fast and has an appetite like an 

 ostrich, but without an ostrich's digestive ability. As the 

 natural way for a turkey to eat is to pick up a grain here 



and there in such a manner as to give the digestive organs 

 a grain at a time to digest, then the digestive mill grinds 

 slowly without being clogged. This method of feeding keeps 

 up a steady circulation and the turkey keeps growing larger 

 and stronger, the digestive organs being developed as the 

 turkey grows, and they are therefore better able to do their 

 work when more food is required to be digested to "build 

 up a large frame. On the other hand, when the .poults 

 are overfed, the machinery is clogged and there is a gen- 

 eral smash-up, the effect being similar to that caused by 

 throwing a bushel of corn into a corn sheller. The machine 

 will do its work all right if fed slowly, so will a turkey's 

 digestive organs. A turkey is a voracious eater and will 

 eat as often as you feed it. 



There are other causes that will bring death with very 

 nearly the same symptoms. One is lice and one is lack of 

 sharp grit. A turkey cannot grind its food without grit any 

 more than a miller can grind wheat without millstones; 

 we might as well try to chew our food without teeth. 



A neighbor told mo that her turkeys were dying and I 

 sent her word to come and get some Mica Crystal Grit and 

 give them, as I knew she was not giving them any grit. I 

 advised her to put a little in the food every morning. She 

 did so and her turkeys are no longer dying. It was the 

 absence of sharp grit that caused them to die. 



I have adopted a treatment for turkeys and chicks thai 

 has proved a great success. If I see them act as though they 

 were not feeling well I give a calomel pill. These I buy 

 from the druggist, each pill to contain a tenth of a grain 

 of calomel. I give the pills one a day for three days, then 

 follow with quinine pills twice a day until the birds arc 

 well. If noticed and treated when first they show symp- 

 toms of not being well I have never failed to effect a cure. 

 The calomel stirs up the liver and gets it to work, a? 

 most cases of sickness among poultry commence with a 

 disordered liver. After the system has had a thorough 

 cleansing the quinine acts as tonic to build the birds 

 up pnd gives them appetites, then nature does the rest. By 

 this course of treatment you ward off what might termi- 

 nate in serious sickness and death. I have used similar 

 treatment in the human family and saved a great many doc- 

 tor's bills, to say nothing of long spells of sickness and 

 suffering. 



OVERFEEDING CAUSES DEATH. 



Overfeeding is a common cause of loss in young tur- 

 keys. I feed only three times a day for the good reason 

 that I could not possibly find time to feed oftener with the 

 large number I raise. I find it sufficient. They take more 

 exercise if fed less, then when they are fed they are hungry. 

 The time between feeding, too, allows the food to digest 

 and gives the digestive organs a little rest. 



I feed more green food than most people do, as I find it 

 has the same effect on turkeys that it has on ducks. It pro- 

 duces a large frame. I chop dandelion leaves for them in 

 the morning and at night chop up onions, tops and all. I 

 notice there is never a scrap of the green food left when 

 they are through eating. They make rapid growth when fed 

 this way, besides it is a cheap way to feed them. 



I give a little sharp grit in their food every morning. 

 I use grit and oyster shell, the larger part grit, as turkeys 

 to be healthy must have it. I have lost hundreds of turkeys 

 I know by not having plenty of grit with which to grind 

 their food. If they get a little sharp grit in their food 

 every morning it keeps their grinding apparatus in perfect 

 order. Very young turkeys do not find the grit of their own 

 accord, and as they grow older they are liable to gorge, them- 

 selves with the grit as soon as they discover its use, thereby 

 clogging their digestive organs, while a small quantity 



