CHAPTER III 
WHAT BACKYARDERS CAN DO 
Midlands, thousands of working men of the better sort 
have taken up poultry for profit. Incidentally it has 
also become a hobby, and what some of these “amateur” poultry- 
men do not know about their birds is not knowledge. Such is 
the care and attention given to their small flocks that, as far as 
results are concerned, they make the professional poultryman 
green with envy. It is, of course, possible with small flocks to 
give individual attention to each bird when necessary. If a bird 
is ailing it is quickly “ spotted,” isolated, so that it will not infect 
the others, and then dealt with as effectively as possible. The 
man whose flocks run into hundreds or thousands, with the best 
attention possible may not be able to note an ailing bird for 
several days, if at all. Obviously, he cannot watch his fowls 
individually. Again, a bird may be off its feed. In a flock of a 
dozen birds this may be noted at once, and a little special treat- 
ment may put the matter right. In very large flocks a bird off 
its feed or not doing well has just to take its chance of recovery. 
Meanwhile, it may not lay for weeks or months, and no one will 
be the wiser, or it may “ peg out,” and it rarely pays to have a 
post-mortem. 
The small poultry-keeper has many advantages, and very 
often he makes the most of them. The records of backyarders 
especially prove conclusively that fowls may be kept in close 
confinement, in the most unlikely places, and not only pay well, 
but produce results that are frequently not obtained under what 
we call ideal conditions. It is simply surprising to hear of the 
repeated successes of the city dweller with his fowls. 
No doubt there are failures, but the majority of these are due, 
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N LL over the country, and especially in the North and 
