124 HOW I MADE $10,000 IN ONE YEAR 



on a helter-skelter plan, starting here one day, there the 

 next. 



We feed by the clock and vary the time with the 

 weather. As the seasons change, making it necessary to 

 feed earlier or later, we advance or drop back a few min- 

 utes each day until the proper hour is reached. The flock 

 should not be kept standing at the fence for an hour or 

 two — until you return from a visit, perhaps. You are 

 losing money every minute they stand there, for a stand- 

 ing hen spells a standing loss ; your money-maker is 

 moving. 



When it is necessary to keep the birds indoors the 

 feeding is much slower as the grain must then be scat- 

 tered widely because of limited floor space. This cannot 

 be avoided. The change always affects the egg yield, as 

 does a sudden change in the weather ; it is simply a case 

 of the choice of two evils. 



The actual feeding of the oats, greens and grain, is 

 never interrupted once it has been started. We do not 

 stop to pick up an egg that lies in the yard or a bird that 

 is out of condition — such things are attended to when the 

 feeding is finished. Nor do we allow strangers to crowd 

 the fences, let alone enter the yards when the birds are 

 feeding. Ladies with violent clothes or fancy parasols 

 or even ordinary umbrellas (carried open), frolicsome 

 children, playful dogs — all of these are barred from the 

 vicinity of the houses and yards. Young pullets are espe- 

 cially susceptible. An open red parasol once gave us 

 several hours' work gathering a flock of young pullets 

 from the tops of houses and the neighbors' premises. 



We always call the birds when feeding so as to round 



