36 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



for twenty-two hours a day. You cannot tell me you make 

 money merely by working hard; I tried it and I know. 



That is why I laugh when one mentions hard work to me 

 in. connection with success in the poultry business. If I got 

 through by 11:50 P. M. I would take the street car home; if I 

 did not get through by that time I would sleep on the sugar 

 sacks until it was time to go to work again. During this 

 time I was very sick for six months, but I worked just the 

 same. 



Every morning 'before I went to work I would see that 

 the hens were properly cared for that they might be all right 

 for the rest of the day. I fed my hens exactly as I did at the 

 other place, but instead of beginning to lay they began to 

 die. They would stand around all day in the shade and 

 would not scratch, nor could I make them do so. They did 

 not seem to be hungry and when I would feed them their 

 grain they would eat a little and then go back again to the 

 shade or to the roosts. 



I never knew before what bowel trouble among hens was, 

 but I know now. I had not encountered any at the other 

 place, but now almost all my hens had it. They would eat 

 granulated bone by the sack; it seemed as though they could 

 not get enough. When I broke up crockery and glass and 

 gave it to them they would eat it as my other hens had eaten 

 wheat. I cleaned the town out of broken crockery. In the 

 droppings of the hens there would often be nothing but 

 crockery. One day when breaking coal for the house I saw 

 the hens were crazy for it, although they always had char- 

 coal before them; they ate all the chips that flew off which 

 were of a certain size — about the size of corn — and there- 

 after I would sometimes spend hours breaking up coal for 

 them. It did them no good, however; in fact, nothing I did 

 seemed to do them any good. 



