44 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



the beef type, but they certainly were not of the egg type, 

 for I did not get enough eggs for breakfast. These hens 

 were related more to the "Call of the Wild" than to the "Call 

 of the Hen.'' In fact, they were so wild that I called them 

 the "wild type," and their wildness seemed to extend to 

 everything on the place. My wife grew wild, I grew wild, 

 and our's was indeed a wild poultry farm. In fact, things 

 grew so wild that the hens flew one way and the home went 

 another. Though I make a comedy of my failure, it was in 

 reality a tragedy, such as is every home broken by the pov- 

 erty which often follows the poultry business. 



Some time after this I met a man who wished me to raise 

 poultry for him on shares; I accepted. Of all the deals I 

 ever had, this was about the worst. For a brooder and feed- 

 house I used an out-building, which, according to this man, 

 was everything that it should be. It had a history running 

 back to his boyhood days. It was over a cellar, in which 

 the water stood six feet deep in winter. The brooder lamp 

 of the hot-water-heater was under the floor, and the water 

 that stood in the cellar in winter came within about two feet 

 of the lamp. To get at the lamp to clean and light it, I had 

 to float around in this water on a log. There was a draught 

 under the floor and occasionally the lamp would go out. I 

 would have to float around on the water to light it. The 

 brooder was 3x14 feet. 



The first hatching went all right. I had a very hard time 

 getting the owner to put up a building so that there would 

 be a place to put the chicks after they got bigger and I 

 could have the brooder ready for the next hatching. He 

 finally consented, but by the time we got started the next 

 hatching came off. I had about 600 chicks three weeks old 

 in the brooder and I had about 600 more just hatched to 

 put in the same brooder, which, as I have said, was 3x14 



