8 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



/ Many, through their natural desire for a home, are led to 

 believe that they can get rich quickly in the poultry business, 

 that they can make from $4.00 to $6.00 a year per hen, when 

 as a matter of fact such a thing is impossible. Persons thus 

 deluded are regarded as foolish by experienced poultrymen 

 and have the sympathy of every honest one. The poultry 

 books by misleading you may be responsible for your losing 

 your money. When this happens they are, to my mind, 

 just as guilty of robbery as the man who knocks you down 

 and takes your money. 



I Your grandmother raised poultry successfully, and you 

 may have raised poultry on a small scale and have done well 

 because your hens always laid well. They laid because there 

 were plenty of bugs to go round, but when you got a large 

 number of hens it is a very different matter. You are inter- 

 ested in poultry and you picture in your mind the satisfac- 

 tion of conducting a successful poultry farm. You subscribe 

 for a poultry paper, get some dealers' catalogues of poultry 

 accessories, incubators, etc., and you obtain from these the 

 impression that everybody is making money from hens. You 

 read the "Questions and Answers" in poultry papers about 

 feeding, disease, and before long you catch the "chicken 

 fever" — a disease which you start to cure with a full pocket- 

 book. The usual result is that the disease and the contents 

 of your pocket-book disappear at the same time. 



You read articles in poultry papers, written by some back- 

 yard poultry raiser who cannot make a success of the busi- 

 ness himself but is always ready with advice. Most of them 

 are better poultry writers than poultry raisers, but they 

 supply only stereotyped information. You soon come to 

 know what answer will be made to every question and you 

 soon begin to be able to answer the questions yourself. Then 

 you begin to think you know something about the business, 



