PRAIRIE FARMER'S POULTRY BOOK 



Dogs. — They must be trained like cats. They are often very 

 destructive to flocks of turkeys. Only good dogs should be kept. 



Hogs. — There is nothing more aggravating than a chicken- 

 eating hog. Its example is soon followed and the whole herd 

 becomes like a pack of wolves. Lock them up in chicken-proof 

 pens and remove the flock as far away as possible. 



Minks are very cunning. If they can find a hiding place on 

 the premises they will remain for weeks, each nigiit destroying 

 one or more fowls. The fowl is caught behind the head, the 

 blood is sucked, and then the body is dragged away and the 

 flesh consumed, or at least a portion of it. When a mink appears 

 a search should be made. Better use a shot gun than to allow 

 it to escape. If once discovered and frightened it will probably 

 leave the premises. 



Weasels are destructive of young chicks, destroying a score 

 or more in a single night and carrying their bodies to some 

 place of concealment. Coops should be made vermin-proof and 

 always closed at night. 



Skunks destroy eggs and sometimes attack chicks or fowls. 

 Their nests should be sought and raided. 



Rats. — Rats are undoubtedly the most destructive of all 

 poultry pests. They consume and contaminate the feed, they 

 destroy eggs and young chicks, they carry disease from farm to 

 farm and from flock to flock, and they damage buildings and 

 equipment. A pest that destroys property value to the amount 

 of $200,000,000 annually and requires the constant labor of 

 300,000 farmers to supply it with food should have some atten- 

 tion from our lawmakers. We have a good law which provides 

 for the eradication of the Canada thistle, and legislation en- 

 couraging a warfare upon the symptoms of human tuberculosis, 

 and have summoned the nations to discuss the limitation of 

 armaments that war may hide its deformed head for at least 

 ten years, and yet here is a pest that is more destructive than 

 any noxious weed, that is responsible for the spread of tuber- 

 culosis to a large extent, and that has caused the loss of more 

 lives than all the wars of history, but it is allowed to go un- 

 scathed, tolerated by governments and ignored by legislators. 



An impatient and long suffering electorate will some day 

 insist that legal measures shall be adopted to protect the masses 

 of the people from this scourge. 



There is some risk in using poison to destroy rats. If put 

 out in the evening all the remnants should be gathered up 



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