PRAIRIE FARMER'S POULTRY BOOK 



And the president wired back: "Buy a new shirt and 

 come anyway." 



So let's go anyway, whether we have everything just as 

 we would like or not. 



That's what Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Holoch of Ford county, 

 111., did last year, and their cash income from poultry was 

 $802.84. They live on a rented farm, too. 



"We do not have anything very up-to-date, but we make 

 the best of what we have," says Holoch. "We felt that we 

 couldn't afford to sit around and wait until we have everything 

 just the way we want it before trying to make money from 

 our poultry." 



So they went at it, and made enough from the poultry to 

 pay the rent last year. 



How the Hens Are Fed 



The Holochs raise a laying strain of White Wyandottes. 

 For breakfast the hens get a hot mash composed of skim- 

 milk and water, half and half, thickened with bran and alfalfa 

 meal, with a pint of tankage added for each 100 hens. Dry 

 oats are fed in the litter for a morning scratch feed, and ear 

 corn is fed at night. Oyster shell and bran are kept in self- 

 feeders all the time, and the water fountains are supplied 

 with warm water. 



They begin to set the incubator and hens the first of 

 March. Last spring the egg market was not very satisfactory 

 so after they had enough chicks for their own use, they hatched 

 1,200 for the neighbors. 



The baby chicks brought $180, other poultry $364.88, and 

 eggs $257.96, making a total of $802.84. The cash outlay for 

 the year was not over $50. The feed, of course, was raised 

 on the farm. It is certain, says Mrs. Holoch, that the grain 

 fed to the poultry brought much greater returns than that 

 marketed in any other way. 



She says, too, that they are going to raise more poultry than 

 ever this year, as they are convinced that there is nothing on 

 the farm that pays better. 



The poultry house is an old building, 12x30. In order to 

 provide more light to supplement the four small windows they 

 cut an opening three by six feet in the south side and covered it 

 with a muslin curtain. This curtain provides ventilation, and 

 when removed on sunshiny days, lets in lots of sunlight. 



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