April, 1912 
MAKING A BEGINNING IN POULTRY- 
KEEPING 
By E. I. FARRINGTON 
PRIL is the best month in the year to 
begin poultry-keeping. It is the great 
poultry month. If a poultry-keeping ven- 
ture gets a good impetus then, it seems to 
move on well through the year. The eggs 
are even more fertile than in March. The 
chicks hatched then are likely to be strong, 
robust and easy to raise. And chicks 
hatched in April will make good early win- 
ter layers. 
There are three ways in which a man 
may begin with poultry in April. He may 
buy laying pullets and set the eggs or he 
may purchase several settings of eggs and 
hatch them with an incubator or hens or he 
may place an order for as many day-old 
chicks as he may want to raise. He may 
even combine these plans. To buy many 
pullets would entail a considerable invest- 
ment, for they will cost from one to two 
dollars each. And yet, by buying a few 
mature birds he will have eggs all sum- 
mer—perhaps until the newly hatched 
chicks begin laying in the Fall. 
Whether he buys eggs to set or hens to 
lay the setting eggs, he will have to provide 
means of incubating them. Sitting hens 
are easy to find at this season and it may 
be possible to pick up several nondescript 
biddies at seventy-five cents apiece. It is 
a good plan to set several hens at the same 
time and to give all the chicks to one. If 
the beginner wants to experiment with an 
incubator, he can buy a good seventy egg 
machine for seven or eight dollars and the 
experience gained with it will be worth 
while. It is better to experiment now when 
eggs are cheap than earlier in the season 
when they are worth five cents apiece. 
The simplest plan is to buy day-old 
chicks, selecting the breed which seems to 
possess the most desirable characteristics 
and taking into account the fact that such 
breeds as the Minorcas, Leghorns and Hou- 
dans lay white eggs and do not dress as 
well as the Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes 
and Rhode Island Reds, which lay brown 
eggs. It will be remembered, likewise, that 
the members of this trio are persistent sit- 
ters, while those first named seldom become 
broody. 
The business of selling day-old chicks has 
assumed mammoth proportions. Thou- 
sands of chicks just out of the shell are 
shipped for hundreds of miles every 
Spring. Having absorbed the yolks of the 
eggs from which they were hatched just 
previous to breaking through the shells, 
they need no food for forty-eight hours, 
which is the main reason that they can be 
shipped better when just hatched than 
later. Special boxes for holding the chicks 
when on the road have been invented and 
the express companies give special atten- 
tion to shipments of this kind, which re- 
quire quick delivery. 
Many poultry-keepers have given up 
hatching chicks altogether. City people go- 
ing to the country or the seashore for the 
summer and desiring a supply of fresh poul- 
try find it an excellent plan to buy a few 
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