542 
AMEEIOA]^ AaRIOULTURIST. 
[Deoembee, 
Feeding and Care of Farm Animals. 
PRIZE ARTICLE — BT “ A WESTERN PARMER." 
Poultry. 
It is not advisable to have poultry in large flocks. 
Even with the best of care and food they cannot 
be kept thrifty and healthy for any considerable 
period of time. Experience teaqhes that sixty 
hens, properly housed and cared for, will yield 
twice as much clear profit as two hundred crowded 
or neglected. There are many varieties of fowls, 
and which to select is often a perplexing question. 
The large, heavy breeds, require more care and 
food than small, active fowls, but they are the 
best for broilers, and when fat, always sell well in 
market. They are quiet, rarely traveling far in 
search of food, and for this reason are best for 
small farms, or where they must be yarded a large 
portion of the year. On the other hand, where 
range is unlimited, the smaller, active breeds, are 
preferable, as they will find nearly all the food 
they require, thus costing little for keep, while, as 
a general thing, they are the best layers. The 
average farmer will find a cross between the large 
and small breeds the most satisfactory. A flock of 
chickens can be readUy improved by the use of well 
bred cocks. Two are suflflcient foi an ordinary flock. 
The house shown in figure 1, is fourteen by 
twenty-eight feet, eight feet high in the center and 
five at the sides. The walls are dressed barn-siding, 
nailed on both sides of braced studs, the space be¬ 
tween being filled with dry sawdust, which makes 
them six inches thick. They rest on a foundation 
of brick, eight inches wide, which renders them ab- 
Fig. 1.— A SMALL POULTRY HOUSE. 
BOlutely vermin-proof. The roof is double, filled 
in with sawdust, same as sides ; floor is bare earth, 
smooth, dry, and hard. A door is in the east end. 
In the bottom of the door is an opening twelve by 
eighteen inches square, fitted with a sliding shut¬ 
ter, for the poultry to pass in and out. The two 
windows rest in grooves, so that they may be slid 
open, and are covered with coarse wire screens. 
Extending from the south side of the buUding is a 
glass-covered run, nine by twelve feet, the floor of 
which is eighteen inches lower than that of the 
main building. In its outer end are two openings 
for ventilation, twelve by eighteen inches square, 
covered with wire screen, and fitted with sliding 
shutters. In the main building are the perches, >•, r, 
figure 2, placed two and a half feet above the floor, 
and fastened to the wall with strong hinges, so that 
they can be raised when the droppings are scraped 
out. The nest boxes, n, h, are fastened to the 
walls six inches above the floor; the cover over 
them slopes down, so the fowls cannot use them 
for roosts. The feed trough, is four inches wide, 
four deep, and eight feet long. The water box, w, 
is a tin box or deep pan, set inside a wooden box 
having a hole three by four inches square in its 
cover. The sand, gravel, and bone-boxes, o,p,q, are 
near the door. A dust-box is in the glass addition. 
A breeding-pen, 5, p, is seven by eight feet square, 
separated from the main room by a wire-screen par¬ 
tition, with entrance, e, in one corner. It contains 
nest boxes, perch, etc. This house, though a com¬ 
paratively cheap affair, is substantial, and answers 
the purpose for which it is designed much better 
than many houses ten times as costly. 
WiETBR Care op Fowls.—W e will start with 
thirty one-year-old hens, thirty pullets and two 
cocks as a sample flock. As eggs bring about 
three times as much in winter as in summer, our 
efforts will be directed to inducing the hens to lay 
during that season. About the middle of October 
the cocks are shut up in the breeding-pen, The 
hens are fed twice a day with all the food they will 
eat. The morning meal consists of cracked com, 
wheat screenings, oats, and boiled potatoes mixed 
together with boiling water, covered up and 
allowed to stand an hour or so. A few chopped 
onions, pieces of meat, or pork scraps from which 
the lard has been tried, and a small quantity of 
cayenne pepper are added when fed. The evening 
meal may be cracked corn, oats, and wheat screen¬ 
ings fed dry. A head of cabbage is fastened to the 
wall, about six inches above the floor, for fowls to 
pick at. Apples are relished and may be fed oc¬ 
casionally, chopped fine. Fresh water is supplied 
daily. Warm skim milk is excellent in cold 
weather. Rinse the troughs out well every day. 
A few barrels of dust are placed in the house in 
summer for use in winter. The dust-box is a foot 
deep, four feet long, and three wide. It is kept 
well supplied, and on bright, sunny days the fowls 
gather in the glass apartment and enjoy the sun 
and a dust bath. The sand and gravel boxes are 
kept full of coarse sand and fine gravel. The bone 
box is always supplied with bones, ground or bro¬ 
ken to the size of peas, old plaster or lime, and 
crushed oyster shells. Nest boxes are cleaned out 
onee in three weeks, sprayed with kerosene, and 
lined with fresh straw slightly sprinkled with sul¬ 
phur. Perches are sprayed with kerosene once a 
month. The droppings beneath them are cleaned 
out every morning, and the floor of the whole 
house is scraped once a month with a scraper 
made for the purpose, and shown in figure 3. 
About once in two months all the fowls are driven 
out of the building, the ventilators closed, and a 
large pan full of live coals set inside, upon which is 
thrown a double handful of sulphur. The door is 
quickly closed and kept shut for an hour, when 
the fumes will destroy every living thing in the 
Fig. 3.— A SCRAPER. 
building. The windows and ventilators are opened 
and the house well aired before either person or 
fowl is allowed to enter. Onee a year the entire 
interior of the building receives a coat of fresh lime 
whitewash to keep it clean and sweet. 
Pekin Ducks.— Ever since its first introduc¬ 
tion into this country, the Pekin duck has 
steadily gained in popularity, untii now it takes a 
front rank amongst desirable breeds. Like any other 
poultry, this breed does not please all equally well, 
though the majority of farmers and breeders who 
have tried the Pekins thoroughly are satisfied with 
the results. In size they take the lead, when given 
a chance to properly mature and develop, by 
hatching early and feeding liberally and regularly. 
They are pure white, hardy, vigorous, and prolific. 
They stand confinement as well as any other ducks. 
By hatching the eggs under common hens, a 
single trio of ducks kept constantly laying will 
produce a large flock in a single year. Some 
breeders contend, and with good reasons, that 
the only mother the ducklings need is a 
mud-puddle, and if they have plenty of water 
and a comfortable, clean house, to run into 
at night, they seem to get along as well as when 
under the care of a foster mother—an old hen, 
Light in the Winter Quarters, 
An abundance of light in the shelters provided 
for stock in winter, is a point which should not be 
overlooked, for darkness is as injurious to animals 
as it is to plants. Human beings spending much of 
their time in dark tenements, are pale, sickly, and 
dwarfed. Confining the lower animals in dark 
quarters, has a similar effect—retarding growth, 
and reducing vigor. Much of the blindness among 
horses is caused by their being brought suddenly 
from a dark stable into the strong sunlight, which 
is especially trying when reflected 'from snow. 
The openings in shelters are closed with boards or 
straw, “to keep out the cold unfortunately this 
keeps out the light also, so that a majority of the 
stables in this country are dark for three-fourths of 
the time during which animals are confined in 
them. This is all right at night, but during the 
day time, the stable should be as light as the 
dwelling, and made so in the same way—by glass 
windows. A few panes of glass and sash, will not 
cost much, and a more profitable investment can 
not be made. Shutting up shelters so closely, also 
shuts out the pure air. Leave a wide crevice un¬ 
der the eaves. The inside impure air becomes 
heated and lighter, as it becomes foul, and will 
rise and pass out at this crevice, and the outside, 
pure air, being colder and heavier, wUl enter. The 
animals will have pure air, and no blasts will strike 
directly upon their bodies. Leaving openings in 
the roof, and building small houses (often im¬ 
properly called cupolas), with lattice-work sides 
over them, is a splendid way to ventilate barns 
and stables, and improve the looks of the building. 
Improved Cattle Tie. 
While the American Agriculturist has always recog¬ 
nized the convenience and excellence of stanchions 
for cattle, it has protested against the obvious 
cruelty of locking any animal’s head so that it can 
only move up and down between two bars. The im¬ 
provements upon the stanchions have been numer¬ 
ous and all more or less inconvenient, but they 
have given very little more liberty to the captive. 
In our May number a chain “ tie” was suggested, 
which had been put in use and approved itself to 
the writer. The common chain tie passes about 
the animal’s neck, and slides up and down upon a 
post or iron rod, attached to the stall or manger. 
Thistle is similar, except that the neck-chain is con¬ 
nected with two posts or rods, upon which it slides. 
The improvement consists in using rings upon 
the posts, and connecting the side-chains with the 
neck-chain by means of snap-hooks, attached to 
the central ring, as shown in the diagram. This 
enables one to adjust the tie to any width of stall, 
say from three to four feet, and have it I’easonably 
taut. The advantage of this method of fastening 
cattle over any other, is, that while great freedom 
is given the head, so that a cow can lick both sides 
and lie down with her bead upon either side, she has 
no more backward and forward motion than If she 
stood in stanchions, hence must drop her droppings 
in the gutter—if the stall is of the proper length. 
There is a constant tendency to give cow stalls too 
long a floor. Every cow should lie with her rump 
AN IMPROVED TIE FOR CATTLE. 
four to eight inches beyond the floor. The only ob¬ 
jection to this is that the cows’ tails will sometimes 
become wet from lying In the gutter. If, however, 
this is given a pretty sharp fall and considerable 
breadth, water will not accumulate and there will 
be no inconvenience experienced on this score, 
