l89i 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
667 
Poultry Yard. 
BUYING PLYMOUTH ROCKS IN THE 
DARK. 
For seven years Betsey and I lived in the 
smoke and noise of a small city. We often 
longed for the pure air and fresh scenes of 
our old farm. Therefore it was a happy day 
when late in the fall of 1887, we found our¬ 
selves safely housed on the old home place 
where I had lived when a boy, and where I 
wished to see my own boys raised. My first 
money invested on the farm was when I 
first subscribed for that whole souled 
paper, The Rural, and several other farm 
journals. With mending fences and erect¬ 
ing buildlDgs, etc., I hadn’t much time to 
read except in the evenings, but I did en¬ 
joy it then. I had something to think about 
all day. About this time the papers had 
much to say about the pleasure and profit 
in raising poultry, and I determined to 
start in that business rightaway. I wrote to 
a poultry dealer and asked for prices on live 
poultry. Back came the answer “$5 per 
trio.” Great guns 1 must I pay that much 
for three fowls ? Fortune, however, fav¬ 
ored me. I hfard that a neighbor who 
raised Plymouth Rocks had two dozen 
chickens to sell. At once I made up my 
mind to get them and start in the egg busi¬ 
ness rightaway, for dido’t eggs bring as 
high as 85 cents in the winter ? And with 
at least two dozen hens I ought to make 
something if they all laid as my hens 
should. 
At the supper table I made known my in¬ 
tentions and Betsey up and mildly sug¬ 
gested that I’d better wait till spring and 
then buy five or six old motherly hens, 
send off and get some good, pure eggs and 
set them. The idea 1 i wait till spring, 
when it was winter eggs I wanted ! Right¬ 
away after supper I hitched up old Kitty 
to the light express and started. The way 
was long, the horse was old and slow, and 
it was pretty dark when I arrived at the 
place. I drove up and made known my 
business. 
“ Yes, certainly,” said the chicken man. 
“ Walk right in and warm awhile by the 
fire and my wife and the girls will catch 
the chickens.” 
For half an hour the chicken man and I 
discussed farming and politics and then the 
women folks announced that the chickens 
were tied and in the express. After paying 
for the two dozen I started home amid the 
scuffles and occasional loud squalls of my 
chickens. I felt so good—yes, I verily be¬ 
lieve I started off whistling “The Girl I 
Left Behind Me.” 
It was very late and dark when I reached 
home. The boy came out with the lantern; 
but I excitedly yelled to him to take it 
back. My paper said that fowls should not 
be unduly excited or startled and I wanted 
my Plymouth Rocks to have every advan¬ 
tage. There in the dark and cold we untied 
the strings from the chickens’ legs (it does 
beat all how many knots a woman can tie) 
and carefully placed each on the roost and 
closing the door we went to the honse. 
With a cheerful heart I retired to bed, re¬ 
marking to Betsey that now we should be 
aroused in the morning by chanticleer’s 
loud call just as I used to be awakened 
when I was a boy. 
The next morning about 4 o’clook a loud, 
exultant crow startled me from a sweet 
dream in which I was just packing the 
fiftieth dozen of eggs in a basket for mar¬ 
ket and the price was 40 cents per dozen. 
Hastily getting up I speedily had the whole 
family up and as soon as it was light 
enough I armed myself with some meat 
scraps, bran mash, etc., (a mixture made 
from directions given in my paper) and with 
the whole family at my heels I went to 
view my new chickens. Proudly 1 threw 
open the door and we all looked in when 
Oh, horrors! what did I see? Surely those, 
old, care-worn, speckled, yellow, long- 
legged, short-legged, chickens were not my 
cherished Plymouth pullets? What made 
some of them act so queerly as I approached 
nearer. Over half of them cocked their 
heads to one side and looked at me out of 
one eye. As I moved to look at the other 
side of their heads they moved too. Oh! I too 
soon discovered that over half of them were 
blind in one eye. For two weeks I was sad. 
If I came suddenly on a group of hens (and 
they did nothing but sit around) they 
would turn their heads and with one eye on 
me retreat in all haste: so far not an egg. 
Betsey never once said, “ I told you so,” 
but her quiet question “ Did you look at 
them before buying?” nearly crazed me, for, 
putting implicit trust in the chicken man, 
I had asked no questions, supposing of 
course he had Plymouth Rocks of that year’s 
growth to sell. 
I soon discovered that my chicken man 
was as generous as he was honest. With 
every chicken he had given free-gratis 
about three dozen big, nice, slick, gray, 
yellow, brown and white lice, nice, friendly 
creatures, but exceedingly hard to get 
rid of, if you don’t sell the chickens 
they’re on. To this day we have the de¬ 
scendants of that free gift, although the 
“chickens” have long ago ceased to exist. 
We now raise our own chickens, and do not 
depend on our neighbors to do it for us. 
Observe I say we, because I do not manage 
the chickens all by myself any more, but 
let the women folks do most of the manage¬ 
ment. _. Q-. L. D. 
OUR COMMON FRIENDS. 
In these days when there is so much to 
say about the Farmers’ Alliance and Capi¬ 
tal and Labor, I feel moved to speak for 
one class of workers who make no attempt 
to speak for themselves. I am sure they 
are industrious, unobtrusive, busy on rainy 
days as well as on fine ones, and if their 
employer provides as he ought, they never 
lay off. Moreover, people overlook the fact 
that they work on the Sabbath, and if any 
have noticed it, they did not object; 
they rather admired it. To be brief, I refer 
to the domestic bird called the hen. 
I have kept a small number each year, 
but raise no chickens in the spring. Two 
summers I kept seven hens in a slat coop 
five feet in every direction, moving on new 
ground every two or three days. They laid 
steadily all summer and were perfectly 
contented. Of course if you take a wild 
chicken and shut it up it will not be happy. 
One must raise chicks from their earliest 
youth to be driven, or to stay in a small 
yard. They like it just as well as if al¬ 
lowed to live in the onion bed. Hens do 
not lack perception. They like pretty good 
manners the same as a cow does. One 
shouldn’t scream at them. The proper way 
to teach tnem is to go before them with a 
dish of wheat, and not look back. Go right 
through the gate, they are at your heels. 
When they are fully educated one can drive 
them like sheep, but gently. 
Here is my account since the first of 
April: 
April..Eleven hens.Eggs, 91 
May.Mne “ . *• 153 
June.Eight “ “ 129 
July 20.Eight “ . “ 103 
Total.476 
There may be as much policy in keeping 
fowls in boundaries as there is i i keeping 
cattle or sheep by themselves. As with 
other things, one can get too many for the 
size of the ground. When they are shut 
in there is no loss of eggs, and they can 
be looked over every day. No one can 
count chickens before they are hatched, 
but afterward it’s a good plan to count 
them often. 
I do not publish this report of eggs think¬ 
ing my hens are a bit smarter than others. 
If those who keep chickens would keep a 
daily account of eggs brought in, the num¬ 
ber would prove larger than any one would 
be apt to think by guessing at it. 
Delaware Co., Ohio. M. j. KIMBALL. 
Lice or a Chill—-Which ? 
What is the trouble with my young 
chickens and what is a remedy? They have 
been well fed and the coop has been kept 
fairly clean and yet they are dying off. 
They commence by looking pale, and the 
feathers are ruffled. They get listless and 
finally die in about two days. One died two 
days ago, now three more are affected. 
They are in a rather small box at night; 
but run at large in the day. They get 
wheat, corn meal, middlings, etc. M. p. 
Grand Rapids, Mich. 
Ans.—T he chicks are probably infested 
with lice. I see no distinctive hint of other 
trouble in the data given. There is no 
mention of symptoms of throat or bowel 
difficulty; listlessness is an accompaniment 
of all diseases; and the only thing to get hold 
of is the paleness, which is more often a 
sign of lice than of any other trouble. These 
are often present when the owners of the 
birds think tney can not be; it is not enough 
to part the feathers, give a glance, and say 
no lice are present. Hold the feathers apart, 
and wait; after a minute the pests will com¬ 
mence to run, while at the first there may 
have been no sign of any. It Is possible 
that, if there is no hen with these chicks, 
and they are still small, they may have had 
a chill; or they may have been overfed. 
Either of these causes would be likely to 
manifest Itself in a refusal of food. I can 
suggest only that the correspondent look 
sharply for lice, using keroseneon the coop, 
and lightly on the chicks, if they are found; 
that he give cooked feed for a few days, 
and that if sore throat manifests itself, he 
should add a few drops of carbolic acid t j 
the drinking water, and give twice or thrice 
dally a tiny pill of kerosene and lard, equal 
parts, to each ailing chick. 
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