1903 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
79 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
WoinsN AND Hens. —Can a woman 
make any money with hens? Let us see 
what a woman is doing, even in mid¬ 
winter, rather than to talk about “what 
can be done.” Mrs. James W. Crawford 
is the woman, and she lives just on the 
outskirts of Middletown, N. Y. I drove 
out to see this “hen woman” and her 
hens this morning, January 15. She is 
wintering about 330 hens. From these 
she is getting from 100 to 150 eggs a 
day. Yesterday (January 14) she got 
115 eggs. She tells me that she has not 
got as low as 100 a day for the past 
month, and that she gets 40 cents per 
dozen for'them. Think what that means, 
you girls (and boys, too), who think 
that a clerkship at $6 or $8 a week would 
he a great boon. 
How does she do it? 
That is what I wanted to find out. 
Nothing is in sight from the road to 
indicate a modern poultry plant. In 
fact, I drove right past the place without 
seeing it; had to turn back after making 
inquiries. 
iMPROviSEn Heniiottses. —There was 
an old dwelling house containing several 
flocks, even the old cellar has its flock 
of hens. What has once been the sitting 
room now has a flock of perhaps 40 
hens. The door has here been removed 
from the small old-fashioned chimney- 
cupboard, and two hens were using the 
the cupboard for a nest while I was 
there. Back of the house are several 
structures reminding one of an Indian 
wigwam. These have been made by 
standing poles, perhaps 12 feet long, 
on the ground inverted V-shaped. After 
covering them with old hoards, secured 
from old packing boxes and the like, in¬ 
cluding a good many barrel staves, the 
whole has been made tight and warm 
with heavy two-ply roofing felt. Not a 
window to them, except some glass in 
the door at the south end. Stepping In¬ 
side these novel hen-hovels, I found 50 
hens as busy and comfortable as need 
be. The floor was well littered with dry 
forest leaves, and the high gable or peak 
of the wigwam was full of large bags of 
the same material hanging from the 
steep rafters. 
A Praoticat, Tat.k. —Mrs. Crawford Is 
no novice at the business. She has been 
doing equally as well for a number of 
years to my certain knowledge, although 
I have never been at her home before. 
You may be sure I fired questions at 
her thick and fast, for the benefit of R. 
N.-Y. readers. Here are some of her 
replies: 
“How many hens do you keep?” 
“About 330 at present.” 
“How many roosters?” 
“Only eight. I keep no roosters ex¬ 
cept with my breeding pens.” 
“What breeds?” 
“Mostly Houdans and Ermanetts. 
These latter are a mottled breed, lighter 
in color than the Houdans, with no top- 
knot. I believe they have never been 
admitted to the Standard. In addition to 
these I have a few White Wyandottes, 
and a few ‘odds and ends’.” 
“Do you use an incubator or brood¬ 
ers?” 
“No. I hatch everything with hens.” 
“Do you use pullets or hens for breed¬ 
ing purposes?” 
“I never set an egg from a hen till 
after her .second Winter.” 
“How many chickens do you hatch?” 
“Usually from 1,000 to 1,500. I sell 
a good many as soon as hatched at 10 
cents each. Those ‘odds and ends’ of 
hens will probably all be sold in the 
Spring, along with their broods of 
chicks. The Houdans never sit.” 
“What do you feed your hens in the 
niorning?” 
“Whole grain.” 
“Mixed?” 
“No; never. I alternate, but never 
more than one kind of grain at once. I 
use wheat, corn, buckwheat and oats, 
first one and then another, trying to 
avoid feeding the dark-colored buck¬ 
wheat on dark cloudy days, as the hens 
have difficulty in finding it on dark days. 
I use oats from which the hulls have 
been removed, thus giving them the 
clean ‘meats’ only of the oats. This 
whole grain is given the first thing in 
the morning.” 
“How much of this whole grain do 
you give to your entire fiock?” 
“Just about a bushel a day.” 
“What comes next on the pro¬ 
gramme?” 
“Filling the drinking pans with water 
in the middle of the forenoon.” 
“What do they get for dinner?” 
“Cabbage, a medium-sized head for 
each 20 hens and for supper a warm 
mash.” 
“WTiat is it composed of?” 
“Wheat middlings and ship feed 
(wheat), equal parts by measure one 
day, and American Cereal Company’s 
poultry food in place of the wheat mid¬ 
dlings the next day.” 
“How much of this mash will they 
eat each evening?” 
“About 50 pounds dry feed.” 
“Do you put any meat scrap or ani¬ 
mal meal in it?” 
“Occasionally in Winter, but not regu¬ 
larly, and not at all in Summer.” 
“Do they get any other feed.” 
“Our marketman saves me a lot of 
fish heads, etc., every Friday, and I cook 
up a large kettleful of these with cab¬ 
bage, and add to the mash once a week. 
If any of the mash is left in the troughs 
at dark it is scraped out and saved for 
our ducks next day, rather than let it 
freeze fast in the trough.” 
A Successful Record. —Here is a 
plain record of one woman’s success 
with hens, on a scale large enough to 
bring her a good income. What is the 
secret of her success.' Who can study 
it out? Why cannot the rest of us do 
as well? Why do her hens lay in De¬ 
cember and January so much better 
than those recorded in Cornell Bulletin 
No. 204? Here is the same condition of 
a big appetite for more than a mainten¬ 
ance ration, which I have before spoken 
of as running through all reports of un¬ 
usual Winter laying. Divide her hens 
into flocks of 50 hens each, and we have 
about seven flocks, which makes an al¬ 
lowance of seven pounds of dry feed in 
the mash at night, and four quarts of 
whole grain in the morning. This gives 
between four and five ounces per hen 
daily, in addition to the cabbage and 
fish heads. Her hens are kept closely 
conflned all winter with no open 
scratching shed, and a scant allowance 
of light. Crushed clam shells furnish 
grit and shell-forming material. 
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