1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
635 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
THE STORY OF A nEN. 
The Leghorn Scrubs.—We are now ready to 
tell the story of the Leghorn scrub experiment. 
It is nothing to brag about, but I promised to 
give the facts, and here they are. Readers will 
remember that last October we went to the New 
York live-poultry market and bought at ran¬ 
dom, among others, 65 hens at a cost of 39 cents 
each. We never knew where they came from or 
what they had in the way of a pedigree. We had 
two objects in view : First, we were short of 
hens, not having been able to raise pullets 
enough. Second, we wanted to give such hens a 
chance to show what they can do. We have read 
articles by men who claim to have bought such 
hens and made a fair profit on them. Such peo¬ 
ple claim that, by picking out hens of a “ pro¬ 
nounced egg type,” and feeding them plenty of 
meal, one is sure to get his money back—with 
ieteiest. It seemed like a good experiment and 
we tried it. 
What They Were.—Those who have been in 
the places where live poultry is sold know that a 
fellow doesn’t have much of a chance to run his 
eye over the “egg type.” The birds are kept 
crowded into low coops. They are usually stuffed 
full of corn, and are dumpy and dull. In selling, 
the dealer brings up an empty crate, puts it on 
the scales and marks the weight on it. Then he 
pulls out the hens one at a time and gives you a 
chance to handle them. It is not at all like see¬ 
ing a hen running about in the yard. We were 
fooled on several of these hens. Why, we got 
some old grandmothers that were old enough to 
vote! We looked first for evidences of Leghorn 
blood. There were no Whites to be found when 
we bought, but grades of Brown and Buff were 
plenty. We tried to select birds with a small 
head and short neck—long between the base of 
the neck and the root of the tail, rather long 
legs and a thin, rakish-looking body. We like to 
see a bright, erect carriage and a nervous walk 
or run, but I’ll defy any human being to detect 
these in a hen that he holds by the legs in a 
poultry shop. To tell the truth, buying these 
“egg-type” hens is an easy thing to theorize 
about, but a mighty hard thing to do. 
What. They Did.—We soon found this out when 
we got these hens home and out of the crates. 
That “ egg type ” wasn’t so apparent as it was 
in the shop. Still, they seemed like a fair lot of 
hens Most of them were he.althy and active. 
We had expected them to be quite lousy, but very 
few lice were found. We dusted them all with 
P. D. Q. or Death to Lice and they have needed 
no further treatment since. Most of them were 
ravenous for corn. The dealer said that some of 
them came from Long Island and others from 
northern New York. They were, evidently, com¬ 
mon barnyard hens. I judged from their actions 
that they had n»ver been yarded before we got 
them. We fed them a balanced ration of grain 
and meat from the start, and gave them good 
care. They were warm and comfortable through 
the Winter, though the house was an old one— 
poorly arranged. Late in November their combs 
began to redden and they began to sing. They 
improved greatly in appearance, yet the 65 hens 
laid only (55 eggs up to January 1, though they 
consumed 812.24 worth of food! Several died in 
January and more in February—we lost 20 of 
them in all. The hens that died seemed weak 
and unable to stand heavy feeding. We believe 
that many of them were closely inbred and of 
low vitality. We were disgusted with the hens 
before March, and would have sold them but for 
the fact that we had started to make a fair test 
of their ability. 
Their Egg Performance.—On hunting up rec¬ 
ords, we find that some previous statements were 
not correct. On August 22, we sold 36 of these 
hens at 35 cents each. We now have nine of 
them. Here is a statement of what these hens 
have done for Hope Farm: 
LEGHORN HEN STATEMENT. 
Month. No. Eggs. 
Value. 
Cost of Feed 
October. 
20 
80.50 
84.01 
November.... 
22 
.66 
3.94 
December.... 
23 
.81 
4.29 
January. 
85 
2.55 
3.72 
February. 
225 
5.62 
3.24 
March. 
520 
11.70 
3.18 
April. 
556 
11.12 
2.76 
May. 
705 
8.81 
2.48 
June. 
625 
9.37 
2.38 
July. 
283 
5.66 
2.38 
August. 
200 
5.00 
2.24 
3,264 
861.80 
834.62 
r account with 
these hens stands as follows: 
Dr. 
65 hens at 39 cents.... 
... 825.35 
Cost of food. 
. 
... 34.62 
859.97 
Ur. 
3,264 eggs.... 
36 hens at 35 cents.... 
9 hens at 35 cents. 
877.55 
According to this, we are 817 58 ahead on the ex¬ 
periment. We have a whole cart-load of experi¬ 
ence, however, which we would not sell for 850. 
Most people would say that a gain of 817.58 on an 
original investment of 825 3 i is good enough, 
but the fellows who talk 83 a year profit have 
spoiled us. We want too much. 
Notes on the Experiment.—The highest cost 
for feeding was in December—the average cost 
per hen for that month being 6*4 cents. In June 
and July, on a wide range a hen could be fed for 
one cent a week—the actual cost of grain or other 
purchased food. If we had bought hens in Feb¬ 
ruary and March and sold them when we did, we 
would have made more profit. Such old veterans 
are sure to go dry during the Winter. They may 
be bought cheaper in late Winter, and some one 
else may pay their December and January board. 
If we ever buy any more old hens, it will be in 
March—but please excuse us from feeding more 
of them from October. To the various experts 
and authorities who told us how it would come 
out, we frankly say, “ You were right; it doesn’t 
pay to buy an old hen that some one has dis¬ 
carded as worthless ! ” 
That is just about what it means to buy hens 
in the ordinary live-poultry market. Does any 
one suppose that we would ever sell one of our 
Black hens at live-poultry prices ? Not a bit of 
it. We would keep her while there was an egg 
left in her locker. I don’t know why we should 
consider ourselves any sharper than other hen 
men. Any man with common sense would sell 
nothing but the culls at live-poultry prices. He 
will keep his best stock at home. I am satisfied 
that we got a lot of cheap culls, and that is what 
you will get 99 times out of 9954 in buying hens in 
the New York market. Ycu do better in buying 
pullets, because the seller cannot cull out the 
best ones, and you have a chance to feed them 
properly before they begin to lay. 
The Egg Type.—There is an immense amount 
of nonsense about this. We handled last Winter 
about 150 of these hens besides this experiment 
lot of 65, and we fed and cared for them in vari¬ 
ous ways. You may sign my name to the state¬ 
ment that this idea of picking out a good hen by 
her shape and then forcing her to lay is humbug. 
Unless the trait , the habit of laying, has been 
bred into the hen, and unless she has been fed 
properly as a pullet, you might about as well 
give your balanced ration to a surplus rooster! 
Take our 10 Minorca bens—the ones we are 
using as foundation breeding stock. Here is 
their record from October 1 to August 22 to com¬ 
pare with that of the 65 scrub Leghorns: They 
laid 1,236 eggs in a little less than 11 months. 
Their food cost 86.10. Two died—their places be¬ 
ing filled by good pullets. On the basis at which 
we figured the value of the Leghorn eggs, their 
product was worth 825.02. We may take out the 
eggs laid by the two pullets and still have nearly 
as much profit as was made by the 65 scrubs! 
The fact is that most of the eggs from these 
Minorcas were used for hatching, and we have 
over 860 worth of black pullets from them! 
These black hens were fed just as the Leghorns 
were, yet one Minorca of our own breeding has 
paid as much profit as six of the scrubs. You 
may be sure that these black hens are not for 
sale. We will let the men who advised against 
this experiment do the preaching. We have sup¬ 
plied the text and have no complaint to make. 
Do we want to buy any more culls ? No, thank 
you. We will charge their owners 25 cents a 
month for feeding them! Are some of the so- 
called purebred birds culls—so far as egg-laying 
gees? Yes, they are, in our opinion. We buy 
no more hens except from flocks that are known 
to pay a fair profit in eggs! We advise practical 
hen men to start at once and kill or sell every 
hen that is not known as a good layer. Off with 
their heads! Don’t board scrubs! H. W. c. 
AILING ANIMALS. 
ANSWERS BY DR. F. L. KILBORNE. 
Ringbone on a Horse; Urticaria or Nettle- 
Rash on a Heifer. 
1. I have a young horse with a ringbone on the 
front foot about half grown. Is there any cure ? 
2. My heifer has blotches on her which look like 
pimples on a horse that has been overheated. 
What is the remedy ? h. l. c. 
1. Firing in points with the actual cautery will 
usually kill ringbones if not too extensive or of 
long standing. This case can, evidently, be 
benefited, possibly entirely cured, by deep firing. 
The operation should be intrusted only to a quali¬ 
fied veterinary surgeon. 2. Give the heifer one 
pound Epsom salts with two ounces ginger dis¬ 
solved in three pints warm water to move the 
bowels. Then give one of the following powders 
in the feed, or by drench, night and morning: 
Bicarbonate of soda and gentian, of each eight 
ounces; nitrate of potash, four ounces; powdered 
nux vomica, two ounces; mix and divide into 16 
powders. Should the eruption prove persistent 
give a course of arsenic. Two tablespooufuls of 
Fowler’s solution of arsenic in the feed once 
daily, and continue for two to four weeks. 
Tape-worms in Lambs. 
My lambs are having the scours very badly. 
One which died had something like a small rib¬ 
bon one-quarter inch wide in the small intestines; 
it seemed to have life in it. Is it a tape-worm, 
or what causes it ? Is it contagious ? My lambs 
were the same in 1896, and I sold the sheep and 
lambs all out and bought more in 1897. My pas¬ 
ture is dry, stony land, clover and Timothy. 
There is no water in the field. I made a lane to 
a spring about 10 rods, but they don’t go there 
very often. Is it something that grows in the 
field that causes it? I lost 28 lambs in 1896, out 
of 80. The trouble did not appear in 1897 at all. 
It commences about this time of the year. These 
lambs came in April, are in good flesh and would 
weigh about 65 pounds. They have salt at all 
times. m. m’n. 
Pennsylvania. 
The long, ribbon-like bodies you describe are 
tape-werms, probably the Taenia expansa. The 
lambs become infested from infected pastures 
and water courses, also from contact with in¬ 
fected sheep that are passing the mature seg¬ 
ments or eggs of the tape-worm. One of the best 
general vermicides is oil of turpentine, and for 
tape-worm, a combination of oil of turpentine 
and oil of Male shield fern, administered in oil 
or milk, and after a fast of at least 12 to 16 
hours. Take of oil of turpentine, three ounces; 
oil of Male fern, two ounces; castor oil,20ounces; 
mix, and shake well together until the oils are 
thoroughly mixed. Also, shake immediately be¬ 
fore giving. This quantity is sufficient for 16 
doses, giving 1*4 ounce or three tablespoonfuls 
to each lamb. The lambs to be treated should 
be shut up at night and allowed no feed. In the 
morning, administer the medicine, and follow by 
a light diet for 21 hours, after which a mild 
physic should be given if the lambs are not al¬ 
ready purged. For this purpose, give to each 
lamb two ounces Epsom salts dissolved in one- 
half pint warm water, or two ounces castor oil, 
as a drench. For adult sheep, the above doses 
should all be increased one-half. 
In drenching the lambs, have the animal 
placed on its haunches and firmly held between 
the knees of an assistant, or of the operator if 
working alone, and raising the head pour the 
medicine slowly into the mouth, keeping the 
head elevated until the drench is swallowed. It 
would be well to collect the droppings from the 
lambs during the two days’ treatment, and com¬ 
post them or spread on cultivated fields not pas¬ 
tured by sheep. During the Summer, the sheep 
should be changed from pasture to pasture if 
possible. They may be preceded or followed by 
other stock without danger of infection from one 
class to the other. Only pure drinking water 
should be allowed. As a general tonic and pre¬ 
ventive against the worms, give each lamb two 
to three teaspoonfuls of the following powders 
in their grain rations once daily : Common salt, 
one pound; gentian, eight ounces; Epsom salts, 
eight ounces; powdered dry sulphate of iron, 
four ounces; mix. If the lambs are thin, they 
should have a moderate grain ration to keep up 
their strength. 
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Save $10 per cow per year. Send for Catalogue. 
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That shows the importance of 
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YOUR CRAIN 
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A hand mill for grinding grain, 
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Hillsboro, Ohio, U. S. A. 
Satisfactory Machinery. 
A farmer desires 
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The Little Giant 
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Top Price Butter. 
The kind that a fancy private 
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the color that does not contain 
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FARM ERS, 
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