232 
March 16, 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
Sonic of my critics told me that I was 
crazy to set niy building upon a loose 
foundation, with a chance for the cold 
winds to circulate under it, and expect 
to have it warm. They said I should 
have set it upon a foundation that is 
windproof and rat-proof. I thought 1 
knew what 1 was about, and it is my turn 
now. I have supplied a large tannery for 
several years with poultry manure, which 
they use in the process of tanning hides. 
We have always had to watch our chance 
in Winter and clean the tables when we 
have a warm spell. A long cold spell has 
sometimes caused them great inconveni¬ 
ence, the manure being frozen fast to 
the tables so that it was utterly impossible 
to remove it. I got a hurry order yester¬ 
day for a load of droppings, with zero 
weather prevailing, the thermometer reg¬ 
istering from zero to 10 below every 
morning for a week. We filled the order 
from the new house without trouble, as 
there was not a particle of frost in the 
droppings, which had been accumulating 
on the floor for a month. (We use no 
tables under the perches.) 1 first placed 
the perches four feet above the floor in 
order to secure greater warmth for the 
hens at night, hut soon lowered them to 
about 2 '/ feet. I found four feet pretty 
high for the hens to fiy up and down, 
and the hens keep the whole room suffi¬ 
ciently warm for comfort, floor and all. 
Hens in Conitnbment.- 1)o you Intend t#> 
keep your hens closely confined In your hen 
barn nil Winter? Do you propose to con¬ 
fine them therein through tlie remainder of 
the year? If not. then how much runway 
space do you propose to give them? What 
Is the smallest runway they should have for 
your !>00 hens? o. r. w. 
Union Springs, N. Y. 
In answer to the above will say that it 
is expected the hens will remain inside 
from November 1 until Spring opens 
(probably about April 1), after which T 
plan to let them out for a short run 
occasionally towards evening. Possibly 
they may get out every afternoon for two 
or three hours after 1 lie eggs are mostly 
laid. The building is so near the cow 
barn and other buildings that if allowed 
their liberty early in the day stolen nests 
would be apt to result. I do not like to 
find a lien’s nest in my buggy when I 
start for church on Sunday. I once 
carried a lien to singing school in my 
younger days, perched on the reach of my 
wagon. The fact that she retained her 
perch on the reach until I arrived at my 
destination, proves either that I had a 
slow horse or else good company. She 
was discovered upon my arrival and it 
was a long time before I heard the last 
of it. Older readers will remember my 
telling of placing 300 four and five-year- 
old liens in an old stable in the Fall of 
1905. The intention was to sell them to 
butchers as soon as prices rallied after 
the usual Fall rush was over. One hun¬ 
dred were thus sold, but the remainder 
commenced to lay so well before a market 
was secured for them that the 200 were 
kept until Fall. These were kept closely 
confined in the stable, an old building 
15x50 feet, except that about twice a 
week they were let out for an hour or 
so just before night. They laid fully as 
many eggs during the whole Spring and 
Summer as younger hens having free 
range all the time. Bearing this experi¬ 
ence in mind, I shall handle the new flock 
in about the same way, and watch devel¬ 
opments. The building stands in a small 
field of about an acre, close to the other 
farm buildings, and T may conclude to 
fence the field with poultry netting so as 
to confine them to this field. The point 
T wish to settle by this experiment is 
this: Can a large flock be successfully 
kept, confining to the house most of the 
time, letting them out for an occasional 
run once or twice a week? If the answer 
is in the affirmative, as T expect it to 
be, the proposition of producing eggs as 
a business takes on a new and more busi¬ 
nesslike form. Suppose a man lias three 
or four flocks of 500 fco 1,000 each; lie 
can then house them all at one point, or 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
under one roof, if you please, alternating 
in giving them a chance to have the range 
of surrounding land. With all his birds 
housed conveniently under one roof, in 
large flocks, the work of caring for them 
will assume a businesslike aspect more in 
accord with modern methods of produc¬ 
ing Winter milk. He can study and 
provide for the needs of his birds much 
better than in a multiplicity of small 
flocks, where lie must of necessity hurry 
from flock to flock. 
It is evident from the flood of corre¬ 
spondence I am receiving that 1 have 
struck a popular chord by allowing roup 
to get into my new house. I find that 
“there are others,” and their name is 
legion. Some of them have advice to 
offer, and more are asking for advice. 
For myself 1 must confess that I don’t 
know what causes it nor how to cure it. 
One correspondent says the hens eat 
the grain soaked with coal oil and get 
well. 1 might say that mine cat the grain 
without the oil and get well (most of 
them). My losses have been less than 
five per cent as yet, and none has died for 
the last two weeks, although there are 
still a few on the doubtful list. 1 did treat 
a few with kerosene swabbed about the 
head and eyes with a feather, hut could 
not see any marked results from it. 1 
draw a few conclusions something like 
this from observations to date. I hese 
are liable to be found erroneous as knowl¬ 
edge of the subject increases. I believe 
roup to he a germ disease that docs not 
appear in a flock without the germs being 
brought there in some way. I do not take 
much stock in the popular belief that 
cracks and drafts cause it. Young stock 
is more susceptible to it than older birds. 
After a flock has had it in epidemic form 
and recovered, those birds are not apt to 
have a second attack. Tt is impossible to 
fatten a bird while it is going through a 
siege of roup, and equally impossible for 
a hen to commence laying before she has 
put on a good coat of flesh, so we need 
not expect many eggs until some time 
after recovery from roup. o. w. mapes. 
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Cartilage, Mo., Oct. 30, 1906. 
From Mar. 1st until Oct. 30, 1905, I milked f> 
1 cows and sold all of my butter at 20 cents per 
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and from that date until Oct. 30, 1906, from the 
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1. N. IIussey. 
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Eighteen Distributing Warehouses. 463 Bellows Falls. Vt. 
