Vol. LXX. No. 4122. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 1911. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
AN ENGINEER AND HIS HENS. 
Raising Pullets and Feeding for Eggs. 
On page 952 Mr. L. B. Thatcher gave a brief statement 
of his experience in poultry-keeping, further details being 
given on page 972. Mr. Thatcher is an engineer, steadily 
employed, and all the time spent upon those hens has been 
before or after working hours, or on holidays. 
You understand that I have no new nor wonderful 
plan or system which by a simple twist of the wrist 
enable us to make several hundred dollars a year with 
poultry, after my regular working hours. Our suc¬ 
cess is due only to considerable thought to fit the 
business to the time we 
were able to give it, and 
much work, that has 
been confining and often 
tiresome to the limit of 
endurance. But we are 
learning new kinks 
which shorten the labor, 
and success brings a 
sense of confidence that 
is restful and which we 
did not have when in 
the experimental stage. 
By the words of we, us 
and our, I mean Mrs. 
Thatcher, although hav¬ 
ing baby to care for, she 
could give but little 
time; it is only by her 
sympathy with the work 
and watchful eye over 
things when I am at 
work that I could have 
obtained these results. 
I told you how we hatch 
chicks, and now tell you 
how we grow pullets. 
GROWING GOOD 
PULLETS.—The poul- 
tryman who cannot grow 
good pullets will not 
last long as an egg pro¬ 
ducer. I have found 
good pullets developed 
in October as ready sale 
at $1.50 each as fresh 
eggs. Conditions must 
be so favorable that they 
will make growth each 
day from shell to matur¬ 
ity. I f growth is checked 
from any cause, or made 
slow by scant feeding, 
they will be from one to 
three months later in 
laying, and never will 
have the size and laying 
capacity. When weather 
gets hot we take out brooders, put in roosts, and 
block houses up about a foot off the ground. Under 
houses it is cool and shady, and they will always be 
found there during the heat of the day. We keep in 
these houses a large soap box of mash and one of 
mixed grain. The box of grain is covered only from 
eight o’clock in the morning until four in the after¬ 
noon. Although having free range, they are given 
all the short sprouted oats they will eat before going 
to roost. This is pie for them, and they eat until 
their crops bulge out, and they just grow while they 
sleep. 
CARE OF CHICKS.—Cockerels are separated the 
very day they reach squab broiler size. They are 
considered only by-product with us, as they but little 
more than pay for their feed, and being the stronger 
and more dominant, they retard the growth of the 
pullets. If I could pick them with a certainty I would 
bury them the day they were hatched. A large lan¬ 
tern is hung in these houses on cold cloudy days when 
chicks are young. The most serious thing I have had 
to contend with in these large broods is huddling, 
but with experience and good judgment it can be 
avoided. I have seen a brood of 200 four-week-old 
chicks pile in a heap no larger than a peach basket. 
Of course if the keeper allows this to happen, and he 
is not on the job, he may be seen digging a hole 
where no fence is needed. Some causes of huddling 
are getting wet, chilled, fright, or irregular feeding. 
The danger lessens as they grow older. These brood¬ 
ers and houses are cleaned out once a year, when the 
chicks and pullets vacate them. These houses are 
dry, and the droppings dry up at once; there is no 
odor, and results are satisfactory. 
EARLY LAYING.—In September, April and early 
May hatched pullets will be laying a few eggs. About 
October 1 the laying house is thoroughly cleaned and 
the birds are transferred to it, and their feet do not 
touch ground again until the following May. Hog 
rings, pig size, for Leghorns, are used for leg bands. 
They never come off, can be put on in one-tenth of 
the time and at one-tenth the cost of the regular 
bands on the market. My 1911 pullets are as near 
alike as peas in a pod. I am sure there are not six 
undersized birds in the flock of 330, and I believe one 
large factor in getting birds like this is in having 
feed always before them so that every bird can get 
it when it wants it. It takes nerve, and flattens the 
pocket-book to carry out bags of feed to a large flock 
of hungry growing pullets, but the Winter egg yield 
is as fully dependent on a full amount of feed 
when growing as when laying in Winter. 
FEEDING FOR 
EGGS.—Having pullets 
that are bred and grown 
right, the egg yield is 
almost entirely depend¬ 
ent on the housing and 
feeding of the birds. 
Our laying house is a 
Corning style house 
16x40 feet. While the 
first cost of this house, 
owing to its height and 
being lined throughout, 
is greater than most 
houses in use, it is well 
worth the difference in 
cost, as more birds can 
be kept in a lined house, 
and the extremes of 
heat and cold are not so 
great. We put 200 pul¬ 
lets and 75 breeders in 
this house, separated of 
course. When pullets 
are brought in from the 
range about the first of 
October the floor is bed¬ 
ded with wheat sheaves. 
This bedding is added 
to during the Winter 
until it is almost a foot 
deep. No other feed is 
given them for several 
days. After several hours 
of fasting they learn 
that there is grain right 
under their feet, to be 
had only by scratching 
for it. They get busy 
and soon forget their 
early life on the range. 
On the floor is a large 
open box just high 
enough to keep out lit¬ 
ter; into this is emptied 
a bag of mash, which is 
always before them. The 
Maine poultry bulletins 
and our experience have taught us some good things 
about mixing this mash, which I will explain later. 
Eight to 10 quarts of mixed grain per hundred birds 
is strewn in the litter in the afternoon. We regulate 
quantity of grain so that birds consume about equal 
parts in bulk of grain and mash. There is also a 
trough in which we feed cut grass, mangels, cab¬ 
bage, sprouted oats, or whatever we have. Con¬ 
cerning the mash, we use about equal parts of bran, 
shorts, cornmeal, ground oats, gluten meal and half 
part to one part beef scrap, and in cold weather a 
half part linseed meal. Gluten meal, linseed meal 
and beef scrap will stimulate egg production. They 
will also, if fed to excess, cause diarrhoea, indigestion 
LAYING HOUSE FOR THE ENGINEER’S HENS. Fig. 418 . 
BROODER HOUSE FOR YOUNG STOCK. Fig. 419. 
