1913. 
THE RURAL, ISEW-YORKEK 
k!3f 
A WOMAN’S HENS.J 
It is very hard to say just why hens 
pay me, when so many who try to keep 
more than a few make a failure. I have 
one neighbor who keeps about as many 
as I (200), who says he knows they 
don’t pay. Another neighbor who has a 
produce route in the city and keeps 500 
or more, says he would be satisfied with 
$500 profit in a year and that with a 
retail trade. I believe we (my husband 
and I) were a pair of the most ignorant 
“back-to-the-landers” that ever went 
from the city on a farm looking for 
something “nice.” Of course that is an¬ 
other story, but we came here about 12 
years ago, have always kept a few fowls 
of all colors, sizes and ages, as are 
the majority of farm flocks. Six years 
ago I bought two sittings of R. I. Red 
eggs from a person who always had 
eggs in the Winter, and that was the 
first step toward success. From the pul¬ 
lets which I got from those eggs, chang¬ 
ing roosters every year or so, I have 
bred up my present flock. 
I have never paid much attention to 
color, more for early laying and large 
size. I find no trouble in getting a 
cent or so more a pound for my fowls 
than others get, just because they are 
large and in good condition, with a 
good demand from the peddlers. One 
man took nearly all of mine last year 
here at the farm. I usually begin to 
sell them early in the Summer as they 
want to sit. There is an excellent de¬ 
mand for fowls then and I believe it 
is better to begin to dispose of them 
when the price is good, than to wait 
until Fall and try to sell on a glutted 
market. The broilers I have to send to 
Boston alive; 10 or 12 are shut up in 
each small coop when they weigh about 
a pound and fed a mash consisting of 
corn-meal, bran and middlings with boiled 
potatoes and wetted up with skim-milk. 
In two weeks or so they will weigh V /2 
pounds and be nice and plump. I try 
to separate the cockerels and pullets, 
just as soon as I can tell them, as they 
require entirely different treatment. I 
usually keep about 75 roosters for roast¬ 
ing chickens. I believe it pays, but there 
are a good many who do not think so. 
I^ast year they averaged me over one 
dollar each, a few were dressed and 
sold on commission, but most were sold 
to peddlers at 15 cents a pound, live 
weight. Some weighed over eight 
pounds. 
I fed them for a month or so before 
Thanksgiving the same as I did the 
broilers and they certainly were fine 
eating, that is if they were all like our 
Thanksgiving dinner. I never keep or 
try to sell anything which is inferior; 
if they are too bad I wring their necks 
and bury them, if not we eat them. This 
applies to pullets as well as roosters. 
As I hatch with hens I do not begin 
to set them until the last week in March; 
by that time they are wanting to sef 
pretty fast, and I like to be all through 
setting in four or five weeks. It takes 
about 50 hens to hatch enough chickens 
to be sure that I have plenty of pul¬ 
lets to keep up my stock. I have no 
hatching house, which would be very 
convenient, but set them anywhere and 
everywhere there is a place in and 
around the buildings. Always set at 
night and cover the hen up for 24 hours 
or so; less if she is quiet and more if 
inclined to be fussy. Very seldom I 
have one that refuses to set or know 
her own nest after a few days. Use 
lice powder freely at least three times 
during the three weeks. I do not take 
any special pains with the nests only 
to see that they are rather flat. 
I put the hen and chicks out of doors 
in a small coop with wire-covered yard 
as soon as she gets uneasy. Put fine 
gravel in the coop and feed chick feed 
consisting of finely cracked corn and 
wheat and pinhead oatmeal with about 
10 per cent crushed bone and a little 
charcoal. I see that they always have 
tender grass to pick and water in a 
homemade fountain consisting of a to¬ 
mato or other can of that size with the 
opened end trimmed out, an opening is 
made on the side with the lower edge 
an inch or so from the bottom for the 
hen and chicks to get their heads in; a 
smaller can with a nail hole on the side 
about an inch from the open end is 
filled with water and inverted in the 
larger can; the water is fresh and cool 
as long as there is any in the smaller 
can. 
I put about 15 or 18 chicks with each 
hen and in three weeks take the hen 
away and double up the chicks. There 
are so many hawks around here that 
I cannot let small chicks run. If I 
could, raising them would be lots less 
work. When they get too large for the 
hawks they are just right to damage 
crops. The head of the house has as 
much good nature as the average hard¬ 
working farmer, but there are 
things he won’t stand and having pota¬ 
toes dug out of the hills and thirTorn 
ears picked open by hens or chickens 
are among the number. So just aS soon 
as I can tell the roosters they are kept 
in the small coops and the pullets are 
put in the coops that they will occupy 
until they are put into their Winter 
houses. The coops are 5x6 feet and will 
hold 50; they are just a frame of inch 
boards, poultry wire and roofing paper 
covered roof, muslin sides and back and 
wire front. As soon as I get them in 
the larger coop I stop feeding wet mash, 
and keep dry mash before them and feed 
whole wheat and cracked corn at night. 
I forgot to say that when the chicks are 
a week or 10 days old I feed a mash 
once a day, wetted with skim-milk if 
there is plenty; if not I use water and 
add beef scraps. 
After haying we .move coops and 
yards, which are of three-foot wire, out 
into the mowings and allow the pullets 
more liberty. They are usually put into 
their Winter quarters by the middle of 
October. The coops that I like best 
are 12x16 feet, single pitch roof, an 
opening 3x6 feet each side of the doors 
with muslin covered frames on hinges 
in which I winter 50. The earth floor 
is covered about six . inches dd'ep with 
gravel. Dry mash is kept in soap boxes 
with laths nailed across to allow the 
hens to put their heads through, shell 
and charcoal in hoppers. I try to have 
cabbage for them but do not always, so 
I feed waste apples as long as they 
last, and also supply them with cut hay. 
I scatter a little wheat in the gravel 
and rake it in to start them scratching 
in the morning and at night feed about 
all the whole corn they will pick up 
greedily. That is in Winter; in Sum- 
(Continued on page 233) 
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TUF 
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I Yt to costing two or three times as much 1 Take your time. I won’t hurry you—don’t you let anybody else hurry you. If 
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___ __ _ ___ _ __ Factory to Farm 
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me, 
run juet an nieu, 
----JJfll.w- 
I will do what I can lor your 
riv Oliver, Seneca, Neb. Received your 5 H. P. engine about 
Had™ 0 ™ ago and lt ha3 never K^en me a minute’s trouble since. 
thorn all"KU'mn«d . —c—if™* ^- 1 - .but the Galloway hue 
vet it to ^. Lat it 2n^t b^iit S,!^“ work,n * tw d * ya ua “ otW mak “ 
It Is ^ enne dale, Texas. I received the engine all O. K. and 
enifinoH nv?f heat running engine I ever saw. I have been running 
haw. Ev«^ y tffiV nd 1 WOU, i not * ,vo . tho Calloway for any one l ever 
dairy and J my ®?* ino ita a dandy. 1 am running a ten-cow 
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to mo a woo l{ a °w “ nd e,,MJr > r 'vn«*el ami ffrindutono attached 
to Bay it has th« ™ ,t# ♦L C i U » Btart Hnd *° about ray work, and 1 want 
__tng beet governor that I ever muw. 
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_ We carry JEkgt ns* in tifock at Ckioup q. JCanaas City, 
665 Galloway Station, Waterloo, Iowa 
Council BhtjTm, Minnt apoKtt and WiTturywtj. 165 
