The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
A Start in Poultry 
I am a high school boy 16 years old, 
and have about $150 saved. With this 
little bit of money I would like to start 
in the poultry business, but I would have 
to build a chicken coop, and I do not 
know how to make the money go the re¬ 
quired distance. Would you advise me 
to start in now, or wait until I have more 
money? If you could send me the plans 
for a house for about 100 chickens I 
might interest my father so that he might 
help me out a little. A. B. 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. 
Your difficulty in making the money 
you have go the required distance is one 
that we all have, and it often becomes a 
serious question in which direction to 
start and how far to attempt jto go. I 
think, however, if I had but $150 and no 
stock I should not attempt to build a 
poultry house this Fall. Building mate¬ 
rials of all kinds are so high that it seems 
to me wise to postpone building as long 
as possible, in the hope that another year 
will see a change for the better. It is 
easier, too, to start in the Spring, when 
you can buy day-old chicks or eggs for 
hatching from some reliable breeder and 
raise a flock of pullets with less imme¬ 
diate outlay than would be required if 
they were to be purchased this Fall. At 
the same time you would be learning how 
to raise chicks and would know better 
what your housing requirements would 
be. One hundred and fifty dollars would 
purchase an incubator of standard make, 
which, by the way, you might be able to 
purchase second-hand and get a machine 
equal to new for your purpose, enough 
hatching eggs to fill it several times, a 
brooder stove or other brooding equip¬ 
ment, and leave you some money for pur¬ 
chased feed. You would find use for it 
all before Summer was over, and would 
probably need to earn some more to go 
with it! During the latter part of the 
Summer, when you had a flock of promis¬ 
ing chickens actually in sight, you would 
he better able to enlist a little financial 
aid from the rest of the family to provide 
Winter quarters for them. There is 
nothing like showing actual results when 
you want to secure outside capital. 
These capitalists like to invest in a going 
concern, most of them have learned to be 
a little wary of promoters who have noth¬ 
ing but ideas to advance. 
In the meantime I should write the 
State Agricultural College at Ithaca, N. 
Y., and ask them for their bulletins upon 
poultry raising and poultry buildings and 
should take every opportunity to visit 
poultrymen in my vicinity and see how 
they conduct their business. It is un¬ 
necessary to tell you to also read the 
poultry articles in this and other farm 
journals, for you will do that anyway. 
You will find that there are many con¬ 
flicting ideas as to just what is best and 
that the only way to sift them out and 
learn to apply those most suited to your 
requirements is through experience. You 
should go slowly and resist the temptation 
to invest in expensive equipment until 
you have learned whether or not it is 
really needed. Too high “overhead” has 
ruined many a promising start in poultry 
keeping, and while it may be impossible, 
as is so often advised, to make chickens 
pay their own way from the start, one 
should come as near to doing it as pos¬ 
sible and avoid paying out his last dollar 
of available capital until there was more 
in sight. On the whole. I think that I 
should advise you to keep the money that 
you now have until Spring, add all to it 
that you can meantime, and commence 
your poultry enterprise with chickens and 
let it grow up with them. ai. B. D. 
Roup 
I have a flock of thirty-six White 
Wyandotte pullets and noticed one or 
two that had a white froth in the corner 
of the eye. I doctored with boracic acid 
water. This occurred about a week ago. 
Now almost every one has become af¬ 
fected, and the eye is closed in the morn¬ 
ing. Some have a black sore where 
a whitish fluid from the diseased eye has 
run over the head, and a few have a yel¬ 
low canker in the mouth and under the 
tongue, one having its mouth filled with 
canker. These chickens have had clean 
cistern water, with once in a while a lit¬ 
tle copperas added; good wheat, oats and 
corn, also bran and some ground oats and 
corn, and just recently have given meat 
scrap, but the sore eyes had started before 
I gave that. I boil ail potato parings and 
give cabbage leaves. They were kept iu 
the same henhouse as last Winter, when 
I had no sickness whatever among chick¬ 
ens C. A. w. 
Ohio. 
The presence of “cankers” in the mouth 
is quite indicative of true roup among 
these fowls; otherwise there would be at 
least equal likliliood that they were suf¬ 
fering only from contagious colds brought 
on by ill ventilated and damp quarters. 
As the whole flock is now affected, noth¬ 
ing is to be gained by attempting to iso¬ 
late the sick birds, neither is individual 
treatment practicable. The quarters should 
be made thoroughly cleau and sanitary, 
and should be light and well ventilated. 
Ihe utensils used should also be kept 
clean by frequent scrubbing with boiling 
(water. If only colds are present they will 
subside under good care, but, if true roup 
has been introduced into the flock, its 
course will be prolonged, becoming worse 
with the approach of another Winter. 
One supposedly cured case of roup may 
carry the infection to healthy birds and be 
responsible for its continuance from year 
to year. It is generally recommended, 
therefore, that roupy birds be disposed 
of, even if that requires the sacrifice of 
the whole flock, and that, if necessary, a 
fresh start be made with healthy fowls in 
clean quarters. Since no further exten¬ 
sion in your flock is to be feared, you will 
be justified in awaiting the result of good 
care and attention to sanitary conditions 
surrounding the flock ; should the disease 
go from bad to worse, however, there is 
little to recommend but radical measures 
that will dispose of the contagion once 
for all. m. B. D. 
Ration for Layers 
I come from California, so do not un¬ 
derstand much about chickens here. I 
have just bought 30 pullets, Rhode Island 
Reds, hatched last April. Will you tell 
me how to feed them and the amount? 
I can get plenty of bread and scraps for 
one feeding. Should I add bran to it. 
and how much? How much should I 
feed the 30? Also what else should I 
give them? Of course I have fresh water, 
grit and oyster shell before them. I am 
told they should also have free access to 
a mash. h. k. m. 
New York. 
If you wish to feed these pullets accord¬ 
ing to the accepted practices of poultry- 
men, you will have to supply them with 
two kinds of food; first, a mash composed 
of ground grains, to which meat is added, 
and, second, a mixture of "whole grains 
given in the litter. The mash is usually 
fed dry, placing it in a hopper, from 
which the fowls can get it at any time 
they wish. If you prefer, however, you 
can moisten the mash to a crumbly con¬ 
sistency with skim-milk or water and feed 
it once or twice daily from open troughs. 
A dry mash constantly before the fowls 
is generally considered best, and if you 
have no hopper you may place the mash 
in large crocks or boxes and cut a piece 
of hardware cloth to fit the inside of the 
crock or box and lay directly upon its 
contents. As the mash is eaten through 
the meshes of the hardware cloth, the 
latter will follow it down and keep the 
birds from scratching it out and wasting 
it. 
With such a dry mash constantly before 
the fowls, a mixture of cracked corn, 
wheat and oats is fed in the litter night 
and morning, giving a light feed in the 
morning and all that the birds will clean 
up quickly at night. They should eat 
about equal quantities of dry mash and 
whole grains by weight, and if too much 
whole grain is given they will neglect the 
less palatable mash. Your 30 pullets will 
probably need about three quarts of whole 
grain daily in connection with their mash, 
the amount varying with their appetites 
and the vigor with which they attack the 
dry mash. If they neglect the mash cur¬ 
tail the whole grain ration; if they eat 
considerably more mash than whole grain 
increase the amount of the latter feed. 
A good mixture for a mash may be made 
by using equal parts by weight of corn- 
meal. wheat bran, middlings, ground oats, 
gluten feed and beef scrap. The scratch 
grain may well be composed of a little 
more than half cracked corn and the 
balance made ud of wheat, whole oats, 
1497 
barley, buckwheat, etc., using the grains 
that are available. 
When a dry mash is used water must 
be kept constantly before the fowls, as 
they can eat but little at a time without 
recourse to the water pail to wash it 
down. Fed in this way, however, there 
is no danger of overfeeding the fowls, yet 
they can always get all the food they 
want, and a hen to lay well must have 
all the food she wants. Of course they 
should have grit and crushed oyster shells 
before them and some kind of green food 
when possible to get it. R. I. Red pullets 
should begin to lay by the time they are 
six months old, anyway, and may be made 
to lay earlier. M. B. D. 
Plaster for Henhouse Wall 
I am building a poultry house, and, 
lumber being dear, I would like to make 
the sides of plaster, using plaster laths 
and making the plaster 1 in. thick. If 
you think this will be all right, how much 
plaster and sand would you use? Bast 
year I plastered some laths, and in the 
Winter the plaster seemed to break off. 
Merchantville, N. J. w. H. T. 
I doubt if it would be practicable to 
use lath and plaster for a wall, unsup¬ 
ported by sheathing. Possibly this could 
be done if the studding was closely enough 
placed to support the lath and plaster 
rigidly. For such work, cement plaster 
would be superior to ordinary mortar, of 
course, and this might be made from one 
part cement to from three to five of clean, 
sharp, coarse sand. The exact propor¬ 
tions needed are governed by the quality 
of the sand and its freedom from loam 
or other foreign matter. I should not 
advise the attempt to make such a wall 
without first consulting local masons as 
to the advisability and quality of materials 
for concrete work of that kind. 
II. B. D. 
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