PRACTICAL EGG FARMS. 
Individual Brooder Houses in the Orchard, Van Breser Poultry Farm. 
house; and still another would be to set the 
houses on runners so a horse could be hitched to 
them and hauled to another location; this last 
we understood Mr. Van Dreser to say he in¬ 
tended to do. 
Some families of chicks hatched earlier than 
it is well to have them run out of doors, are 
brooded in the storage room of the building 
called the packing house; the same “indoor” 
brooders being used that are later put out in the 
detached houses in the orchard. With Leg¬ 
horns, hatched for laying-breeding stock, how¬ 
ever, there is really no need of early hatches. 
May is the best month for hatching Leghorns, 
and in May, chicks can be put out doors 
at once in most years in Central New York. If I 
were conducting such a poultry farm as Mr. 
YanDreser’s, I would have incubators enough 
to get out all the chicks desired in two hatches 
and have both of these hatches come in May, or 
possibly one of them in the last week in April, 
and the other in the middle of May, then have 
brooders enough to handle “ the crop ” and have 
the chicks just about all of an age and size; then 
I would get eggs galore in November, December 
and January, when eggs pay the big profits. 
Caring for and Feeding the Chicks. 
The chicks get nothing to eat the first day, in 
fact are best left in the incubator till they are 
at least twenty-four hours old. On the first 
day they get bread crumbs soaked in sweet milk 
and then “Johnny Cake” made of mixed meals 
and thoroughly baked; this is their food until 
they are about three weeks old. They are then 
gradually changed to a mash made of mixed 
meals, composed of ground oats, wheat and 
corn meal, with about ten per cent of beef scrap 
and with a little wheat bran added. This is fed 
in the morning, and cracked corn, wheat and 
oat flakes are the other 
daily feeds. Fresh water, 
grit and charcoal are kept 
constantly by them. 
After the pullets are 
moved into their winter 
quarters, they have a mash 
feed once a da}', about ten 
or eleven o’clock in the 
winter and about four o’clock 
in the afternoon in sum¬ 
mer. This mash is made of 
equal parts of pea meal 
(made of Canada fresh peas) 
wheat bran, wheat middlings, and beef scrap, 
and into this mash is put twenty-five pounds of 
cut fresh bone for each 1,000 fowls. In winter, 
as soon as it is light, a grain feed of oats and 
wheat is thrown into the scratching litter, to set 
them to work scratching; then the mash, and in 
the afternoon a feed of corn, either whole or 
cracked. In the summer a grain feed of wheat 
and oats at noon and the mash toward night 
It is the intention to keep the birds just a lit¬ 
tle hungry, with the purpose of having them 
willing to scratch for their grain, and thus get 
needed exercise. Exercise and an abundance 
of fresh air from having the house well ventilated 
(well aired out) are relied upon to keep the fowls 
in good health. And the results justify the re¬ 
liance ! There has never been any sickness and 
it is almost never that a fowl dies of disease; 
a year ago last winter, with 2,200 birds put into 
the quarters, there was a loss of but one from 
that number in four months; and that is a won¬ 
derful record! A factor in this high health is the 
varying of food ration and the supplying of 
green food in winter. Mangel beets and cut 
clover are relied upon chiefly for the latter, and 
millet, sunflower seed, etc., for the former. 
Cabbage has been used some in the past, but a 
few years ago a dealer in New York City wanted 
to contract for a certain number of cases of eggs 
a week, at a good premium for eggs from hens 
that were not fed cabbage, and Mr. Van Dreser 
changed to mangels and cut clover. Said he: 
“ I am perfectly willing to give a man what he 
wants, provided he will pay for it. ” 
The Business Highly Profitable. 
That this business, as conducted, is highly 
profitable is easily seen. Every egg is "clean ” 
when it goes to market, and only the good sized 
and well-shelled and shaped eggs go into the cases 
77 
