and a cheaper is at hand, might have gone on indefinitely.
Of bias in the interpretation of results all publications are more or less saturated. A reading of the Chapter on Incubation will illustrate this. A common error of this kind is the omission of facts necessary to fully explain results. Items of costs are invariably omitted or minimized. Food cost alone is usually mentioned in figuring experimenting station poultry profits, which statement will undoubtedly cause a sad smile to creep over the face of many a “has-been” poultryman.
The writer remembers an incident from his college days which illustrates the point in hand. Let it first be remarked that this was on the new lands of the trans-Missouri Country, where manure had no more commercial value than soil, and is freely given to those who will haul it away.
The professor at the blackboard had been figuring up handsome profits on a type of dairying towards which he wits very partial. The figures showed a goodly profit, but the biggest expense item–that of labor–was omitted. One of the students held up his hand and inquired after the labor bill.
“Oh,” said the smiling professor, “The manure will pay for the labor.”
When the class adjourned, the student remarked: “They say figures won’t lie, but a liar will figure.”
The third way in which experiments are made worthless is by the introduction of factors other than the one being tested. This may be done by chance, and the conductor not realize the presence of the other factor, or the varying factors may be introduced intentionally under the belief that they are negligible. Of the first case an instance may be cited of the placing of two flocks in a house, one end of which is damper than the other, the accidental introduction into one flock of a contagious disease, or one flock being thrown off feed by an excessive feed of greens, etc., etc. These factors that influence pens of birds greatly add to the error of the law of chance. In fact it amounts to the same thing on a larger scale. For this reason not only are many individuals, but many flocks, many locations, and many years needed to prove the superiority of the contrasted methods.
The criticisms in the following section will amply illustrate the case of foreign factors being unwisely introduced into an experiment.
The Egg Breeding Work at the Maine Station.
As is well known the Maine Station was for years considered by all poultrymen to be doing a great and beneficial work in breeding for increased egg production. Up until the fall of 1907, the poultrymen of the country were of the opinion that this work was in every way successful, and a large number of private breeders had taken up the use of trap-nests in an effort to build up the egg production of their fowls.
When early in 1908 Bulletin 157 of the Maine Experiment Station was published, it showed by averages as given in the table on page 202 that the egg yield at the station was for the entire period on the decline. In Bulletin 157, the statement was made that “arithmetical mistakes” and “faulty statistical methods” accounted for the discrepancies between the former publications and the criticised data. The further explanation that “the experiment was a success as an experiment,” etc., only appeared to the public mind as a graceful way of explaining what was, to the practical man, an utter failure of the entire work.
The unfortunate death of Professor Gowell, together with the fact that he had equipped a private poultry farm with station stock, added to the confusion, and the result of the bulletin was the precipitation of a general “pow-wow” in which the poultry editors were about equally divided between those who were casting insinuations upon the personnel of the station, and those who decried the whole effort toward improving the egg yield.
After going over the publications of Professor Gowell, visiting the station and meeting the present force, I came to the following conclusions regarding the matter:
Professor Gowell’s work is open to severe criticism. Errors have been made in conducting the work at Maine which have made it possible for a mathematical biologist to take the data and seemingly prove that selection, as practiced by Professor Gowell, actually resulted in lowering inherent egg capacity of the strain of Plymouth Rock hens under experimentation. Had Professor Gowell’s successor been a practical poultryman, it is my candid opinion that the public would have been given a radically different explanation of the results.
Professor Gowell is the author of the following statement: “The small chicken grower is earnestly urged to use an incubator for hatching.” This opinion is not in accord with that of the majority of breeders and the more progressive experiment station workers. The opinion has been expressed by Professor Graham and others, that the particular results at the Maine Station may have been due to the decrease of vitality caused by continued artificial hatching. This view may be wholly without foundation. Nevertheless, as the common type of incubator is under heavy criticism, and it is pretty well proven that chicks so hatched have not the vitality of naturally hatched chicks, surely a series of breeding experiments would carry more weight if the replenishing of the flock had been accomplished by natural means.
For the first few years of the breeding work the house used was the old-fashioned double walled and warmed pattern. The last few years of this work were conducted in curtain front houses. That the cool house is an improvement over the warm house is generally conceded, but there are many poultrymen who are still of the opinion that the warm house will give a larger egg yield, though at a greater expense and less profit.
In the early years of the work the method of feeding was also a time-honored one, and included a warm mash. About the middle of the experimental period Professor Gowell brought out the system of feeding dry mash from hoppers. This custom became a great fad and Professor Gowell and Director Woods have preached it far and wide. Perhaps it is an improvement, but it is to-day much more popular with novices than with established egg farms. Many old line poultrymen have tried dry mash only to go back to wet mash, by which method the hens can be induced to eat more which is conducive to high egg yields. Whether these changes in housing and feeding have been improvements as claimed by those who introduced them, or whether their popularity may be explained in part at least by the psychology of fads, is a point in question, but certainly the marring of a breeding experiment by introducing radical changes in the factors of production is at best unfortunate.
A much more serious criticism than any of the foregoing is to be found in a change of the size of flocks and amount of floor space per fowl. I have gone over carefully the published records of Professor Gowell, and the review of Dr. Pearl, and the following table represents, as near as I can determine, these factors for the series of years. In the year 1903 I find no clear statement as to the manner in which the birds were housed, and I may be in error in this case. Otherwise the table gives the facts.
Year Hens in Flock Per Hen Egg Yield 1900 20 8. sq. ft. 136.36
1901 20 8. sq. ft. 143.44 1902 20 8. sq. ft. 155.58
1903 20 8. sq. ft. 135.42 1904 50 4.4 sq. ft. 117.90
1905 50 4.4 sq. ft. 134.07 1906 50 4.4 sq. ft. 140.14
1907 50 4.4 sq. ft. 113.24
Certainly this oversight is a serious one, and one especially remarkable considering the fact that the comparison of different size flocks formed a prominent part of the Maine Station work during the last three years of the breeding test. The results of the work at the Maine Station on testing flock size, conducted without relation to the breeding work, gave the following results:
No. of Hens Sq. ft. per Hen Egg Yield 150 3.2 111.68
100 4.8 123.21
50 4.8 129.69
No comparisons of 50 and 20 bird flocks in the same year are available, but by extending the comparisons of the 50, 100 and 150 flocks into the 20 flock size, we can get some idea of the error that has been here introduced. The result of the Australian egg laying contest in which the flocks were composed of six hens, shows a yield of about one and one-half times as heavy as the Maine records, which certainly seems to substantiate the ideas here brought out.
It is a well established fact in poultry circles that many men who succeed with a few hundred hens, fail when the number is increased to as many thousands. When the breeding experiments under discussion were started, Professor Gowell had under his supervision about three hundred hens. When the work was closed the experiment station plant had been increased to four or five times its capacity, and Professor Gowell had a large private poultry plant of his own in addition.
It is interesting to note in this connection that the last four years of the records are explained by Professor Gowell as being low, due to various “accidents” (?) It is unreasonable to suppose the true explanation of these “accidents” would be found in connection with the increased responsibility and size of the plant.
The breeding stock sent out by Professor Gowell has given general satisfaction, and was found by Professor Graham of the Ontario Station, as well as by a number of private individuals, to be of superior laying quality to that of the average Barred Rock.
Clearly there is only one way to prove whether Professor Gowell’s work has been a wasted effort, and that is for flocks of his strain to be tested at other experiment stations against birds of miscellaneous origin.
That much has been lost to the poultrymen of the country by the recent upheaval at the Maine Station, I believe to be the case, but that does not mean that the men now in charge will not in the future be of great value to the poultry interests. They are, however, in the class of pure scientists rather than applied scientists, but if let alone they will dig out something sooner or later which they or others can apply to the benefit of the industry.
Upon the whole, I think that the present case of the trap-nest method of increasing egg production stands very much as it is has always stood, being a commendable thing for small breeders who could afford the time, but not practical in a large way, except at experiment stations. On a large commercial scale the system of selecting sires by the collective work of his first year’s offspring would probably get the quickest results.
The best use of the funds of the people in the promotion of agricultural industries is in the permanent endorsement on the one hand of a few high grade research stations where the deeper theories may be worked out, and on the other the teaching of such good principles and practices as are already known.
The greatest opportunity for Government effort lies in the development demonstration farm work in poultry Just as it is doing with the corn and cotton in the South.
CHAPTER XVI
POULTRY ON THE GENERAL FARM
This chapter will be devoted to specific directions for the profitable keeping of chickens on the typical American farm. By typical American farm I mean the farm west of Ohio, north of Tennessee and east of Colorado. Farms outside this section present different problems. In the region mentioned about three-quarters of the American poultry and egg crop is produced, and in this section poultry keeping is more profitable when conducted as a part of general farm operations than as an exclusive business.
There is no reason why a farmer should not be a poultry fancier if he desires, but in that case his special interest in his chickens would throw him out of the class we are at present considering. Likewise, I do not doubt that in many instances where the farmer or members of his family took special interest in poultry work, it would be profitable to increase the size of operations beyond those herein advised, using incubators and keeping Leghorns. Of these exceptions the farmer himself must judge. The rules I lay down are for those farmers who wish to keep chickens for profit, but do not care to devote any larger share of their time and study to them than they do to the cows, hogs, orchard or garden.
The advice herein given in this chapter will differ from much of the advice given to farmers by poultry writers. The average poultry editor is afraid to give specific advice concerning breeds, incubators, etc., because he fears to offend his advertisers. The reader, left to judge for himself, is liable to pick out some fancy impractical variety or method.
Best Breeds for the Farm.
Keep only one variety of chickens. Do not bother with other varieties of poultry unless it is turkeys. Whether it will pay to raise turkeys will depend upon your success with the little turks, and on the freedom of the community from the disease called Black-head.
The kind of chicken you should keep should be picked from the three following breeds: Barred Plymouth Rock, White Wyandotte, Rhode Island Reds. If you go outside of these three breeds be sure you have a very good reason for doing so.
Then get a start with a new breed, buy at least four sittings of eggs in a single season, paying not over $2.00 per sitting. Keep all the pullets and a half dozen of the best cockerels. The next spring pen these pullets up with the best cockerels, and use none but eggs from this pen for hatching. That fall sell all of the young cockerels and all the old scrub hens. The second spring the two old roosters from the original purchased eggs are used with the general flock. From this time on the entire flock is pure bred and should remain so.
Each year when the chicks are about six or eight weeks old pick out the largest, most vigorous male chick from each brood. Mark these by clipping the web of the foot or putting on leg bands. From those so marked the breeding cockerels for the next season are later selected. When you pick the good cockerels pick out all runty looking pullets and cut off the last joint of the hind toe. These runts are later to be eaten or sold. The more surplus chicks raised, the more strictly can the selection be made.
This system of picking the best cockerel from each brood and discarding the poorest pullets is the most practical method known of building up a vigorous, quick growing and early laying strain.
When we allow the entire flock of many different ages to grow up before the selection is made it is impossible to select intelligently.
Every third or fourth year an extra cock bird may be purchased provided you are sure you are getting a specimen from a better flock than your own. Swapping roosters or eggs every year is poor policy. If your neighbor has better stock than you, get his blood pure and sell off your own, but do not keep a barnyard full of scrubs who can trace their ancestry to every flock in the neighborhood.
Keep Only Workers.
On many farms few eggs are gathered from October to January. This is a season when eggs bring the best prices. To secure eggs at this season, the first requisite is that the pullets be hatched between the first of March and the middle of May, or, in the case of Leghorns, between the first of April and the first of June. Pullets hatched later than these dates are a source of expense during the fall and early winter. On the other hand, it is an unnecessary waste of effort to hatch pullets before the dates mentioned, because, if hatched too early, they will molt in the fall and stop laying the same as old hens.
Pullets must be well fed and cared for if expected to develop in the time allowed. As they begin to show signs of maturity they should be gotten into permanent quarters. If allowed to begin laying while roosting in coops or in trees they will be liable to quit when changed to new quarters. If possible the coops should be gradually moved toward the hen-house and the pullets gotten into quarters without excitement or confinement. The poultry-house should have an ample circulation of fresh air. Young stock that have been roosting in open coops are liable to catch cold if confined in tight houses.
A common mistake is to allow a large troop of young roosters to overrun the premises in the early fall. Not only is money lost in the decrease in price that can be obtained for these cockerels, but the pullets are greatly annoyed, to the detriment of the egg yield.
Any chicken that is not paying for its food in growth or in egg production is a source of loss. As soon as the hatching season is over old roosters should be sent to market. Through June and August egg production is not very profitable, and a thorough culling of the hens should be made. Market all hens two years or more of age. Send with these all the yearling hens that appear fat and lazy. By the time the young pullets are ready to be moved into quarters–the latter part of August–these hens should be reduced to about one-half the original number. Some time during September a final culling of the old stock should be made. Those that have not yet begun to molt should be sold, as they will not be laying again before the warm days of the following February. This system of culling will leave the best portion of the yearling hens, which, together with the early-hatched pullets, will make a profitable flock of layers.
Hatching Chicks With Hens.
The eggs for hatching should be stored in a cool, dry location at a temperature between forty and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. A good rule is not to set eggs over two weeks old.
The two chief losses with sitting-hens are due to lice and interference of other hens. The practice of setting hens in the chicken-house makes both these difficulties more troublesome. Almost all farms will have some outbuilding situated apart from the regular chicken-house that can be used for sitting-hens. The most convenient arrangement will be to use boxes, and have these open at the top. They may be placed in rows and a plank somewhat narrower than the boxes used as a cover. The nests should be made by throwing a shovel of earth into the box and then shaping a nest of clean straw. Make the nest roomy enough so that as the hen steps into the nest the eggs will spread apart readily and not be broken. When a hen shows signs of broodiness remove her to the sitting-room. This should be done in the evening, so that the hen becomes accustomed to her position by daylight. Place the hen upon the nest-eggs and confine her to the nest. If all is well the next evening give her a full setting of eggs.
A practical method to arrange for sitting-hens is to build the nests out of doors, allowing each hen a little yard, so that she may have liberty to leave her nest as she chooses. These nests may be built by using twelve-inch boards set on edge, so as to form a series of small runways about one by six feet. In one end are built the nests, which are covered by a broad board, while the remainder of the arrangement is covered with lath or netting. The food, grit and water should be placed at the opposite end of the runway. Care should be taken to locate these nests on well-drained ground. Arrangements should be made to close the front of the nest during hatching so that the chicks will not drop out. A contrivance of this kind furnishes a very convenient method of handling sitting-hens, and if no separate building is available would be the best method to use.
Incubators on the Farm.
My candid advice to the farmer who is in doubt as whether to buy an incubator or not, is to let it alone. If the farmer reads the chapter on artificial incubation, he will see that he is dealing with a very complex problem, and one in which his chances of success are not very great.
In order to learn the facts concerning incubators on the farms the writer made a special investigation on the subject while poultryman at the Kansas Experiment Station. Replies received from 111 Kansas farmers, report 21 as having tried incubators. Of these, 6 reported the incubators as being an improvement over hatching with hens; 10 reported the incubator as being successful, but not better than hens, while the remaining 5 declared the incubator to be a failure. The results of this inquiry, and of personal visits to farms, led the writer to believe that about one-tenth of the farmers of Kansas had tried incubators, and that about as many failed as succeeded with artificial hatching.
The argument for the incubator on the farm is certainly not one of better hatching, but there is an argument, and a good one for the farm incubator. The argument is this: Hens will not set early enough and in sufficient quantities to get out as large a number of chicks as the farmer may desire. Now, each hen will not hatch over 10 chicks, but is capable of caring for at least 30. Here the incubator comes into good use, for the farmer can set a half dozen hens along with the incubator, and give all the chicks to the hens. This is the method I recommend where an incubator is to be used. The development of the public hatchery would supply these other 20 chicks more economically and more certainly than the farm incubator, but until that institution becomes established the more ambitious farm poultry raisers are justified in trying an incubator.
The best known incubators in the market are the Cyphers, the Model and the Prairie State. Cheaper machines are liable to do poor work. The following points may help the farmer in deciding whether or not to buy an incubator and in picking out a good machine.
The person to run the incubator is the first condition of its success. A good incubator requires attention twice a day. One person should give this attention, and must give it regularly and carefully. The farmer’s wife or some younger member of the family can often give more time and interest to this work than can the farmer. The likelihood of a person’s success with artificial hatchers can best be determined by himself.
The best location for an incubator is a moderately damp cellar. The next choice would be a room in the house away from the fire or from windows. Drafts of air blowing on the machine are especially to be avoided. Not only do they affect the temperature directly, but cause the lamp to burn irregularly, and this may result in fire.
The objects in view in building an incubator are: (1) To keep the eggs at a proper temperature (103 degrees on a level with the top of the eggs). (2) To cause the evaporation of moisture from the eggs at a normal rate. (3) To prevent the eggs from resting too long in one position.
The case of the incubator should be built double, or triple-walled, to withstand variation in the outside temperature. The doors should fit neatly and be made of double glass. The lamp should be made of the best material, and the wick of sufficient width that the temperature may be maintained with a low blaze. The most satisfactory place for the lamp is at the end of the machine, outside the case.
Regulators composed of two metals, such as aluminum and steel, are best. Wafers filled with ether or similar liquid are more sensitive but weaker in action. Hard-rubber bars are frequently used.
The most practical system of controlling evaporation is a system of forced ventilation, in which the air is heated around the lamp-flue and passes through the egg-chamber at a rate determined by ventilators in the bottom of the machine. With the outside air cold and dry only slight current is required, but as the outer air becomes warmer or damper more circulation is needed.
Turning the egg is not the work that many imagine it to be. It is not necessary that the egg be turned with absolute precision and regularity. An elaborate device for this work is useless. The trays will need frequently to be removed and turned around or shifted, and the eggs can be turned at this time by lifting out a few on one side of the tray and rolling the others over.
Two other points to be considered in the incubator are: A suitable nursery or place for the newly hatched chick, and a good thermometer.
Rearing Chicks.
If it is very early in the spring, and the ground is damp, it is best to put the hen and her brood in some building. During the most of the season the best thing is an outdoor coop. The first consideration in making a chicken-coop is to see that it is rain-proof and rat-tight. The next thing to look for is that the coop is not air-tight. Let the front be of rat-tight netting or heavy screen. The same general plan may be used for small coops for hens, or for larger coops to be used as colony-houses for growing chickens. The essentials are: A movable floor raided on cleats, a sliding front covered with rat-tight netting, and a hood over the front to keep the rain from beating in. If used late in the fall or early in the spring a piece of cloth should be tacked on the sliding front.
The chicken-coops should not be bunched up, but scattered out over as much ground as is convenient. Neither should they remain long in one spot, but should be shifted a few feet each day. At first water should be provided at each coop, but as the chickens grow older they may be required to come to a few central water pans.
As before suggested, rearing chicks with hens is the only suitable method for general farm practice. The brooder on the farm is an expensive nuisance.
For brooder raised chicks it is necessary to provide means for the little chick to exercise. But in the season when the great majority of farm chicks are raised they may be placed out of doors from the start and the trouble will now be to keep them from getting too much exercise, i.e.: to keep the hens from chasing around with them especially in the wet grass. This is properly prevented by keeping the brood coops in plowed ground, and keeping the hens confined by a slatted door, until the chicks are strong enough to follow her readily.
The chick should not be fed until 48 to 72 hours old. It may then be started on the same kind of food as is to form its diet in after life. The hard boiled egg and bread and milk diets are wholly unnecessary and are only a waste of time.
I recommend the same system of chick feeding for the general farm as is used on commercial plants, and I especially insist that it will pay the farmer to provide meat food of some sort for his growing chicks. The amount eaten will not be large, nor need the farmer fear that supplying the chicks with meat food will prevent their consuming all the bugs and worms that come their way.
Besides comfortable quarters, the chick to thrive, must have: Exercise, water, grit, a variety of grain food, green or succulent food, and meat food.
Water should be provided in shallow dishes. This can best be arranged by having a dish with an inverted can or bottle which allows only a little water to stand in the drinking basin.
Chicks running at large on gravelly ground need no provision for grit. Chicks on board floors or clay soils must be provided with either coarse sand or chick grit, such as is sold for the purpose.
Grain is the principal, and, too often, the only food of the chick. The common farm way of feeding grain to young chickens is to mix corn-meal and water and feed in a trough or on the ground. There is no particular advantage in this way of feeding, and there are several disadvantages. The feed is all in a bunch, and the weaker chicks are crowded out, while if wet feed is thrown on the ground or in a dirty trough the chicks must swallow the adhering filth, and if any food is left over it quickly sours and becomes a menace to health. Some people mix dough with sour milk and soda and bake this into a bread. The better way is to feed all of the grain in a natural dry condition.
There are foods in the market known as chick foods. The commercial foods contain various grains and seeds, together with meat and grit. Their use renders chick feeding quite a simple matter, it being necessary to supply in addition only water and green foods. For those who wish to prepare their own chick foods the following suggestions are given:
Oatmeal is probably the best grain food for chicks. Oats cannot be suitably prepared, however, in a common feed-mill. The hulled oats are what is wanted. They can be purchased as the common rolled oats, or sometimes as cut or pin-head oatmeal. The latter form would be preferred, but either of these is an excellent chick feed. Oats in these forms are expensive and should be purchased in bulk, not in packages. If too expensive, oats should be used only for a few days, when they may be replaced by cheaper grains. Cracked corn is the best and cheapest chick food. Flaxseed could be used in small quantities. Kaffir-corn, wheat, cow-peas–in fact any wholesome grain–may be used, the more variety the better. Farmers possessing feed-mills have no excuse for feeding chicks exclusively on one kind of grain. If there is no way of grinding corn on the farm, oatmeal, millet seed and corn chop can be purchased. At about one week of age whole Kaffir-corn, and, a little later whole wheat, can be used to replace the more expensive feeds.
Green or bulky food of some kind is necessary to the healthy growth of young chickens. Chickens fed in litter from clover or alfalfa will pick up many bits of leaves. This answers the purpose fairly well, but it is advisable to feed some leafy vegetable, as kale or lettuce. The chicks should be gotten on some growing green crop as soon as possible.
Chickens are not by nature vegetarians. They require some meat to thrive. It has been proven in several experiments that young chickens with an allowance of meat foods make much better growth than chickens with a vegetable diet, even when the chemical constituents and the variety of the two rations are practically the same.
Very few farmers feed any meat whatever. They rely on insects to supply the deficiency. This would be all right if the insects were plentiful and lasted throughout the year, but as conditions are it will pay the farmer to supplement this source of food with the commercial meat foods.
Fresh bone, cut by bone-cutters, is an excellent source of the meat and mineral matter needed by growing chicks. If one is handy to a butcher shop that will agree to furnish fresh bones at little or no cost, it will pay to get a bone-mill, but the cost of the mill and labor of grinding are considerable items, and unless the supply of bones is reliable and convenient this source of meat foods is not to be depended upon.
The best way to feed beef-scrap is to keep a supply in the hopper so the chickens may help themselves. In case meat food is given, bone-meal, fed in small quantities, will form a valuable addition to their ration. Infertile eggs from incubators, as well as by-products of the dairy, can be used to help out in the animal-food portion of the ration. Chickens may be given all the milk they will drink. It is generally recommended that this be given clabbered.
Feeding Laying Hens.
The food requirements of a laying hen are very like those of a growing chicken. One addition to the list is, however, required for egg production, which is lime, of which the shell of the egg is formed. In the summer-time hens on the range will find sufficient lime to supply their needs. In the winter-time they should be supplied with more lime than the food contains. Crushed oyster shell answers the purpose admirably.
A supply of green food is one of the requisites of successful winter feeding. Every farmer should see that a patch of rye, crimson clover, or some other winter green crop is grown near his chicken-house. Vegetables and refuse from the kitchen help out in this matter, but seldom furnish a sufficient supply. Vegetables may be grown for this purpose. Mangels and sugar-beets are excellent. Cabbage, potatoes and turnips answer the purpose fairly well. Mangels are fed by splitting in halves and sticking to nails driven in the wall.
Clover and alfalfa are excellent chicken feeds and should be used in regions where winter crops will not keep green. The leaves that shatter off in the mow are the choicest portion for chicken feeding, and may be fed by scalding with hot water and mixing in a mash. Hens will eat good green alfalfa if fed dry in a box.
The feeding of sprouted oats should be practiced when no other green food is available. Oats may be prepared for this purpose by thoroughly soaking in warm water and being kept in a warm, damp place for a few days. Feed when the sprouts are a couple of inches long.
Almost all grains are suitable foods for hens. Corn, on account of its cheapness and general distribution, is the best. The general prejudice against corn feeding should be directed rather against feeding one grain alone without the other forms of food. If hens are supplied with green foods, with mineral matter, some form of meat food, and are forced to take sufficient amount of exercise, the danger from overfatness, due to the feeding of a reasonable amount of corn, need not be feared.
As has already been emphasized, the variety of food given is more essential than the kind. Do not feed one grain all the time. The more variety fed the better. Corn and Kaffir-corn, being cheap grains, will form the major portion of the ration, but, even if much higher in price, it will pay to add a portion of such grain as wheat, barley, oats or buckwheat.
Cleanliness.
The advice commonly given in poultry papers would require one to exercise nearly as much pains in the cleaning of a chicken house as in the cleaning of a kitchen. Such advice may be suitable for the city poultry fanciers, but it is out of place when given to the farmer. Poultry raising, the same as other farm work, must pay for the labor put into it, and this will not be the case if attempt is made to follow all the suggestions of the theoretical poultry writer.
The ease with which the premises may be kept reasonably free from litter and filth is largely a matter of convenient arrangement. The handiest plan from this view-point is the colony system. In this the houses are moved to new locations when the ground becomes soiled. If the chicken-house is a stationary structure it should be built away from other buildings, scrap-piles, fence corners, etc., so that the ground can be frequently freshened by plowing and sowing in oats, rye or rape. The ground should be well sloped, so that the water draining from the surface may wash away much of the filth that on level ground would accumulate.
Cleanliness indoors can be simplified by proper arrangement. First, the house must be dry. Poultry droppings, when dry, are not a source of danger if kept out of the feed. They should be removed often enough to prevent foul odors. Drinking vessels should be rinsed out when refilled and not allowed to accumulate a coat of slime. If a mash is fed, feed-boards should be scraped off and dried in the sun. Sunshine is a cheap and efficient disinfectant.
The advice on the control of lice and the method of handling sick chickens that has been given in the main section of the book, will apply as well on the farm as on the commercial poultry plant. Certainly the farmer’s time is too valuable to fool with the details of poultry therapeutics.
Farm Chicken Houses.
The following notes on poultry houses apply to Iowa and Nebraska, where the winters are severe, and similar climates. Farther south and east the farmer should use the same style of houses as recommended for egg farms. A chicken house just high enough for a man to walk erectly and a floor space of about 3 square feet per hen is advisable. This requires a house 12 by 24 for 100 hens, or 10 by 16 for 50.
Lands sloping to south or southeast, and that which dries quickly after a rain, will prove the most suitable for chickens. A gumbo patch should not be selected as a location for poultry. Hogs and hens should not occupy the same quarters, in fact, should be some distance apart, especially if heavy breeds of chickens are kept. Hens should be removed from the garden, but may be near an orchard. Chicken-houses should be separated from tool-houses, stables, and other outbuildings.
Grading for chicken-houses is not commonly practiced, but this is the easiest means of preventing dampness in the house and is necessary in heavy soils. The ground-level may be raised with a plow and scraper, or the foundation of the house may be built and filled with dirt.
A stone foundation is best, but where stone is expensive may be replaced by cedar, hemlock or Osage orange posts, deeply set in the ground. Small houses can be built on runners as described for colony houses for an egg farm.
Floors are commonly constructed of earth, boards or cement. Cement floors are perfectly sanitary and easy to keep clean. The objections to their common use is the first cost of good cement floors. Cheaply constructed floors will not last. Board floors are very common and are preferred by many poultrymen, but if close to the ground they harbor rats, while if open underneath they make the house cold. Covering wet ground by a board floor does not remedy the fault of dampness nearly so effectually as would a similar expenditure spent in raising the floor and surrounding ground by grading. All things considered, the dirt floor is the most suitable. This should be made by filling in above the outside ground-level. The drainage will be facilitated if the first layer of this floor be of cinders, small rocks or other coarse material. Above this layer should be placed a layer of clay, wet and packed hard, so the hens cannot scratch it up, or a different plan may be used and the floor constructed of a sandy or loamy soil of which the top layer can be renewed each year.
The walls of a chicken-house must first of all be wind-tight. This may be attained in several ways. Upright boards with cracks battened is the cheapest method. Various kinds of lap-siding give similar results. The single-board wall may be greatly improved by lining with building-paper. This should be put on between the studding and siding. Lath should also be used to prevent the paper bagging out from the wall. The double-board wall is the best where a warm house is desired.
It should be made by siding up outside the studding with cheap lumber. On this is placed a layer of roofing paper and over it the ordinary siding. The windows of a chicken-house should furnish sufficient light that the hens may find grain in the litter on cloudy days. Too much glass in a poultry house makes the house cold at night, and it is a needless expenditure.
The subject of roofing farm buildings may be summarized in this advice: Use patent roofing if you know of a variety that will last; if not, use shingles. Shingle roofs require a steeper pitch than do roofs of prepared roofing. A shingle roof can be made much warmer by using tightly laid sheathing covered with building-paper. Especial care should be taken that the joints at the eaves of the house are tightly fitted.
The object of ventilating a chicken-house is to supply a reasonable amount of fresh air, and, equally important, to keep the house dry. Ventilation should not be by cracks or open cupolas. Direct drafts of air are injurious, and ventilation by such means is always the greatest when the least needed.
Schemes of ventilation by a system of pipes are expensive and unnecessary. The latest, best and cheapest plan for providing ventilation is the curtain front house for the north, and the open front house for the more southerly sections. The curtain front house is giving way to the open front with a somewhat smaller opening in sections, as far north as Connecticut.
Make all roosts on the same level. The ladder arrangement is a nuisance and offers no advantage. Arrange the roosts so that they may be readily removed for cleaning. Do not fill the chicken-house full of roosts. Put in only enough to accommodate the hens, and let these be on one side of the house. The floor under the roosts should be separated from the feeding floor by a board set on edge.
For laying flocks the nests must be clean, secluded and plentiful. Boxes under the roost-platform will answer, but a better plan is to have the nest upon a shelf along a side wall so arranged as to allow the hen to enter from the rear side. Nests should be constructed so that all parts are accessible to a white-wash brush. The less contrivances in a chicken-house, the better.
The farmer can get along very well without any chicken-yard at all. It will, however, prove a very convenient arrangement if a small yard is attached to the chicken-house. The house should be arranged to open either into the yard or out into the range. This yard may be used for fattening chickens or confining cockerels, or perhaps to enclose the flock during the ripening of a favorite tomato or berry crop.
THE END.