We are glad to believe that _the hen mania_, that has prevailed so
extensively during the last fifteen or twenty years, has considerably
abated. After all the extravagant notions about the profits of hens
shall have passed away, the truth will be seen to be about the
following: Every farmer who has considerable waste grain about, and
plenty more to supply the deficiency when the fowls shall have gathered
up all the scatterings, had better keep a hundred hens. If he has sand
and gravel, and wheat-bran and lime for shells, within their reach, and
plenty of fresh water, they will do well, without much further care, in
mild weather. In cold weather in winter, keep not more than forty hens
together, in a tight, warm place, well ventilated; give them their usual
food, with burnt bones pounded fine and mixed with mush, given warm,
with occasionally a little animal food and boiled vegetables, and they
will lay more than in summer. They will lay all winter without being
inclined to set. Every family, who will treat them as above, may
profitably keep one or two dozen through the winter. Most persons who
undertake, with a few acres of land, to keep fowls as a business, will
lose by it. A few only of the most experienced and careful can make
money by it. It may be cheapest for some persons to raise a few chickens
for their own use, although they cost them more than the market-price,
though it would not be best to raise chickens in that way to sell. "But
some one raised the chickens in market for the market-price, and why not
I?" Because, they raised a few that got fat on waste grain, and you must
buy grain for yours, and give more for it than you can get for your
chickens. Whoever would make money by raising fowls on a large scale,
must first serve some kind of an apprenticeship at it, as in all other
business. Get this experience, and learn by experiment the cheapest and
most profitable food, and keep from five hundred to a thousand fowls,
and a reasonable though not large profit may be realized. For
store-fowls, boiled vegetables and beets cut very fine, with a little
meal mixed in, are a good and cheap feed. When keeping fowls out-door in
warm weather, keep no more than fifty together, and them on not less
than one fourth of an acre of land. The expensive hen-houses and
artificial nests are mostly humbugs. Have many places of concealment
about, where they can make their nests as they please. When a hen begins
to set, remove her, nest and all, to a yard to which layers have no
access, and you need have no difficulty with her. Set a hen near the
ground, in a dry place, on fifteen fresh eggs, all put under her at
once, and they will hatch about the same time at the end of twenty days.
Old hens, of the common kind, are best to set. Let them have their own
way in everything but running in the wet with their young chickens--and
that they will not be much inclined to do if they are well fed. Much is
said about the diseases of fowls and their remedies. We have very little
confidence in any of it. Sick chickens will die _unless they get well_.
Time spent in doctoring them does not generally pay. Wormwood and tansy,
growing, or gathered and scattered, or steeped and sprinkled about the
premises occupied by hens, will protect them from small vermin. Never
give them anything salt or sour, unless it be sour milk. The eggs of
ducks, turkeys, or geese, may be hatched under hens. Time, thirty days.
Hence, if put under with hens' eggs, they must be set ten days earlier,
that they may all hatch at once. Fattening chickens may be well done in
six days, by feeding rice, boiled rather soft in sweet skimmed milk, fed
plentifully three times a day. Feed these in pans, well cleaned before
each meal, and give only what they will eat up at once, and desire a
very little more. Put a little pounded charcoal within their reach, and
a little rice-water, milk, or clear water. This makes the most beautiful
meal at a low price. Never feed a chicken for sixteen or twenty-four
hours before killing it.
_Varieties or Breeds._--This has been matter of much speculation. The
result has been (what was probably a main object) the sale of many fowls
and eggs at exorbitant prices. When chickens have sold at fifty dollars
per pair, and eggs at six dollars a dozen, some persons must have made
money, while others lost it. Yet, there is some choice in the breed of
hens. The kind makes less difference, as far as flesh is concerned, than
is usually imagined. It requires about a given quantity of grain to make
a certain amount of flesh. Large fowls give us much larger weight of
flesh than small ones, but they also eat a much larger quantity of
grain. Large fowls are certainly large eaters. The three best layers are
the black Polands, the Malayas, and the Shanghaes. Half-bloods, by
crossing with the common fowl, are better for this country than either
of the above, pure. Fowls are generally improved by frequent crossing.
The best we have ever had, for their flesh, we produced by putting a
black Poland rooster with common hens; they grew larger than either, and
their flesh was very fine. Shanghaes and half-blood Shanghaes have
proved permanently the best layers we have ever had. Early pullets make
great fall and winter layers, and late chickens are great layers in the
spring, when older ones wish to set.
Ducks we have considered in a separate article. We shall do the same
with turkeys. Killing, dressing, and preparing all fowls for market,
will be treated under the head of "Poultry." Geese will also be
considered in another place. We should give drawings of aviaries, but we
consider these generally worse than useless, as they are usually
constructed. An airy place for summer, and a warm room for winter, poles
with _rough bark_ on for roosts, and plenty of feed and water, sand,
gravel, and lime, will give abundant success.