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MAKING HOME PROFITABLE
[Illustration: A BORDER OF HARDY PERENNIALS]
MAKING
HOME PROFITABLE
BY
KATE V. SAINT-MAUR
AUTHOR OF “THE EARTH’S BOUNTY,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
New York
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1912
Copyright 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911
By THE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright 1912
By STURGIS & WALTON CO.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1912
CONTENTS
PAGE
A PROFITABLE HOME 3
POULTRY 13
THE SITTING HEN AND THE INCUBATOR 29
RAISING EARLY BROILERS 39
THE POULTRY YARD IN MID-SEASON 47
JULY IN THE POULTRY YARD 53
A FLOCK OF TURKEYS 63
DUCKS AND GEESE 71
PIGEONS AND SQUABS 79
POULTRY AILMENTS 87
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 95
THE HOTBED 105
HOW TO GROW ASPARAGUS 111
HOW TO GROW MUSHROOMS 121
SIX GOOD VEGETABLES TO GROW 129
HOW TO PLANT AND CULTIVATE STRAWBERRIES 135
HOW TO GROW SMALL FRUITS 143
HOW TO RAISE PERENNIAL PLANTS 151
JUNE ROSES 157
LAVENDER AND HERBS 165
GROWING WATERCRESS 173
MY EXPERIENCE WITH BEES 179
STORING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 187
FORCING RHUBARB AND ASPARAGUS 193
RAISING PIGS 199
CARING FOR HOUSE PETS 207
RAISING CANARIES FOR MARKET 217
THE BUSINESS SIDE 223
ILLUSTRATIONS
A Border of Hardy Perennials _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Poultry Yard 48
A Flock of Turkeys 64
Ducks and Geese 72
A Corner of the Vegetable Garden 96
Mushrooms 122
June Roses 156
A Cellar Store-Room 186
MAKING HOME PROFITABLE
MAKING HOME PROFITABLE
A PROFITABLE HOME
It is just sixteen years since misfortune brought about our
emancipation. A disastrous business venture made it necessary to
curtail expenses. Rent being an especially heavy item, the hunt for a
cheaper habitation commenced. Toiling up and down innumerable stuffy
staircases in tow of slatternly janitors revealed the fact that cheap
flats were either over-crowded barracks redolent of dirty soapsuds
and stale cooking, or overdecorated cubbyholes where children were
tabooed. Evening after evening for two weeks I returned home weary and
discouraged.
Then chance, in the shape of a poultry show, came to my relief.
Instead of a cheap flat and semi-dark rooms, why not a house and
garden, where we could have chickens, eggs and vegetables of our own?
Friends scoffed; and even my husband, who had always joined me in
planning the ideal home of our old age, as a place far from the noise
and rush of the city, where we could indulge our love of flowers and
animals, demurred at first, though he eventually became imbued with my
enthusiasm, and told me to go ahead if I felt equal to shouldering the
responsibilities which city duties would obviously prevent his sharing.
He stipulated also that transportation to and from his business in the
city, and all other expenses, should come within the newly necessary
curtailment of expenses, which limited rent to twenty-five dollars a
month and the housekeeping allowance to twelve dollars a week; that
none of our very limited capital should be risked, excepting one
hundred dollars to cover expense of moving, etc., and that even this
sum should be considered as a loan. To satisfy the dear man’s cautious,
masculine ideas of fairness, I took twenty-four hours to consider the
conditions, and then, with solemn, businesslike gravity, accepted.
A painstaking advertisement in a Sunday paper, stating plainly that we
wanted a small farm near the city and a railway station, the rent not
to exceed fifteen dollars a month, brought dozens of letters offering
all sorts of places at all sorts of distances and prices, but only six
real answers. With the writers of these six letters I corresponded;
studied innumerable railway guides; took several fruitless journeys;
hesitated about two or three places, then just stumbled upon the right
place.
It is like choosing a new hat or garment. You like that one, but
this one is more becoming. You suddenly see something else quite
different--hesitancy is over; the unconscious ideal is found.
The house was long and low and white, standing at the end of the road,
facing a somewhat neglected, old-fashioned flower garden, which verged
into five acres of orchard bounded by a river. The man who was driving
me didn’t know to whom the place belonged. I got out, looked in at the
windows, made out that there was a wide hall through the centre and two
big old-fashioned fireplaces and a lot of odd cupboards.
Outside there was a wood-shed, summer kitchen, small smoke-house, barn,
cow shed, corn-crib and chicken house. My original destination was
forgotten. I was driven back to the station; found out who the owner
was, and where he lived; drove over there, and ascertained that the
house contained four large rooms and one small one, kitchen, pantry and
two cellars downstairs, and five rooms and an attic upstairs.
There are one hundred and eighty acres of land or more, but the
landlord would divide it to suit good tenants, which he evidently
thought we would be, for subsequently we arranged to take the house,
buildings, orchard, twelve acres of farm land and four acres of
woodland on a three years’ lease, at a rental of fifteen dollars a
month, with the privilege of taking the remainder of the land at any
time during our tenancy for an extra five dollars a month, and an
option of purchase.
Really, it seemed too good to be true, for it was within the prescribed
distance from the city and depot, the price of commutation being
only six dollars a month. The river, the old-fashioned garden with
its two great catalpa trees shading the house, and the beauty of the
surrounding scenery, made it almost a realization of our ideal home.
Thankful joy filled our hearts even before we had experienced the
glorious invigoration of an industrious outdoor life on the farm, where
each day brings some new interest.
All our goods and chattels, including two cats and a canary, were
packed in two vans, which took them the entire twenty-eight miles for
thirty dollars. A kitchen stove cost thirty-five dollars; three wash
tubs, four lamps and a few necessary tools absorbed another twenty-five
dollars; and the last ten of the hundred dollars was spent in straw
matting, which we divided between two bedrooms.
Of course, I had to start at the very bottom of the ladder, buying only
with the money that I could save from week to week from my housekeeping
allowance. A few hens, a few ducks, gradually through the poultry
family, then an incubator and brooder, to the dignity of a horse and
cow; after whose acquisition, the home became self-supporting, the
third year showing a surplus profit.
Of course, there were difficulties and troubles to be overcome,
but they were all the direct result of my own ignorance. A friend
well posted in country-home making, from whom I could have acquired
vicarious experience, would have prevented most of them. Hence my
desire to pass on to practical lessons, learned during the last sixteen
years, for the benefit of other women.
Our old-fashioned white house and shady garden might not appeal
to every one, but no matter what individual taste may demand in
architecture and environment, there are certain points which must be
observed to insure the health and happiness which we all desire. The
house must be on high ground, with good subdrainage. How to be sure of
the latter point puzzled me, until an old real-estate man, in answer to
my praise of a place we were passing, said:
“Handsome? Yes, but it is a death trap. Dig a hole six feet deep
anywhere around the house, and in twelve hours there will be water at
the bottom of it.”
Needless to say, this place was not on his list, but the hint was a
good one and has been remembered. Wet meadows and spring ponds may give
no anxiety, but stagnant water is dangerous, for it breeds mosquitoes
and malaria. Fortunately, it is generally easily abolished; an
able-bodied man with a shovel can usually dig a gutter to some near-by
fall in the natural grade of the land that will drain it. Mosquitoes
were one of our troubles for two years; then three hours’ work banished
their breeding-ground.
As it is a permanent home, and not a summer camp, which is being
selected, shelter from cold winds is important. The woodland on our
place protected barns, house and orchard. If there is no natural
wind-break, and the place is satisfactory enough otherwise to make
you contemplate buying it in future, it will be wise to plant out
quick-growing trees, which usually can be bought for little or nothing
in the country, and transplanted when quite a good size. Inexpensive
country houses do not have furnaces, and like us, you may not be able
to afford one for a year or two.
We found that two large stoves, with the pipes arranged to pass through
the ceiling and into radiators in the rooms above, and thence into the
chimney, would heat four rooms. The pipe of the kitchen range can be
utilized in the same way. Stoves with cracks and poor fire bricks waste
fuel and warmth, so don’t try to economise on stoves.
We have always used an open hearth in the living-room, because it
looks so cheerily comfortable, and a door at the opposite end of the
room opens into the dining-room, allowing the air from there to come
in, and so preventing the cold backs which are the usual drawback of a
picturesque open fire.
One of the joys of depending on stoves is being able to regulate the
heat in each room to meet all conditions. Our apartment in town was of
the better class, yet just as surely as an extra cold snap arrived,
so surely did the heating apparatus get out of order. Another horror
was the “kling-kling” of the pipes in the dark, uncanny hours of the
morning, when every well-regulated human being ought to be allowed to
sleep in peace.
Having plenty of wood, we used what are called “air-tight chunk
stoves” instead of coal, excepting in the kitchen. And truly we have
never experienced any trouble in keeping the entire house _hot_ in
the bitterest weather. But we took precautions, such as keeping the
putty around the window panes in good order. We used sandbags on the
ledges, mats at the doors, and red building paper (which has no odor)
or several thicknesses of newspaper under the floor covering. Then we
opened most of the windows for a few minutes every morning, and let in
fresh air.
People rave about the pleasures of the country in summer, but I think
city folks more thoroughly realise the joys of a country home in
winter. We found something delightfully restful about the crackling log
fire on the open hearth, around which the whole family could gather.
There is a “hominess” about it that can’t be found by the side of a
steam radiator. And could any specialist prescribe a better panacea for
a business man’s overwrought nerves? There, I am letting my enthusiasm
for country pleasure interfere with the practical help I set out to
give. And even now the joys of skating, sleighing and tobogganing have
not been cited.
Making the home comfortable in hot weather is a very simple matter.
A house has four sides--one for each point of the compass--so open
windows and doors, and catch whatever breeze there is. Wire screens are
cheap; besides, care in not allowing garbage and water to stand around
the premises will mitigate flies and mosquitoes.
If fate or your fancy has settled you in a new place minus old trees to
shade the lawn and porch, wire netting and wild cucumber vines, which
grow very rapidly, will furnish a substitute. For keeping provisions
I found a well-ventilated cellar better than the best refrigerator. We
take out the windows and replace them with two thicknesses of flannel,
which are thoroughly saturated with water. At noon time on a hot day
evaporation lowers the temperature several degrees, yet the current of
fresh air is not obstructed, as it would be with closed windows.
Well or spring water is usually refreshingly cool, so an ice house is
really not imperative, though I recommend building a small one if the
farm provides good ice, for it is an inexpensive building to construct,
rough boards, sawdust and the ordinary handy man’s labor being the only
requirements. We did not have one for several years, but then we had a
spring-house with a stone floor and shelves, and a wide gutter running
all around, through which the water from the spring was conducted,
keeping the place almost icy.
Modern improvements are never to be found in inexpensive country
houses, so we found that a bathroom or some means of taking an all-over
scrub would have to be constructed immediately. We bought a full-sized
tin bath tub with a wooden bottom for about seven dollars, and placed
it in the little room off the kitchen. A piece of rubber hose was bound
tightly to the escape pipe of the bath tub, and carried through the
wall out into a box drain, thence to a barrel ten feet from the house,
which had no bottom, and was sunk into the ground. From there, of
course, the water seeped into the subsoil and disappeared.
We thought it was very fine indeed at first, but later, when our ideas
and finances broadened, we replaced it with a porcelain enameled tub
and wash bowl, with properly soldered waste pipes into a tile-drain
sink three feet deep, to prevent freezing.
A pump over the kitchen sink had been the only water supply, but as
that was drawn from a splendid spring several feet above the level of
the house, we determined, when investing in a new bathroom outfit,
to stretch the purse strings a little further, and put in hot and
cold water. A waterback was attached to the kitchen stove, and a
sixty-three-gallon boiler attached. It cost twenty-two dollars and
seventy-five cents. The bath and basin cost thirty-eight dollars. Fifty
feet of one-and-one-half-inch pipe, seven dollars and fifty cents. One
hundred feet of half-inch pipe, six dollars. Waste pipe, two dollars.
Labor, twenty-two dollars.
When a spring is not conveniently situated, an automatic ram and a
cistern will have to be used, and I am told that they would cost about
seventy dollars more. Even with the new arrangement of the bathroom,
we retain the earth closet, which had been bought some time before, at
a cost of twenty-five dollars. It stands with its back to the outer
wall, through which a trap-door was cut, to permit the removal and
replacing of pans and earth. This is undoubtedly the most inexpensive
and sanitary contrivance with which a country house can be furnished.
The next comfort was a telephone, which cost only eighteen dollars a
year, including local calls, long-distance calls, of course, being
extra charges. That, with the rural delivery and daily paper, brings
us stay-at-homes in touch with the great doings of the world and the
little interests of our friends.
We deserted the city in March, but experience has taught me that the
fall is the best time of the year in which to migrate. There are not so
many people looking for country places; the days are bright and cool,
the roads in good condition, and there is much that can be done in
the garden and orchard to facilitate next spring’s work. By starting
poultry in the fall, one can have broilers ready to catch the early
spring prices. Moreover, it is the early chick that will make a good
layer the following winter.
* * * * *
In the following chapter we will carry the housekeeping into the
poultry yard, for that is the best starting point for a self-supporting
home.
POULTRY
As poultry was the stepping stone which enabled me to reach the haven
of a self-supporting home, I naturally consider it the best foundation
on which a city woman can build her expectations of rural prosperity.
I suppose--and I certainly hope--that every woman won’t have to begin
with just two or three birds, as I did; but those who may have to,
should find my first six months’ experience comforting.
Twenty-one mongrel hens were bought in three detachments, costing
fifty to seventy-five cents each. They were nearly all old ladies
with strongly developed maternal instincts, who delighted in sitting
on eggs and brooding chickens, so we managed to rear one hundred and
forty-eight chickens. We had from three to four eggs a day for the
table, because we desired to keep only White Wyandotte hens in the
future, and eggs for hatching were bought from a near-by farm, and cost
altogether six dollars, feed for six months cost four dollars, making
a total outlay of twenty dollars and fifty cents. Ninety chickens were
sold as broilers, realising twenty-two dollars, so the actual cash
profit was only two dollars.
But there was an increase in stock to fifty-eight pullets, all worth
at least one dollar and fifty cents by the end of the sixth month.
By November 22d they were all laying, the average number of eggs
being twenty-five a day, when strictly new-laid eggs were bringing
from thirty-five to fifty cents a dozen, a record which I think truly
justifies me in recommending Biddy as the pioneer factor in economical
home making. Even well-bred, industrious hens must have good conditions
and care to be profitable.
There are innumerable breeds and varieties of breeds, the most popular
at present being Plymouth Rocks, Barred, Buff, and White Wyandottes,
Silver-Laced, White, Buff, Golden, Partridge, and Black; Rhode Island
Reds, which have a plumage somewhat similar to the old-fashioned game
bird, and vary only in having both rose and single combs; Minorcas,
Black and White; Andalusians, about the shade of a Maltese cat, single
combs; Leghorns, Black, Brown, Buff, Duck-Winged, Silver, and White.
Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Reds are very good birds and probably
the latter would be my selection, if anything could persuade me to
desert White Wyandottes. The chicks of the three foregoing are all
strong and easily reared, but the Wyandottes make plump broilers at a
slightly earlier age, maturing perhaps a week or two earlier than the
others, which are equally good roasters. I do not know that there is
any material difference in their egg-producing capacities.
Leghorns, Minorcas and Andalusians are much smaller birds and are
considered to be the egg machines of the hen family; but observation
has convinced me that they fall far behind the three heavier breeds
quoted during severely cold weather, when eggs are most valuable. Hence
I always recommend Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds or Plymouth Rocks for
general utility in the vicinity of New York or further north, and the
Leghorns, Minorcas and Andalusians for the Southern states, especially
when eggs are the only consideration, and the birds can have free
range. One of the great drawbacks to the latter birds is their ability
to fly or climb over fences of almost any height, while the ’Dottes,
Rocks and Reds are easily controlled in yards that are not over four
feet in height.
Whichever individual fancy or environment decide you in keeping, be
advised by one who has bought her experience: Don’t attempt more than
one breed at a time, and shun a mixed flock of nondescripts, for it
would tax the perspicacity of a Solomon to feed correctly a tribe of
mongrels.
Of course, by pure-bred birds I don’t necessarily mean expensive prize
winners. That would be foolish extravagance. But all large poultry
plants have what are termed “market stock” for sale in the fall--the
progeny of aristocrats, but lacking some necessary point for show-room
honours. Such birds can be bought for about a dollar and a quarter
each, and will answer every practical purpose.
Male birds need not be bought until about three weeks before the
eggs are wanted for incubation. Then, if your choice should have been
Wyandottes, Plymouth Rocks or Rhode Island Reds, each flock of seven
hens should be headed by a cockerel. Leghorns, Minorcas and Andalusians
can run fifteen hens to a flock. The male bird should be as good as you
can afford, for by such means you can gradually improve your stock,
until it reaches perfection. It is safer to buy the cockerels from
breeders far distant from the original home of the hens, to avoid any
danger of relationship.
Whenever new birds are bought, segregate them for a few days in some
small house and yard, to assure yourself that they are healthy and fit
associates for your birds. Catch the birds, one by one, each night,
while in quarantine. Hold by the feet, the head down, and saturate the
feathers with some good insect powder from an ordinary flour dredger.
The poultry house should be whitewashed about every six weeks in hot
weather, and as late and early in the fall and spring as the weather
will permit. Scatter dry earth or sand on the platform; clean and
renew every day. Once a week paint the corners of nests, roosts and
any other fixtures or roughly spliced joints in the building with
kerosene oil and crude carbolic acid, mixed in the proportion of one
pint of oil to half an ounce of carbolic. Leaves or whatever scratching
material may be used on the floor should be raked out once a week in
hot weather. All cleanings should be put into a heap under shelter, or
into barrels, for poultry droppings are invaluable fertilizer for the
vegetable garden.
Dry, cold weather doesn’t hurt the hens at all, but after winter rains
or heavy snow they should be confined to the house, and unless the
weather is exceptionally inclement, all the windows thrown open between
9 A.M. and 2:30 P.M. Very stormy days we keep them open only while the
hens are busy scratching for the noon supply of corn.
It is the industrious, busy hen that produces the most eggs, so the
first consideration is to keep the flock busy. We promote exercise by
having the small yards at the back of the houses repeatedly dug up
during the spring and summer. In the autumn the dry, falling leaves are
collected, and used on the floors of the houses during bad weather.
Fresh, cold water is kept constantly before them in stone vessels in
summer, and in a padded-box arrangement in winter.
Boxes of clean, dry soil are placed in sunny spots in the house, to
encourage the birds to take the dust baths in which they delight. Hens,
having no teeth with which to chew their food, are dependent on grit to
perform the office of mastication after the food has passed into the
bird’s gizzard, where a sort of grinding process takes place, which
reduces hard corn to a digestible compound. Being near a stone crusher,
we buy the fine gravel by the load. Those not so fortunately situated
will find a specially prepared mixture at any poultry-supply store,
or the small flock can be supplied by smashing broken crockery and
glass into pieces about the size of hemp seed. Oyster shell is a very
poor substitute for grit, its value being the lime it supplies for the
formation of shell.
Fowls are better off kept in yards; in fact, they must be so restrained
if the highest egg records are to be reached. In way back times, it
was considered a great detriment to yard fowls, but for some years
past professional poultry-keepers have yarded their fowls, because
they found it was the only way to reach the top notch. Even now the
general farmers still adhere to the free range idea, and I am convinced
that it is not purely because they think it necessary, but it saves
feed and other bother. It has been estimated that a flock of common
dunghill hens, such as are seen in the average farm, lay in a year
less than a hundred eggs each. The figures are eighty to ninety.
Farmers who have become breeders, and who thus give the hen decidedly
more consideration, and still adhere to the free range system, have
increased this yield to one hundred and fifty and better. Breeders who
have followed the strictly up-to-date methods, and have yarded their
layers, have obtained an average of one hundred and seventy-five eggs,
and some have even reached the two hundred mark.
Please note that I say fowls or hens, and I do not mean this to include
growing chicks. The line must be distinctly drawn between the two. The
range cannot be too extended for growing stock. What we strive for in
growing chicks is frame, on which later we intend to put flesh. This
frame can only be built by food, and plenty of it, converted into
bone and muscle by exercise. After the chick has made the frame, we
can safely yard her and put on the flesh, and thus convert her into a
money-earning machine.
The advantages gained by yarding stock are manifold. First of all,
by confining stock to a certain space, we are sure they eat the food
provided and in the quantity we mean them to have. Feeding layers to
produce eggs is becoming every year a more delicate operation. Formula
after formula is tried by different breeders, as an experiment, with
the hope of increasing the egg yield. If we can force each hen to lay
ten a year more, it means a considerable increase of the total of the
flock, and a better return in dollars and cents to the breeder. Yarding
stock is a means toward this end. The food fed is converted, as we
mean it to be, into eggs, and not into muscle. It is decidedly more
troublesome to care for stock in this way, and necessitates additional
labour and expense, but we are looking for the increase all the time,
and are thus continually hoping to be compensated for the extra trouble.
Fowls in yards must be supplied with everything they require, which
means, all they would naturally seek if running at large. This
includes, besides the grain we feed by formula, green food, meat,
a scratching place and dusting spot, and grit and water. Of all
these I consider green food the most necessary, and the one thing to
be impressed upon the mind, because it is the one thing too often
forgotten. Green food of any variety is acceptable. The ideal yarding
of fowls is what is known as double yarding--a house in the middle
and a yard on each side. These yards can be sown with rye or oats,
and alternated so that the fowls will have a constant green run as
long as the rye or oats will grow, which is until frost. Failing the
double yard system, green food may be supplied by lawn clippings, whole
cabbage, clover hay or sprouted oats, fed in a variety of ways. Turning
up the ground of the yards with a cultivator or by shallow ploughing,
will bring the worms and bugs within reach, or sheep heads cut open and
fed raw can be thrown in, and this is an ideal meat food. Ground beef
scraps may be mixed in mash--and last, and probably the best, cut green
bone.
Yarded fowls need exercise. It must not be understood that because they
are confined they do not get exercise, or as much as if let run at
large. The yards should be at least one hundred and fifty feet long,
if they are the width of the average coop, which is ten to twelve
feet. Some breeds are decidedly more active by nature than others; for
instance, the Leghorns as compared to the Cochins or Brahmas. This
does not affect the health of the fowls particularly. A Leghorn is no
healthier because of her activity than a Cochin is. It is simply the
difference in their natures, but because of this excess of activity of
one breed over another, the one must have more room than the other. The
Leghorn stands the confinement of a coop ten by twelve feet in winter,
provided she can be kept actively hunting for her food; but the same
bird would mope and become out of condition if confined too long in an
exhibition coop in a show room. On the other hand, a Cochin, being of
a lazier nature, forages slowly, and wanders quietly over her yard,
takes things easy in the winter coop, and stands the confinement of the
exhibition coop excellently.
The foraging nature of any breed can be killed by excessive feeding.
Even birds with free range, if overfed at special meal hours, will
take but limited exercise, exactly as those treated the same way and
yarded. Exercise is induced by short feeding. In other words, no laying
strain should be fed all they can eat except at night. Hunger induces
exercise, whether a fowl be let run or yarded. Therefore, fowls fed
short and induced to hunt for more, will lay eggs, while those overfed,
in the morning especially, will sit around moping in the sun, and
convert the food into flesh instead of eggs.
Another advantage of yarded fowls is the certainty of finding all the
eggs laid every day, and then being able to guarantee them as strictly
fresh. This is a point of great importance, and constitutes the
difference between eggs produced by an up-to-date breeder with yarded
fowls, and those sold by the “honest” farmer who collects them wherever
found, and cannot swear that they were laid to-day, not two weeks ago.
The wise poultry keeper will not delay getting things in order for the
breeding season. New blood is necessary to keep up the vigour of the
flock. Buy the best male bird you can afford. The rooster is more than
half the flock. A good bird will grade up young stock next spring.
Remember even if you have pretty good birds of your own rearing, there
is danger in inbreeding for more than one season.
Select only the largest, brightest hens for the breeding pens.
Reject any which have shown signs of illness at any time of their
lives. The eggs are the main point; only the best layers should be
selected. From seven to twelve birds are enough for one flock. If you
haven’t the coops, or a long house divided into compartments with
accompanying yards, and can’t divide your birds into small flocks,
adopt the alternating plan. Keep several male birds in a house and yard
separated from the hens, and let only one run with the hens at a time,
alternating them every day or every week, according to the number of
hens. For example, if I were compelled to keep fifty hens in one flock,
I would keep seven male birds, and let each one in turn run one day
with the flock, rather than allow three or four birds to remain with
the flock all the time.
Now is the time to overhaul things. There is no opportunity when spring
comes, for then there is always a rush, and you will bring trouble
on yourself by using coops which haven’t been properly cleaned, or
which have no fastenings, or have broken hinges or leaks in the roof.
The boys want something to amuse them during the winter evenings;
get them interested in showing off their mechanical skill by making
feed-hoppers and drinking-fountains. Self-feeding hoppers save a great
deal of food, especially round brood coops. They prevent the grain
being spilled or trampled into the ground or spoiled by thunder showers.
The brand of tea which we use in the house comes in square pound tins,
and these we convert into self-feeders by cutting out two inches of
the front an inch from the bottom, and fitting a sloping false bottom
inside. Any handy boy can look at the picture of a self-feeder in
a catalogue, and make one that will be just as serviceable. Pound
baking powder cans can have a hole the size of a pea cut about an inch
from the top, and when filled with water and turned upside down in
a two-inch tin pan make capital little drinking-fountains for brood
coops, and cost only five cents for the dish, so there is no excuse for
not having plenty of them, and they save chicks getting drowned or the
water getting defiled, which is usually the case when open dishes are
used. Having all the little things ready and in order counts for a lot
in the spring, when everyone has more work than he can comfortably do.
At least two-thirds of the letters I receive are about “mysterious”
cases, nearly all of which are due to the presence of vermin in the
houses. Most of the women who write seem to be horrified when they find
their hens infested by such pests, but my experience has been that it
is the nicely-kept, presumably clean, house and flock which is apt to
be the worst. Why, is a puzzle, unless it is that women are apt to
keep their fowls’ home so tidily clean that one never thinks of hidden
troubles, and for that reason the house and flock are never drastically
attacked, as they should be, with eradicators and preventives. And,
naturally, the hidden pests multiply undisturbed, and infest the whole
place before their presence is suspected.
Few people know that there are any number and variety of pests which
are difficult to discover because of other secretive habits. For
instance, there is the depluming scab mite, which is a very minute,
vicious pest, that often causes hens to be accused of feather-pulling,
when in reality the poor things are only trying to rid themselves of
intruders who cause them positive torture. When a bird is noticed to
have bare places on neck or back or body it is well to catch it and
pull out one of its feathers near the bare spot. Ten to one you will
find a scaly collection near a quill. Rub it off on to a sheet of
paper, and examine it under a magnifying glass, and you will discover
that every grain that looked like dandruff is a living mite. Another
tiny atom, which buries itself under the skin of fowls’ legs, causes
itself to be known as “scaly legs.” Many of the mysterious deaths can
be traced to another variety of the same family which attacks the
air-passages of the bird’s throat, and occasionally reaches the lungs.
The affected bird gets drowsy, mopes about for a few days, and at last
dies from suffocation, and people wonder what has been the trouble.
Then there are three varieties of fleas, so dark in colour that they
look almost black, which live in the soil, or in cracks and crevices
of the poultry houses, and sally forth when hungry to feed on the poor
defenceless hen. One species of these crawls, instead of hopping like
the ordinary flea, so people frequently make the mistake of thinking
that it is a plant insect which will not molest poultry. It is all
these unsuspected visitors which attack poultry at night, rob them of
their vitality, and the poultryman of much of his profits.
Long ago, when I first started my poultry plant, I found a recipe for
liquid louse exterminator and a worm powder published in some magazine
recommended by Dr. P. T. L. Woods, the great poultry expert. The
liquid is easily made, and very cheap. Dissolve crude naphtha flakes
in kerosene oil. Mothaline and naphtha camphor are two preparations
put up in packages, which can be bought at any drug store, and would
do as well as the flakes, if you have any difficulty in getting them.
A Boston firm puts up a preparation with aromatic naphthalens and
camphor, in packages which cost twenty-five cents, and is very good.
One package dissolved in two gallons of kerosene makes a good mixture
to spray house, nests and roosts. For the birds themselves, paint the
inside of a box with the liquid, and keep a bird in it for from fifteen
to twenty minutes. I had a box made with a compartment one foot square,
so that we could treat six birds at one time. Near the top of each
compartment there is a hole large enough for the bird to put his head
through, and outside we put a trough which is slightly raised from
the ground, so that the birds can just reach the contents. Fill it
with small grain, and they keep busy most of the time, which insures
their not being smothered, and their necks passing through the hole
prevents the fume of the wash escaping too rapidly. Of course, someone
must remain and watch the birds all the time; otherwise there is the
danger of the bird pulling its head in and being suffocated. To be sure
that the bird is perfectly clean, fumigation should be repeated three
times, with an interval of three days after each. If houses are kept
clean and all new birds are thoroughly fumigated before they are turned
into the flock, it will not be necessary to attack the whole flock more
than once or twice a year. Nests for setting hens are always swabbed
out with the mixture, and brood coops get a dose once a week. As soon
as any hen shows signs of getting broody, she is dredged with powder,
which is well rubbed down into the “fluff” of the feathers; then on the
tenth and nineteenth days she is again well powdered, and from the time
the chicks are a week old she receives a dose of powder once a week as
long as she broods them. The recipe for the insect powder is as follows:
To one peck of freshly slaked lime add half an ounce of carbolic
acid. Mix very thoroughly, and add same quantity, in bulk, of tobacco
dust. Another powder recommended by Dr. Woods in the same article,
and which I have used very frequently, is made by mixing equal parts
of finely-sifted coal ashes and tobacco dust, then moisten the whole
with the liquid louse exterminator. Allow it to dry and it is ready for
use. When purchasing carbolic acid, ask for ninety per cent. strength,
otherwise they are very likely to give you a much weaker preparation,
fit only for medical use.
THE SITTING HEN AND THE INCUBATOR
Looking back over the memories of my farm initiation, it seems as if I
had not fully realised the possibilities of my new undertaking until
the first incubator was inaugurated. As I have already told you, I
did all the first year’s hatch under hens, and still set every hen
that evinces any desire to assume the cares of motherhood, because it
seems Nature’s plan to keep the egg machine in good working order.
If a broody hen is not allowed to sit, it takes several days of
incarceration to break up her desire, then several days more after she
is freed before she commences to lay, and invariably the sitting fever
will attack her again within a few weeks. Now, incubation takes only
three weeks; brooding of chicks, another four or six weeks, and Mrs.
Biddy has had a complete rest, followed by vigorous exercise while
scratching for her babies. So when she is returned to the yard she is
in perfect condition to produce eggs. Let Biddy sit whenever she wants
to, but don’t wait her pleasure in the early spring, for you might have
no young chickens to sell when they bring good prices.
THE SELECTION OF THE INCUBATOR
There are a great many incubators on the market, some heated by hot
air, others by hot water. If you select any one of the standard makes
advertised you will get a good, practical hatcher. Printed instructions
for setting up and running are sent out with every machine, but they
don’t emphasise all the important points quite strongly enough for
amateurs. Lots of people can’t drive a screw home accurately, and fail
to realise that if the head is slightly to the right or left it throws
the fixture which is being attached to the machine out of plumb, and
a hair’s breadth makes a difference when such delicate appliances as
thermostatic rods (the power which controls the heat), are concerned.
A blunder supplies much knowledge. I should never have realised the
necessity for absolute exactness if one of the screws used in attaching
the lamp support to our second incubator had not gone slightly awry. It
caused the chimney almost to touch one side of the socket into which it
fits. That, in turn, drew the flame to one side, and caused it to smoke
at night when turned up for extra heat. It was a very little blunder,
apparently, but it almost spoiled the incubator, and quite spoiled the
hatch.
To be sure that the incubator fixtures are plumb, use a spirit level,
the only safe guide. After starting the machine, practise running it
for a few days before putting in the eggs. When the heat reaches one
hundred and two and one-half degrees, with the escape dial hanging the
width of a match from the opening, put in the trays, which, being cold,
will lower the heat, and should close the dial until the trays become
warm, and the thermometer in the machine again registers one hundred
and two and one-half, when the dial should once more be dangling the
match width above the opening. Should the closing and opening not take
place as the heat varies, the machine is not properly adjusted, and you
must practise until it will bear the test before putting in the eggs.
The thermometers are supposed to have been tested before they are
shipped, but it is well to buy an extra one and compare them; or get
your doctor, who is sure to have an accurate thermometer, to do it for
you. The egg tester comes with the incubator. It is a tin, funnel-like
chimney that fits over the lamp, and has a projecting opening, bordered
with black, before which to hold the eggs. The first test should be
made on the seventh day; the second on the fifteenth day. Hold the egg,
large end uppermost, in front of the opening. If it looks perfectly
clear it is infertile and can be used to feed young chicks. If it
shows a dark-red spot with spidery legs it is fertile, and must be
returned to the incubator. Dead germs are rarely discernible at the
first testing, except to the expert eye. By the fifteenth, the veriest
amateur will be able to detect them.
Successful incubation depends principally on being able to maintain
the amount of heat and moisture necessary at the different stages of
development. A thermometer is furnished with most incubators, but as
yet hygrometers are not, so it is advisable to buy one. For as they
only cost $1.50 each, it would be pennywise and pound-foolish to do
without one. Having these two little instruments to tell exactly the
amount of heat and moisture present in the machine, simplifies the
work wonderfully.
Personally, I like to have the thermometer register 102 degrees, and
the hygrometer 75, when I first put the eggs in the incubator. The
second week, the heat is increased to 102½, and the moisture lowered to
70 degrees. The third week, heat from 102½ to 103; moisture not over 45
until the nineteenth day, when the moisture is again increased to 55 or
60 degrees.
The reason for such fluctuation in the moisture may need some
explanation. During the first stages of incubation it is necessary to
prevent the escape of the water which is part of the egg, as it is
needed to keep the albumen in the right condition for the development
of the germ. After the tenth day, when the embryo is formed, the water
should be gradually allowed to evaporate, so that the amount of air
inside the shell increases, as it is needed to aid the circulation of
the blood and permit the growth of the chick. Increasing the moisture
again on the nineteenth day is simply done to soften the inside skin of
the egg and make it easy for the chick to break through.
When extra moisture is to be supplied, place a pan of wet sand or a
damp sponge in the bottom of the incubator. If the machine is standing
in a very damp cellar, the difficulty is often to keep down the
moisture rather than to increase it.
In this case, keep the trays out of the machine for a greater length
of time when you turn the eggs each day, and open the ventilators.
Probably the safest and simplest way to learn how to gauge this
important point of moisture, is to set a hen at the same time that you
start the incubator, and then compare the development of the air-cell
in the egg every few days. If the development is too slow, open the
ventilators at the side of the incubator wider, and air the eggs a
little longer each day when you have the trays out to turn the eggs.
Reverse affairs if the development is too quick. It is better to run
the machine a degree or two above the given temperature than below it,
especially during the last few days.
After the morning of the twentieth day don’t open the incubator until
the hatch is over, or until late on the twenty-second day, and don’t
get nervous if the temperature runs to one hundred and four or even to
one hundred and five; it is caused by the animal heat of the chicks,
and will do them no harm. Turning down the lamp slightly will of course
reduce the heat; but be very careful not to let it run below one
hundred and three during the last twenty-four hours. Low temperature
prolongs the hatch, weakens the chickens and makes them susceptible to
all sorts of ailments.
Individual outdoor brooders I think are the best, for in very cold
weather they can stand in a light outhouse. I used to monopolise the
summer kitchen from February to April, and then have them placed out
in the orchard. Placing an outdoor brooder under cover is really only
for the convenience of the attendant, for they are storm proof. If you
commence with an incubator that holds one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and sixty eggs you will require two brooders, and if in a
cold or Northern locality, some small house which can be warmed during
very cold weather, if you propose commencing to incubate in January.
A brooder supposed to hold one hundred chickens will accommodate that
number comfortably for about nine days, after which not more than
fifty should be kept in it. Hence the necessity for two brooders.
When the chicks are six weeks old in cold weather, and four weeks
old in moderate weather, they can be removed to the small house (the
temperature of which should be kept at sixty degrees during the night).
Remember, incubation takes only twenty-one days, so you must allow at
least three weeks to elapse before starting the incubator a second time.
Give the brooder a good coat of whitewash inside before using it. Cover
the drum which furnishes the heat under the hover with two or three
thicknesses of flannel, to make it soft for the little bodies to cuddle
up against. Cover the floor of the hover compartment with a piece of
old carpet or felt, and the outside compartment with sweepings from
the haymow. Have the heat running steadily at ninety-five degrees for
several hours before the chicks are to be put into it, and keep it at
that heat the first seven or eight days. Then gradually let it fall to
seventy-five degrees. Of course, I mean the heat under the hover. The
rest of the brooder will be--and should be--several degrees lower.
THE CARE OF THE CHICKS IN THE BROODER
Keep fresh water in vessels into which the chicks can get only their
bills in the outer compartment. Never neglect seeing that they are all
safely cuddled up to the heat at dusk.
During the bright, sunny hours in the middle of the day let the chicks
have plenty of fresh air in the playroom; at feeding time, when they
are all busy, give the hover compartment a thorough airing.
When Biddy is doing the brooding, remember she is pretty sure to need
dusting with some good insect powder. The nest box she sat in should
have been cleaned, and a handful of camphor balls scattered under the
hay of the nest. Moreover, each hen should be dusted before setting,
twice during the twenty-one days, three days after the hatch is out,
and each week so long as she broods the chicks.
Fresh air, warmth and good food prevent many troubles almost impossible
to cure if once contracted; so look to the little things.
Thirty hours must be allowed for the proper digestion and assimilation
of the yolk, which is absorbed into the abdomen immediately before the
chick breaks through the shell. When Biddy has done the hatching do not
move her to the brood coop for twenty-four hours, unless she is flighty
and keeps getting off the nest, in which case it is better to keep the
chicks in a covered box by the kitchen stove until some more motherly
hen can be persuaded to adopt them. Always try to set two or three
hens at the same time. Good hens that are well fed and have not been
bothered with vermin seldom give any trouble about the last twenty-four
hours.
HOW TO DIVERSIFY THE DAILY RATION
Now about the all-important question of feeding: For the first two or
three days get ten pounds of rape and millet seed, pin-head oatmeal and
cracked corn, charcoal, and fine, sharp grit. Mix all together. If you
cannot get pin-head oatmeal, buy hulled oats and break them up fine.
The grain must also be cracked quite fine; in fact, it is safer to put
the mixture through a sieve which will allow nothing larger than millet
to go through. Then there is no danger of chicks being choked. Feed the
mixture by scattering among the sweepings, to encourage the chicks to
scratch and take exercise.
Morning and evening make a mash by chopping a hard-boiled egg, shell
and all, green onion tops or sprouts. Mix with stale bread crumbs, and
feed on a flat pie plate or strip of wood. After the chicks are two
weeks old the oats and corn need not be quite so fine--more the size of
hemp seed, which can be added to the mixture; so can cracked wheat or
barley, and the mash can be made of ground corn and oats, with onions
and scalded liver, chopped, three times a week (about a small cupful to
a quart of mash).
What I mean by scalded liver is liver dropped into a kettle of boiling
water and let boil up once. Leave to cool in the water. Quite raw it
is too strong for little chicks. For a change I mix the grain with
scalding milk two or three times a week. Never make more at a time than
will be fed within the next few hours, as it sours.