the hens out and have a good housecleaning. Use plenty of hot limewash
to which kerosene and crude carbolic acid have been added. If you have
two houses, crowd all the birds into one for a few days, and when the
empty house has been thoroughly cleaned, commence to catch the birds
at night, and powder thoroughly. Use Dalmatian or the home made powder
in an ordinary tin flour-dredger, and after shaking a good supply into
the feathers, use your hands to rub it well into the fluffy parts near
the skin. It is well to repeat the dose about three days after. In thus
doing house and birds at the same time, you may be reasonably sure of
having exterminated the pests for a few months, at least. Remember to
rake up all the falling leaves, to be used for scratching material. A
bagful scattered on the floor of the chicken-house once or twice a week
will increase the egg-yield and keep the birds healthy during enforced
confinement.
Before I forget it, let me remind you not to feed new corn to the
fowls. Every year, about this season, I get quantities of letters
telling of good, fat hens, the picture of health, which have been
found dead. Acute indigestion, brought on by eating unseasoned corn,
is the cause. So be careful. If your last year’s supply has run out,
it is better to buy a few bags than lose hens on whom you depend for
winter eggs. Store all the cabbage or other green vegetables you can
before it is too late. Look the house over and stop up all cracks and
crevices. A draft from a small hole may give one bird a cold which may
develop into roup and infect the whole flock, though an open-front
house with only muslin screens may be healthy.
About open-front houses, I don’t believe in them for laying stock. If
I were going to carry a lot of young birds or hens which will not lay
until April, I might adopt the open-front house as a matter of economy,
but not otherwise. I can’t see what is gained by them--that is, in
cold latitudes. In the South they are probably all right. We all know
that the great percentage of food supplied during cold weather goes
to keep up bodily warmth, and that if we expect eggs in zero weather
we must supply the hens with sufficient provisions to nourish the
body, generate heat and allow a surplus to be converted into eggs.
By providing tight, warm sleeping-quarters, we save some of the food
which would be used for warmth in a cold house. Plenty of fresh air I
do believe in, but everything likes to be warm during the still, dark
hours.
I have often seen the argument used that wild birds, which have no
houses at all, are always healthy. But how often do we hear about
numbers of birds being found dead after a severe storm. What is more,
wild birds only lay during the spring of the year. When man upsets
Nature’s laws to supply human wants, he should stop quoting Nature’s
ways. Our present-day hen, which lays, or is expected to lay, one
hundred and eighty to two hundred eggs a year, is a very different
creature from the wild hen, and she must be provided with better food,
housing and care.
As of course you know, different food materials contain different
qualities. Some give us the fat necessary for warmth; others,
nitrogenous qualities, which form flesh; still others, minerals, such
as lime, soda, etc., etc., needed for bone and muscle. All kinds of
animals, birds, and even human beings, require some quantity of these
ingredients, otherwise one part of the body or nervous system will be
starved, while another will be overfed. With the hen it is of great
importance that she have all these different ingredients well blended
in her food, as she requires them not only to sustain her in health,
but also for the formation of eggs.
We will start with the foods that give the greatest quantity of lime,
because it is needed for shell, and some fractional part in the white
and yolk, most essential, for it is turned during incubation into
bone, the very foundation of the chicken. Clover hay, linseed-meal
and wheat bran contain about six pounds of lime in every hundred, and
turnip-tops, carrots and all grasses have a goodly percentage. Flesh
comes from nitrogenous or albumenal foods, first of which are beef,
linseed-meal, middlings, bran, clover hay, wheat and skimmed milk.
Fat and heat we get from carbonaceous provenders, among which corn
and buckwheat lead, closely followed by oats, wheat, rye, clover hay,
linseed-meal and unskimmed milk.
Mineral matter--lime, soda, potash, magnesia and sulphur--is
principally formed by the action of digestion reducing the matter
containing these ingredients to ash. The usual troubles assailing
poultry on most farms come from the feeding of only one of these
elements. Poor Biddy has all flesh and no warmth, or all fat and no
flesh.
Kill a bird that has been fed on corn only, and it will be heavy with
layers of internal fat, but showing a very poor depth of breast-meat.
Balancing rations, trying to equalise flesh, fat (warmth) and mineral,
is not a very hard proposition when the values of even a few grains and
plants are realised.
Having read so far, you will now realise that clover hay, linseed-meal,
bran, wheat, oats, beef scraps and unskimmed milk contain practically
all the equivalents of summer foods; the addition, therefore, of corn,
buckwheat or rye in cold weather is safe and simple if given only as
warmth-makers. Never allow the proportion to exceed what is needed for
that purpose, or fat will be made and stored, neutralising all your
care. In other words, the hen fed on corn only, in order to accumulate
the ten parts of flesh and twenty parts of fat needed for the egg, will
be compelled to acquire fifty parts more fat than she requires.
Green bone and water now alone remain for consideration. The former is
beyond doubt the best of egg foods, qualifying as it does in nearly
all the needed elements. Many farmers scoff at the idea of having to
pay for a mill to cut up bone for chickens, yet the same men will not
grudge a hay-cutter for the horse and cow. Green bone means fresh bone
from the butcher, which can be bought for about two cents a pound. The
mill to grind it ranges from eight to fifteen dollars.
Green bone contains the natural meat, juices, blood, gristle, oil
and mineral matter in soluble condition, which renders it easy of
digestion, especially for birds--almost all the components for eggs
(white, yolk and shell), in the most concentrated form possible. So,
if eggs are to become profitable, the bone-mill must be kept going.
When it is impossible to obtain the green or fresh bone, the ground
bone sold especially for poultry can be used, though it is not half so
satisfactory, because the drying process it has to submit to before
grinding leaves little but the phosphate of lime and earthy matter,
which clover and bran furnish in better form. At least half the egg
is composed of water, surely a sufficient reason for impressing the
importance of a generous supply accessible at all times, in clean
dishes, of a proper temperature, cool in summer and the chill off in
winter.
A FLOCK OF TURKEYS
There are six varieties of turkeys: Bronze, White Holland, Bourbon
Reds, black, buff, slate and Narragansett. But the three first are the
ones most worth raising specially for market, as they are large birds
and the most popular varieties. So it is easy to get good stock, to
start with, which is of paramount importance.
A trio of any one of the three varieties will cost from fifteen to
twenty dollars, and if only twenty birds are reared the first year for
market, they will bring at least sixty dollars. That is placing the
average weight at twelve pounds and price twenty-five cents a pound.
This is, however, absurd, when you consider that young toms weigh
twenty pounds and pullets fifteen, feed could not possibly cost more
than ten dollars, which would leave thirty dollars’ profit the first
year.
A successful turkey-raiser told me he had kept his birds in yards for
twelve years, so I felt safe in adopting the plan. I suppose I ought
to have said inclosures, for they covered about half an acre each.
The land was shaly, with a rocky background, but there were plenty of
clumps of scrub brush and ferns, from the rocks to the top of the two
acres they used. The ground sloped to the south; a spot of no earthly
good for any other purpose, but perfectly ideal for turkeys.
However, as our farm had no such place, I utilised a strip of poor
brush land which had good natural drainage and made three inclosures,
each one hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long. An open-front
shed twelve feet long and ten feet wide was built in each. They were
just rough shelters built out of slabs and the only fittings were
perches made out of sassafras poles, none of them less than nine inches
in circumference. This is one of the important items in fixing a place
for turkeys. Being heavy, large-footed birds, they are uncomfortable
and positively suffer if condemned to balance themselves on slight
perches such as chickens use.
It took four loads of slabs to make the three sheds, and they cost
seventy-five cents a load at the sawmill. Wire netting cost forty-eight
dollars, perches and posts were cut in our own woods, and the home help
did the work.
I got ten female birds from the Massachusetts farm for fifty dollars
and two toms from Long Island for twenty dollars. We sent for the birds
early in December so that they should have time to get thoroughly
at home in their new quarters before the laying season. Before they
arrived, the front of the sheds was covered with wire netting, so that
we could keep them shut up at first, but after two or three weeks it
was removed and they were allowed the range of the yards. The wire
around the inclosure was only four feet high and one wing of each bird
was cut to prevent them flying over it.
[Illustration: A FLOCK OF TURKEYS]
Early in March a half-barrel was secreted among the brush, in both
the occupied yards, so that the hens would be accustomed to their
appearance and, we hoped, consider safe hiding-places for their
eggs. The plan answered splendidly. About the middle of the month we
commenced to keep a lookout for eggs in the half-barrel and for stolen
nests. When an egg was found, it was purloined, and a china one put in
its place; ditto when the second egg was taken, but after that, no more
china eggs were dropped, for two always seemed to satisfy Mrs. Turkey.
Unlike common hens, turkeys are not attracted to a nest by an egg. In
fact, they retain so much of the wild bird that they will not adopt
a nest that has been used by any other bird, so never distribute
nest-eggs as decoys, but only as substitutes for those abstracted.
The matter of feeding the old birds is of great importance and is the
rock most farmers founder on. Too often the birds are left to forage
for themselves or, at the best, are given uncertain quantities of
corn, which means that they are miserably thin and dilapidated or
outrageously fat. In either case they lack the components which the egg
for hatching should possess. Result, weak youngsters which are doomed
to die, no matter how much care is lavished on them.
I once heard an old poultryman say that the care of the chick must
commence when its mother is hatched. This may seem ambiguous to the
amateur, but it is literally a fact and one which my Massachusetts
friend had made me understand was most potent when applied to turkeys.
So our turkeys are fed with special reference to supplying the
ingredients to be converted into bone and vigour in the birds to be.
Breakfast: Chopped clover-hay, steamed overnight, two quarts; corn and
oats ground together, one quart; beef-scraps, half a pint. At noon, one
quart of oats, Kafir-corn or barley scattered broadcast in the yards.
At night, whole corn when the weather is very cold, but as it moderates
in the spring the amount is decreased and wheat is used in its place.
These are their regular rations from December to April, when the
beef-scraps and corn are entirely omitted. Water and grit is before
them all the time. We buy screenings from the stone-crusher and, as it
is cheap, dump a lot into each yard twice a year.
I generally steal the first ten eggs from each nest and set them under
the hens. However many a turkey lays after that, she is allowed to keep
and hatch them. It takes them twenty-nine days to hatch, and large,
motherly old hens should be chosen from the chicken-house to do the
incubating. It is not safe to put more than five such eggs under an
ordinary hen.
When the hatch is over, put the hen into a brood-coop and, in front of
it, put a box about nine inches deep and large enough to form a yard
for the babies to exercise in. It is, of course, necessary to remove
part or the whole of the end of the box which joins the front of the
coop, so that the little ones can run in and out. Cover the bottom
of the box with coarse sand and put a small drinking-fountain in one
corner. Thus the babies will have a safe place to play in the first
few days of infancy, when they must be kept dry. After that the box
can be removed and the coop moved a few feet every day for the sake of
cleanliness.
When Mrs. Turkey’s brood hatches, we treat them in the same way, only
the brood-coop is specially made and is much larger than the ordinary
hen-coop. The first feed the babies have is stale home-made bread
soaked in scalded milk, which is squeezed out of it before it is fed.
Like little chicks, they must have nothing for twenty-four hours, then
little and often must be the rule.
Never leave food in front of little turkeys, for they are very apt
to overeat. After two weeks they need only be fed four times a day;
after the fourth week three times a day. After the first two days add
a little hard-boiled egg which has been chopped fine, without removing
the shell, and a few days later, pin-head oatmeal and ground charcoal;
about a teaspoonful of the latter to a cupful of bread and oatmeal.
By the end of two weeks gradually reduce the bread and increase the
oatmeal, which should be cooked about half an hour and allowed to dry
out, so it is easily crumbled when cool.
After the fourth week, ordinary ground oats, just moistened with
scalding milk, may be used. Half-boiled liver, chopped fine, is the
best animal food to give. When that is not practicable, use the best
brand of commercial ground beef, one teaspoonful to a quart of meal,
because it is very strong and liable to produce diarrhea, a disease
which attacks young turkeys almost sooner than any other young bird.
Watch carefully and at the first evidence of any looseness of the
bowels give boiled rice to eat and rice-water or cold tea to drink.
Watch newly-hatched babies for a few days at feed-time, for there
is often one or more that needs to be taught how to eat. This is
especially so when they are with common hens. But a little patience
in crumbling close in front of them and coaxing them to pick it up
will overcome the difficulty. After they are eight weeks old we take
them from the hens and put them into the third yard, which is kept
exclusively for young stock.
At night they are driven into the shed, the front of which is always
kept covered with wire netting, so that they can be closed in until
they get accustomed to roosting. Of course, the perches in this shed
are put nearer the ground and are much smaller than those intended for
grown birds. About October 1st they are allowed the free range of the
farm and are fed on corn at night and given all the milk they will
drink, to get them into good killing condition before Thanksgiving,
when they are all sold off, except perhaps a few extra good ones, which
we may keep for stock. The old birds are also allowed free range from
October until February, but they are fed in the yards at night and are
shut in so that they don’t form any bad wandering habits.
In buying stock, be generous and get the very best, from some
well-known turkey-raiser. Ordinary farm stock is so apt to be inbred
that, although the birds may look all right, it is not safe to buy them
for breeding purposes, as a want of stamina will surely show in the
youngsters.
For the same reason it is best to get the hen-birds from one place and
the toms from another. If you are going to keep Bourbon Reds or bronze,
it is advisable to buy half-wild toms. These are the result of crossing
wild gobblers with domestic hens, which is done by large breeders to
infuse new blood and keep up the vigour of their stock. Personally, I
like the White Holland turkey best, as they are domesticated and bear
confinement well.
If you are only going to keep a few birds, say a trio or five hens and
a gobbler, large yards are not necessary, but a shed over which netting
can be put, should always be set apart for their use, so that they can
be fed and shut up at night. Never, under any circumstances, keep any
of the pullets you raise, unless you change your gobbler. Don’t let two
gobblers run with the flock at the same time. If you want to increase
your number of birds, you must either put up inclosures or alternate
the gobblers every two days.
DUCKS AND GEESE
Ducks are so profitable that I cannot understand why so few keep them,
unless it is the mistaken idea that they must have a stream or pond in
which to swim. It is true that the old-fashioned puddle duck did seem
a miserable creature out of water, but the improved strains are almost
as much land birds as chickens are. My stock started with two ducks
and a drake which had cost me seven dollars. The first season I raised
fifty-eight, sold forty-six, and kept twelve to stock. They were ready
for market when eleven weeks old, and the lowest price was eighteen
cents a pound.
Ducks must have dry, comfortable quarters, but a splendid house for
twenty ducks can be made on any farm for a dollar, or even less. One
man who keeps large flocks makes duck houses with hurdles of green
boughs for walls and roof, the outside padded with leaves, straw, corn
stalks or cedar boughs. Each house is six feet by four feet and two and
one half feet high, and accommodates seven ducks and a drake.
Dry-goods boxes, costing ten cents at any village store, can be made
comfortable for a small flock. The main point is to keep them dry,
which depends almost more on the care given to the covering of the
floor than the wall of the house. Good, dry bedding, changed at least
twice a week, will keep them warm and happy through the coldest weather.
Ducks’ eggs bring good prices during February and March. You can easily
get them to laying by then, as it depends principally on feeding.
Ducks, like geese or cattle, must have a good percentage of bulk
material and green stuff, as well as concentrated grain feed. Clover
hay, or even mixed hay, chopped and steamed, about half a pailful with
a pint of coarsely ground corn-meal and the same of bran mixed through
it, is about right. If hay is short, chop corn stalks small, and steam.
Chopped vegetables of all kinds are good, but pumpkins, potatoes and
beets are fattening; so, unless the weather is very cold, omit the corn
when they are fed, using more bran or screenings in its place.
In the summer have the children gather plantain, dock, groundsel or any
other non-poisonous weeds. Have sugar barrels ready, and pack in the
weeds while fresh. Get a heavy, solid board rounded off to fit inside
the barrel, put on top of the green stuff, and weight down with heavy
stones. Pad up tight with paper, sawdust, straw or any loose material,
and replace the head of the barrel. When snow covers the ground, such
food will increase the eggs from both ducks and chickens.
Oak leaves, acorns and pig hickories do not take long to gather in the
fall, and will tone up the appetites of pigs, chickens and ducks late
in January, when they are getting tired of grain feed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: DUCKS AND GEESE]
Imperial Pekin, Rouen and Indian Runners have been the best market
breeds of ducks for some years past, and are still splendid fellows,
both for eggs and table, and their new rivals, the Buff Orpington
ducks, quite equal them as utility birds.
Ducks make such bad mothers that it is better to hatch their eggs under
hens or in incubators. The first few eggs a duck lays each season are
seldom fertile. Eleven are a full sitting, and it requires twenty-eight
days for their hatching. Examine the nest every two or three days after
setting the hen, for bad eggs. A weak germ that dies causes the egg to
decompose, and the odour once smelled can never be forgotten.
Examine the nest when the hen comes off to feed, and take away the
eggs that are dark and mottled. If you fancy an egg looks wrong, pick
it up and smell it; that and its sticky touch assure you, for the egg
is porous. If you have been using an incubator to hatch chicks you can
test with a proper tester, and this must be done all the time from the
fourth to the fifteenth day.
When the hatch is over at the end of the twenty-eighth day, have ready
a box about a foot deep and three feet long, the top out and one end
taken off. Place the open end against the coop door, so making a little
run, with a board floor covered with an inch of dry sand or earth. Baby
ducks need even more protection from damp than chicks; therefore, if
the weather is bad, keep the coop and run under cover, and if fine,
the shade of a tree is necessary, for the little fellows can’t stand
the full sun. After a week the hen can be removed, but keep them within
bounds on short grass, not letting them out until the dew is gone.
For twenty-four hours feed nothing. First week: Half a pint of rolled
oats, some cracker or stale bread crumbs, two hard-boiled eggs chopped
fine, half a cupful of coarse sand just moistened with milk. Feed four
times a day just what they will eat in ten minutes.
Second and third weeks: Half a pound of ground oats, the same of wheat
bran, one-fourth of a pint of corn-meal, the same of coarse sand, two
tablespoonfuls of beef meal, a pint of finely cut green clover, rye or
cabbage moistened with scalded milk. They must be fed four times a day.
Fourth to sixth week: Boil a quart of hulled oats for an hour, add a
pint of corn-meal, wheat bran, half a pint of fine grit, the same of
beef scraps and a quart of clover or any kind of green food. Feed four
times a day.
Sixth to tenth week: One quart of corn-meal, a pint of wheat bran, a
pint of boiled oats, a pint of beef scraps, half a pint of grit, a
tablespoonful of charcoal and a pint of clover. Feed three times a day.
They should be ready to kill the eleventh week.
Do not let the ducks, young or old, get frightened if you can possibly
help it. They are nervous things. No matter what you feed, if they are
frightened or made to run daily, they will not fatten. If you go about
them gently they are the easiest things to drive any distance, for
where one goes, all follow; hurry them and they will scatter, and it is
good-bye to them for hours.
The feed for those to be kept for stock is the same up to three weeks
old, but from that on one quart of ground feed, one quart of bran,
half a pint of grit and half a pint of beef scraps. Mix moist with
milk, water, sour milk or buttermilk, and feed night and morning. If
on a free range this is all they want. If not, you must add clover or
vegetables, and feed three times a day. Remember always to have fresh,
clean water before them.
When ducks are ten or eleven weeks old they should be in condition for
market. Early green ducks should weigh not more than four and one-half
pounds, while later ducks cannot be too heavy. As a rule early ducks
mature very unevenly, making it necessary to sort them over often.
Ducks are fit to dress for only a short time. They “go back,” as it is
termed, for they shed and grow a new lot of feathers, which takes all
the fat and all your profit. Hence the importance of turning them into
money as soon as possible.
In dressing it is most desirable to dry pick. Although some still
scald, dry-picked stock sells better than scalded, especially when the
market is dull, for it can be frozen, while scalded stock cannot. For
dry picking have a box for the feathers. It may be of any size you wish
on the ground, and should be of such depth that the top edge is one
or two inches lower than your knee when in a sitting position. To use
for cooling the ducks, saw a coal-oil barrel in two; use one-half for
cooling, the other half for clear water to put them in after washing.