LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 a. 
 
 Accession 1 001 OT C/sss 
 
POULTRY 
 
 WEST OF THE ROCKIES 
 
 BY FRANK B. CLEWETTE 
 
 This Book is the experience, in a 
 condensed form, of hundreds of 
 potiltrymcn in the West, and is 
 designed to point out the obstacles 
 to poultry-raising, and how to 
 overcome them. . 
 
 PRICE FIFTY CENTS 
 
 Copyrighted 
 
 FRANK B. CLEWETTE 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
 1902 
 
POULTRY 
 
 WEST OF THE ROCKIES 
 
 CUEWETTE 
 
 ~L) 
 
 This Book is the experience, in a 
 condensed form, of hundreds of 
 poultrymen in the West, and is 
 designed to point out the obstacles 
 to poultry-raising, and how to 
 overcome them. 
 
 Copyrighted by 
 
 FRANK B. CLEWCTTE 
 
 890 West 39th Street, Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 1902 
 
PRESERVATIOM 
 COPY ADDED 
 ORIGINAL TO BE 
 RETAINED 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 C. M. DAVIS CO., 
 
 LOS AHGELES. 
 
This book is not infallible nothing is. " Prove all things ; hold fast that 
 which is good." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 POULTRY IN THE GOLDEN WEST. 
 
 "Will the poultry business pay in the West?' 5 and "Why are 
 there not more large poultry plants?" and similar questions, 
 meet us very often from people coming from the East, and 
 indeed many who have lived west of the divide for years can- 
 not yet understand why we should send hundreds of thou- 
 sands of dollars each year across the mountains to enrich our 
 prosperous Kansas cousins. 
 
 There are many reasons why these things are so, and one 
 is the very prevalent idea that the chicken business is a very 
 small thing, and hardly worth the time of a man of any abil- 
 ity, but just fit for the puttering of the women and children, 
 to get a little pocket money out of. 
 
 But what of the business of one man in Central California, 
 who, during one year, has sold 40,000 eggs, none lower than 
 $5.00 per 100, and many single settings at $2.00 for fifteen? 
 Is that a business worthy of a man? The same can be done 
 in almost any neighborhood, but remember the old advice of 
 Poor Richard, "He that by the plow would thrive, himself 
 must either hold or drive." 
 
 \ o <* i 0*7 
 
POUI/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The total product of the poultry of the United States is 
 greater than the output of any other one class of products in 
 the industrial world. 
 
 There are some sections of our great country which produce 
 the bulk of our cotton, other parts produce wheat, others corn 
 or sugar, or gold or iron ; but the old hen is found in nearly 
 every farm yard from coast to coast, and few city and village 
 homes are without a showing of our feathered friends. From 
 this fact, which no one will deny, you will see that though the 
 output seems small in each section, yet there is such a great 
 number and such a thorough distribution of the egg-producer 
 that the total production is simply stupendous. 
 
 There is no industry with which we are familiar, connected 
 with the agricultural and stock-raising interests, which will 
 yield so ready an income and pay for itself so quickly as the 
 poultry business. 
 
 We had a talk with a man not long ago who is handling a 
 lot of hens, just for eggs for the market. We asked him how 
 many hens a man should keep, to sell eggs and the by-product 
 of cockerels and old hens, to make a living, and he replied, 
 "Six hundred layers, if he doesn't live too high." 
 
 "One year," he went on, "when I was working up to my 
 present number," (600 layers) "and I had to keep all my old 
 hens, as I did not want to reduce my stock, they netted me 
 $1.50 per hen, and one year I cleared $2.00 for every hen 
 I had." 
 
 Hens of the grade this man has can be bought at an average 
 price of 50 cents apiece, and can you put $300 in any other 
 legitimate interest you know of, and with your time devoted 
 to it, net you $1200 a year, or $900, or even $600? 
 
 Do not for a minute suppose that a man who has but little 
 knowledge of poultry-raising and not much strength for hard 
 work, or, worse still, a very great disinclination for it, can 
 
POULTRY IN THE GOLDEN WEST. 
 
 buy a lot of -hens, throw out some wheat to them each day, and 
 at the end of the year enjoy himself looking at the good fat 
 deposit in the bank, for he won't have it, and the chances are 
 he won't have as many birds as he started with. 
 
 The care of poultry calls for the same kind of patience as 
 a woman's house work, from the fact that it's never done; 
 but you must go right over the same old routine day after day, 
 and there's a great deal of hard, disagreeable work about it. 
 In fact, you will come to the opinion of the boy wading in 
 the pond, when the snapping turtle got hold of his toe, "y u ' ve 
 got no soft snap." 
 
 One thinks it a waste of business ability to bother with a 
 few hens. You will find, if you try it on a scale large enough 
 to make a living from it, that as one well posted man re- 
 marked, "The poultry business demands a knowledge of more 
 different kinds of business and a more varied line of informa- 
 tion than any other business in the world." This may sound 
 extreme, but the measure of success reached depends very 
 much on the careful thought and study devoted to the work 
 and the careful attention to detail. Then there is the adapta- 
 bility of the man. In many lines of industry a man may suc- 
 ceed fairly well, if he make a careful study of the needs of 
 the business and "stays with it" ; but the successful poultry- 
 man is somewhat like the true artist, in one way he is "born 
 and not made." If a man does not like chickens and is always 
 ready to throw something at every hen he sees, and can't see 
 any difference in them, he had better leave the business alone 
 entirely, for there are enough disagreeable things about it for 
 the man who has a liking for his birds, but if the work is all 
 drudgery he will not make as much out of it as the man who 
 takes a deep interest in his work, and knows many of his flock 
 personally, and by name or number. 
 
 There are many books published on the subject of poultry- 
 
6 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 keeping and feeding, and though they are published east of 
 the mountains, and there are some things in them not exactly 
 applicable to our conditions, yet the articles on feeding, mating, 
 breeding, etc., will work out the same west as east, and the 
 reports of experiments made at the different State experiment 
 stations are very instructive reading, and may be had by writ- 
 ing to the director of the station in the State where such ex- 
 periments are made, or to the Agricultural Department at 
 Washington. 
 
 Don't be afraid of getting too much information, for when 
 a man thinks he doesn't need to study and read on the line 
 of business in which he is engaged, be it what it may, then he 
 has about reached the limit of his ability. We do not mean 
 to convey the idea that you must follow all the advice you 
 read, or even believe all of it, for there are many queer things 
 put in print. This is just as true of what you see in the 
 poultry journals, as it is of the general press. One man made 
 the remark once, that he had been fooled so many times that 
 he didn't believe anything he heard, and only half what he 
 actually saw. Don't take anything for granted that you see 
 in print, till you see if it will stand the test of a good hard 
 application of common sense. 
 
 Here is where the test of the up-to-date poultryman, as to 
 general information, comes in. If he sees a new remedy or a 
 different style of feeding, or a new formula mentioned, he 
 should know about what elements they contain, and whether 
 they are in the right proportions, for the needs of his birds, and 
 just about what the effect will be, and he should know, on the 
 first symptom of trouble, what remedy to apply to remove the 
 cause. 
 
 We notice in a report from the Rhode Island experiment 
 station, that one writer says that fowls need no condition 
 powders at all, and we hear the same thing very often in our 
 
POULTRY IN THE GOLDEN WEST. ' 
 
 own talks with poultrymen, but that depends very much on 
 conditions. 
 
 For instance, in Rhode Island, it is more than likely that 
 at the time the experiment was tried, the birds had access to 
 ground where there was grass, or weeds, or both, growing, 
 and with the dandelion, mints, burdock, etc., that they could 
 pick up, the varied elements conducive to health could be 
 found, or if they had no range, then the variety would be 
 found in the supply fed to them; and again, the writer says 
 in the same article, but on another subject, that "a single test 
 proves nothing," and then, after reporting a single test in this 
 respect, says that hens "need no condition powders of any 
 kind." 
 
 An Eastern man who has never seen a Western summer, 
 is not qualified to make such a sweeping assertion, and this is 
 one of the occasions where Eastern advice is of little use to 
 us, west of the divide. 
 
 During the dry season, the Western hen has almost no chance 
 at all to get animal food, such as her Eastern sister gets in 
 the grasshoppers, crickets, bugs, and worms, in such profusion, 
 or the medicinal herbs and roots that combine with her other 
 foods to supply all the elements that a hen needs for the pro- 
 duction of eggs and the preservation of health, and the man 
 who does not supply these elements in the time of need does 
 not meet with the greatest measure of success possible to him. 
 
 Do you realize that the egg we so unconcernedly expect 
 every old hen to lay as nearly every day as possible, no matter 
 how we treat her, is one of the most complex productions we 
 get from any source ? It is an almost perfect food in the most 
 concentrated form, and has in itself the embryo chick, and only 
 needs the application of the right amount of heat, for the 
 proper time, to produce the ancestry in miniature, and it's all 
 
8- POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 there when we pick the egg up from the nest where Biddy 
 has so uncomplainingly left it for us. 
 
 Then see to it that the hen of average weight who is ex- 
 pected to produce one-fiftieth of her weight every time she 
 lays an egg, and if she lays but 150 eggs in a year, still has 
 produced three times her own weight, has the proper food to 
 do it with. Some say that hens must have a good long rest 
 from laying. This all depends on their digestive organs. Pens 
 of hens confined, have produced as high as 289 eggs in a year 
 and ended the test in good conditoin, and the 3OO-egg hen is 
 coming, and our Western country can produce her, if any 
 one can. 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 
 
 If we are asked what to do about keeping a few hens just 
 for the purpose of supplying the family with fresh eggs and 
 occasionally a "spring chicken," we would say, do so by all 
 means, for there is a great deal of satisfaction in using eggs 
 that you are sure are fresh, that come from healthy stock 
 and from hens that are properly fed. We are getting more 
 and more to be a people who make much of the appearance 
 of things, even in our eating, and if a dish is offered us, even 
 our appetite for and relish of the things offered is very much 
 affected by the appearance of it. This may sound foolish, 
 but just try it. Get a frying pan hot with some good butter 
 in it ; take a nice fresh, round, clean egg from your own stock, 
 perhaps laid by the hen who will sit on your hand and talk 
 to you while you feed her with your other hand. Break in 
 it that egg, with its nice, fat, yellow yolk, and with a white 
 that is almost jelly like and piles up around the yolk, and then 
 put beside it such an egg as you get at almost any store, of 
 which the very light colored yolk will either break or spread 
 out thin, and the white will be thin and run like water; cook 
 and season the two just alike, and no man can eat the two with 
 the same relish or satisfaction. Get a few hens, then, to dispose 
 of the lawn clippings and the scraps from the kitchen and 
 table, and don't think that one hen is as good as another and 
 just buy a few somewliere because they are cheap. They 
 may turn out to be very dear. Remember that the best is none 
 
10 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 too good, and though the eggs from a mixed lot of birds may 
 taste as good as those from better stock, still that is not the 
 only thing to be considered. If you get some good birds 
 of any standard variety and take good care of them, you will 
 be surprised to find how soon you will come to regard them 
 almost in the light of personal friends and you will notice the 
 peculiarities of each : how one will come near with an air of 
 scrutiny, as though wondering what that big animal is made 
 of anyway, and if it would be advisable to give it a peck and 
 see what it would do. Another comes up and watches with 
 an alert expression, to be the first to see if you should happen 
 to drop something good to eat, and that if you do she may 
 be the first to make a dive for it. This kind of a hen has a 
 good digestion and is a very steady layer. Then there is the 
 nervous hen who watches you over her shoulder, and will keep 
 a box or tree between you and herself if possible, and is dead 
 sure you will do something mean if- she takes her eye off of 
 you for an instant; and again there is that superior hen who 
 barely condescends to look in your direction, but, like some peo- 
 ple, her gaze is directed far, very far, beyond you, and she 
 don't know you at all unless you can do something for her, 
 and then she is, oh ! so glad to see you. There is a great deal 
 of satisfaction in having something better than almost any one 
 of our neighbors, and any pure blooded fowl has the marks 
 of aristocracy in their elegant carriage and neat make up, which, 
 by the way, is a natural "make up." Your neighbors will 
 admire your stock and wish they had some, and you can make 
 some one happy by making them a present of a setting of eggs, 
 or you can turn many an honest penny by selling them for 
 hatching, to the many who will be glad to get them, and by 
 selling your birds in the same way. Well! get your birds of 
 some honest poultryman, and the man who brags most is often 
 to be trusted least. Don't be afraid to pay a good price, for 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 
 
 good blooded birds are worth from $2.00 apiece up to almost 
 any price, and a pen of 90 to 93 point birds are worth any- 
 where from $4.00 to $15.00 for each bird. There is money to 
 be made from a pen of ten to fifteen birds of good blood, if 
 you care to advertise a little and "learn the ropes." One man 
 of our own knowledge cleared $131.00 in a year from four birds 
 that cost him $29.45, but we don't all know how to do that, 
 and then, too, he had made a specialty of a certain breed for 
 several years, and was well known. If you have a house in 
 which chickens have been kept for some time, and not thor- 
 oughly clean, then that should be attended to first of all. If the 
 floor be of boards, sweep the building, every inch of it, inside 
 and out, scrape and clean the floor, and if it can be closed 
 tightly (and should be so fixed before using), put a couple of 
 brick on the floor, take an old basin or kettle, put a handful 
 of paper in it; on this several small pieces of pine, and pour 
 about a pound of sulphur on the center. Set the basin on 
 the bricks, set fire to the paper, see that it is well started, and 
 then beat a retreat, closing the door tightly from the outside. 
 If there is anything alive in that house after the sulphur 
 burns up, that insect must be a native of a country with a 
 very different atmosphere from this. Leave the house shut 
 up over night, or at least two hours, so the fumes may do 
 their work thoroughly. The next move should be to turn 
 the hose on the building, and give it a good washing inside 
 and out, and if you can, better have the floor removed and let 
 the ground get a good soaking. Then have it dug up and 
 turned over, or, better still, about six inches of it removed 
 and carried off, and fill in with coarse sand and gravel. Use 
 a great deal of the latter if you can get it, and have the 
 ground of the whole run soaked well, and then turn over 
 to a good depth and covered with sand or gravel, or leave it 
 loose for them to scratch and inspect for worms. 
 
12 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Whitewash, in which you have put some crude carbolic acid, 
 should be applied to the house inside and out, and the amount 
 of acid may be a pint to a gallon, more or less as you see fit. 
 The roof should be painted, and after such treatment the lice 
 will be entirely gone, and your hens can enjoy their night's 
 rest, and there will be no germs of disease lurking in some cor- 
 ner. Now if you think this a great deal of unnecessary trou- 
 ble to take, just ask some one who knows from experience 
 how fast lice breed and the contagiousness of certain diseases, 
 and you will be satisfied that it is well worth the trouble, and 
 you may rue the day you slighted this part of your preparation 
 for your feathered friends. If these directions are followed, 
 you can feel as safe as if all were built of new lumber, and 
 you have only to keep it clean, which, of course, you will do 
 if you mean to make a success of your venture. As yet we 
 haven't cleaned the hens as well as the house, and we cannot 
 put them through a sulphur smudge, and it isn't safe to take 
 it for granted that they are perfectly free from lice, no matter 
 where they come from, or how loud protestations the man who 
 sold them to you may have made ; he isn't real sure himself 
 and it is the safest way to take no chances. 
 
 The most thorough way is a good bath; not a dust bath, 
 either, but water. Take a good insecticide like chloro-naptho- 
 leum, that will mix with water ; use according to the directions 
 on the bottle, use warm water some bright warm morning, and 
 let every bird on the place have a good warm bath, and they 
 ought to be clear of lice for weeks, and they will look clean and 
 fresh for a long time. It isn't easy to make the bath penetrate 
 to every part under the feathers, but it can be done, and will 
 pay to be as thorough as with the house cleaning. They won't 
 tell you that they have enjoyed the experience, but when they 
 are picking and preening as they dry off, you can imagine they 
 feel as the old man did when he took a warm bath at his doc- 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 13 
 
 tor's order. After it was over he said, "Why, if I had known 
 a bath would make me feel so good I would have taken one 
 forty years ago." A great deal of trouble of course it is, but 
 it's more trouble for you to buy grain for a lot of hens that 
 are being eaten up by lice till they can hardly eat enough to 
 keep themselves alive.,, This is where the difference between 
 profit and loss comes in, with the balance on the wrong side, 
 with a great many people. 
 
 If hens and house are thoroughly cleaned, at the same time, 
 you will have comparativey little trouble to keep them so, for 
 you can keep the house clean by raking out often, and using 
 fresh sand, and use a good lice killer on the roosts and walls 
 once in three or four weeks, and some insect powder in the 
 nest boxes. Don't forget and wait till you see lice before you 
 go after them. Don't imagine, either, that a louse is just a 
 louse and nothing more, for there are from thirteen to twenty 
 different kinds that prey on poultry in this prolific country ; 
 and if one kind don't beat you one way, another may, and 
 when you have everything else off the hens there may be a 
 few ticks on them, which can hardly be gotten off any other 
 way than by "dipping," and that must be done very thoroughly. 
 If fowls are run down by the constant irritation of lice, then 
 any disease is apt to take hold of them, and the chances are 
 all against them. While if they were all vigorous the disease 
 would "go by the other side." This is a clear case of an 
 ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Don't give 
 the fowls a house on one side of the barn where you keep your 
 Horse, or in the barn itself, unless you are perfectly sure you 
 can keep them clean, for there are some kinds of lice that will 
 get on a horse and it is very hard to get them off ; in fact, 
 about the only way is to sprinkle an old blanket with lice 
 killer not too much of it, however, as it might loosen the 
 hair. Fasten this blanket on every night till he is clean, and 
 
14 
 
 POULTRY WKST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 it may be necessary to wash his head and legs with a solution 
 of carbolic acid or chloro naptholeum. Use the acid very 
 carefully, as it may cause trouble unless used with caution, 
 or too strong. The best house for a small lot of hens is about 
 four by five feet, with no floor, and built so the highest side, 
 which will be the front, may, part of it, be hinged so as to 
 be thrown open to allow the sun to have free access, for that 
 is a great purifier in itself. Don't put your perches more 
 than two feet from the floor, unless you want to put nest 
 boxes under an inclined droppings board. Then arrange some- 
 thing for the hens to get down on part way, like a box, or a 
 board on a couple of posts some such arrangement, for some 
 heavy hens will come down with such force as to injure their 
 legs or feet. In short, make everything just, as convenient as 
 possible for the hens, and the better the hen the more willing 
 you will be to fix things for her comfort. Don't set a board 
 up edgewise and ask a self-respecting hen to roost on it and 
 be uncomfortable all night. We do not advise using a piece as 
 much as three inches wide, for that is too wide for the feet to 
 get a good grip on, as they always want to do. Just watch 
 some chickens go to roost in a tree some time if you have 
 the opportunity, and notice that they very seldom choose a 
 large limb, round though it be, but will select a branch not over 
 two inches in diameter, around which their toes can reach 
 to some extent, and they feel safer and rest easier than on a 
 wide surface. We have tried the experiment of using wide 
 flat roosts for hens and they will almost invariably roost on 
 the front edge, with the toes reaching down over the edge of 
 the board. It is a good idea to build a couple of supports such 
 as carpenters use for saw benches or "horses" and have notches 
 nails for holding the roosts firmly in place, and then the 
 whole thing can be clear of the walls, will not swing like 
 roosts suspended from the ceiling, and can be easily carried 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 
 
 15 
 
 outside to be cleaned by singeing with fire, washing, or sweep- 
 ing, or just by air and sunshine, and your house will be clear 
 for raking out, spading up, or white-washing, etc. 
 
 Now a few words about ventilation. We still believe this 
 to be the cause of more trouble than even lice, bad as they 
 are, and persistent in showing up in hordes so soon after we 
 have gotten rid of them so effectually, as we think. That there 
 can be too much air admitted to the hen-house almost anyone 
 will admit, and they will also admit that if there is a building 
 partly enclosed with- an opening at each side, the air in that 
 building will seem to move more rapidly and will consequently 
 carry off more heat than will be absorbed by air at rest; also 
 that if there is an opening at the top and bottom of a room 
 where there is heat, that there will be an inflow of cool air 
 and the warmer air will be carried off very rapidly. Neither 
 do we believe in having one whole side of the hen-house open, 
 for cool air and fogs to enter. 
 
 Some writers on poultry advise such plans, and tell of those 
 who keep their fowls that way and "never lose a hen by sick- 
 ness." 
 
 Very well, but the chances are that as soon as a bird is sick, 
 the hatchet is used where it will do the most good, and so, of 
 course, it is not sickness that kills the bird. Then again, for 
 every one who keeps hens that way and "never lose any," there 
 are scores who have tried that way and lost a great many birds. 
 
 Some people can raise poultry in spite of adverse conditions, 
 but it doesn't pay in dollars and cents to use up a large per- 
 centage of the birds' supper to keep up its heat during the 
 night, when much could be saved by proper construction. 
 
 One successful poultryman reports that he has tried all kinds 
 of ventilation and now uses the fireplace principle, as follows : 
 The house is built as tight as possible, and then nail together 
 four strips of ix3-inch stuff or 1x4, in box shape, and long 
 
16 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 enough to reach from the ground to the highest point of the 
 roof. Set this up at one end or side of your house, with the 
 lower end a few inches from the floor to allow foul air to 
 enter, and be carried out, or place it against the house, on the 
 outside, and cut a hole through the wall into the chimney, 
 and you have a good system of ventilation for all cool weather ; 
 and for warm weather, have part of a board near the ground, 
 at the front, on hinges, so that it may be raised and fastened 
 open to allow of the passage of pure air, to suit the require- 
 ments of your flock. 
 
 We have seen many chicks lost, after leaving the broodei, 
 because their quarters were not warm, and they crowded to- 
 gether for warmth, and some were soon too warm, and in the 
 morning would catch cold and die. Keep a smaller number 
 in a lot, and make their house close enough to keep them 
 warm, and then see that they are compelled to scratch for their 
 breakfast, as the exercise will prevent their bcoming chilled 
 and catching cold. 
 
 We have rather placed the "hounds ahead of the hare/' but 
 have been dealing with ventilation, so this came in here natur- 
 ally. We have only just got our birds, and must not "count 
 our chicks before they're hatched." 
 
 Now, to "resoom," as Josiah Allen's wife says : You have 
 your birds of the American class, or, if you must have white 
 eggs, any of the Mediterraneans, and you should feed them 
 as great a variety of food as possible, cost and results con- 
 sidered. 
 
 If you feed rice, cook or soak it, to avoid danger by the 
 distension of the crop, and they will eat barley much more 
 readily if it is soaked several hours before feeding. Kaffir 
 or Egyptian corn may be fed very freely, as it swells very 
 little. Wheat may be used at any time, but the birds should 
 scratch for it. Corn should be fed sparingly, except in cool 
 
THE FAMIIyY POULTRY YARD. l7 
 
 weather, or when the hens are laying steadily, but growing 
 birds need it often, as meal in the mash, or cracked. 
 
 A bran mash with about one part to four of corn meal in it, 
 and meat meal every day, and occasionally a little linseed meal, 
 will be relished by your hens, and they will lay eggs to pay 
 you for your generous feeding. Give plenty of green food 
 every day, if possible ; malva, if nothing else, for they will eat 
 it freely. 
 
 Keep charcoal in some form in the pens, with plenty^ of stone 
 or shell grit, where they can help themselves, and there is no 
 good reason why you should not get good eggs and plenty 
 of them. 
 
 A good scratching pen may be made from a large dry goods 
 box, by cutting it down to about sixteen inches high and put- 
 ting leaves or straw in it, or nail together boards about four 
 feet long and about sixteen inches high, as it will take about 
 that height to hold the straw when the hens get to work. 
 Scatter the whole grain in the straw and make the hens work 
 for it. 
 
 If the potato parings and scraps from all the vegetables used 
 in the kitchen are washed clean and boiled, then your mixture 
 of meals, with a pinch of salt and pepper, may be stirred in, 
 and when cool, you have a very fine evening meal for your 
 birds, and they should be fed liberally at that time, but through 
 the day make them work for their living, the same as "us 
 humans" do. 
 
 A galvanized iron trough may be used to feed the mash in, 
 as it should never be thrown on the ground. A pretty good 
 wooden trough can be made of boards, dressed and oiled or 
 painted, and it will last a long time and is easy to keep clean. 
 Use 1x6 boards about three feet long for the bottom. Cut 
 pieces of the same about a foot or fourteen inches long, for 
 the ends. These will stand on end, and the bottom piece will 
 
18 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 be nailed to them about four inches from the ground. Nail a 
 strip of some kind across the tops of the end pieces, and a lath 
 on each side of the bottom, and you have a handy feed trough. 
 
 This trough prevents the birds from soiling the food, or 
 wasting it, and the old boss hen can't keep all the rest away 
 till she gets through eating. Keep all green food off the 
 ground as much as possible, by hanging up, or placing in a 
 rack built for that purpose. If you have small clover cutter 
 to cut all alfalfa up finely, you can stir it in the mash and the 
 hens will do well on it. Alfalfa hay may be used the same 
 way by steaming or soaking, and it is about as good as the 
 green alfalfa. 
 
 We do not advise feeding raw lime to hens, as it is too 
 strong and not in the best form. The lime in bone and shell 
 is better for them and very necessary to the production of 
 eggs. Plaster is not of much use, though the sand in it, if very 
 coarse, is a good grit. "Sand" is a good thing sometimes for 
 man or fowl. 
 
 Charcoal is one of the greatest preventives of disease that 
 we have, for it corrects acidity of the stomach and is a great 
 aid to digestion, and so keeps the birds healthy, and so we 
 avoid many of the troubles which beset the poorly nourished 
 hen or chick. In fact, charcoal is almost an indispensable 
 article in the successful poultry yard, and all birds should 
 have access to it in some form. 
 
 If you have no incubator and intend to hatch chicks with 
 hens, try to set two at the same time, even if you have to buy 
 a setter occasionally, and then you can give all the chicks to 
 one hen and put the other in the laying pen, and not have 
 both of them spend several weeks with their chicks when one 
 could as well care for them alone. Be sure you have quiet 
 hens to do the setting, for a nervous one is apt to get fright- 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 19 
 
 ened or restless and break an egg or two in the nest, in which 
 case it may be necessary to wash the other eggs in warm water 
 (handling them very carefully) for the shells must not have 
 the pores closed or air cannot penetrate and the chick will 
 die. Such a hen will communicate her nervous ways to the 
 chicks and they will be more apt to be wild and learn to fly 
 out of the yard, than others more quietly reared, and will not 
 do as well in any way. The young and growing stock should 
 never be kept in the same pen as the laying hens, as some of 
 them will not get the proper food at the proper time. The 
 little fellows will disturb the hen on the nest, and may get 
 into the nest and scratch everything out looking for grain, and 
 an egg is broken, and the egg-eating habit is formed, which 
 is almost impossible to break them of, except by "breaking" 
 the bird's neck. As a precaution against egg-eating we would 
 have the nests very dark and so that the entrance is not to- 
 ward the front of the house and run, but back or side of the 
 box. One good plan if you have or fear any such trouble is 
 to use a dry goods box, or large shoe box, about sixteen inches 
 wide and deep. Have a nest in one end and a hole 
 cut in the bottom near the other end large enough for a 
 hen to pass through easily ; hinge a part of the top for access 
 to gather the eggs ; then set it up from the ground about ten 
 inches. It will be so dark in the box that no hen will go in 
 there except to lay, and will leave as soon as the egg is de- 
 posited. By having a board five inches high across in front 
 of the nest no hen looking in can see the eggs and will not 
 be tempted in to disturb them. 
 
 If you are keeping birds just for eggs and do not intend 
 to raise any chicks, or after you are through hatching, and 
 have a male bird that you do not intend to breed from another 
 year, do not keep any with the hens, as he is a hearty eater 
 and you will get just as many eggs, and your neighbors' temper 
 
20 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 may be more serene about 3 o'clock every morning, if you have 
 no chanticleer to disturb their sweet repose. If you have a 
 bird to fatten that is getting old, shut it up in a coop about 
 two by three feet and high enough to allow of a roost, so the 
 bird can be off the ground at will. Keep the coop dark and 
 away from the flock, feed plenty of cooked vegetables, es- 
 pecially turnips and potatoes, with corn meal and bran, soak 
 or boil the whole grain and give grit, charcoal and plenty of 
 fresh water. Don't overfeed, but give all they will eat, and 
 in about two weeks you will have a fowl with tender, juicy 
 flesh that you will enjoy eating. 
 
 Mr. D. J. Fairchild, who travels for the U. S. Agricultural 
 Department, studying and introducing new grains and plants, 
 told us that the finest poultry he ever ate was at a town in 
 Austria, where they fattened pullets of four or five months 
 on choice foods and mostly English walnuts. He reported 
 the flesh to be tender, juicy, and of a fine nutty flavor, without 
 any oily or fat taste. The food on which poultry is fattened 
 has more to do with the flavor of the meat than most people 
 imagine. 
 
 To dress a fowl some advise dry plucking as follows : Sus- 
 pend the bird by the feet, take hold of the lower mandible 
 with the left hand, and then with what is called the French 
 killing knife or the large blade of a good pocket knife, sharp 
 on both edges of the point, make an incision in the top of the 
 mouth and thrust the knife through to the brain, turning it 
 so as to sever the main artery. The bird will bleed freely and 
 the feathers may be removed very easily if taken out at once. 
 Don't be afraid of hurting it, for when the brain is struck all 
 sensation ceases, and there will be no motion except a little 
 muscular contraction. Do not take hold of too many feathers 
 at a time, especially with young birds, or you will tear the 
 skin. If the bird is not plucked very rapidly the feathers will 
 
THE FAMILY POULTRY YARD. 21 
 
 stick soon after the blood has run out, and the picking will 
 be a slow job. We prefer scalding, but it must be done thor- 
 oughly and very carefully to avoid discoloration and tearing 
 of the skin. After killing and allowing the bird to bleed freely 
 immerse in a pail of boiling hot water, holding by the legs and 
 moving it quickly up and down twice, so the water will pene- 
 trate to the skin, and be sure to immerse deep enough to reach 
 all the feathers on the legs. Take out immediately and try the 
 feathers on the shank, and if they do not come easily dip once 
 more very quickly and the feathers should be so loose that they 
 can almost be brushed off without any pulling, except on wings 
 and tail, which must be taken out one at a time. 
 
22 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COMMERCIAL POULTRY HOUSES AND RUNS. 
 
 The general opinion among those who have the best chance 
 to know, is that the West is a better egg market than any 
 other, all things considered, and that an egg farm will pay 
 better than broilers, and some say that there is more profit in 
 eggs for the market than in fancy stock. We doubt this as- 
 sertion, but "it all depends" on the aptitude of the man. For 
 housing poultry on a large scale, we advise the use of houses 
 that are to be permanent, about 8x20 feet, divided by a close 
 partition into two roosting rooms. This will provide room 
 for a laying pen of from twenty-five to forty hens, and of course 
 no male birds will be allowed in these pens, as it has been 
 thoroughly proven that hens will lay as many eggs without 
 a male bird in the pens as with one, and many claim more; 
 and if no more, still the food the cock eats is wasted, and in- 
 fertile eggs will keep in good condition longer than one that is 
 fertilized, and usually will bring a better price. 
 
 Give each pen a yard 20x150 feet, which will give you 
 thirteen pens on an acre of ground, and from six hundred 
 and fifty to eight hundred and fifty hens, or all one man can 
 handle properly, on two acres. 
 
 Build your fences between the yards from the center ot 
 each house and from a point halfway between the houses, and 
 at the end of each house you will have a space the depth of 
 the house, and ten feet wide, which you can make into a scratch- 
 ing shed or room. This could be enclosed with boards about 
 twenty inches high, but would not build a house over it unless 
 it could be arranged to throw it all open, for there must be 
 
COMMERCIAL POULTRY HOUSES AND RUNS. 
 
 plenty of sunshine here during the cooler weather and shade 
 must be provided over it in summer with vines or canvas. 
 
 We would build the houses facing the south or southeast 
 and a large portion of the upper half of each hinged, so that 
 it might be opened during the day to allow air and sunshine 
 to do their cleansing work. These houses can be varied as to 
 size, but this will probably be found about right for the number, 
 of hens spoken of. We would build them about five feet high 
 at the back and eight feet in front. 
 
 At the back we would have three roosts three feet from 
 the floor, the first about ten inches from the wall, and the 
 others sixteen inches apart. This will allow for a droppings 
 board four feet wide, sloping from below the front roost to the 
 back of the house, and low enough to rest on the top of a row 
 of nest boxes, which will be placed on the ground. 
 
 Just above the edge of the droppings board at the back, will 
 be a board hinged at the top, so as to be raised to clean this 
 board (a leather strap with a hole to slip over the head of a 
 nail at the right height, is a little thing, but it is just such 
 "little things" that make work easier and save time and pa- 
 tience) . 
 
 By using a little sand or fine, dry earth every day, this clean- 
 ing can be done very quickly, by using a wide scraper made 
 of a board nailed to a handle in the shape of a floor brush or 
 street sweeper's brush. 
 
 The nests should be about 15 inches square and the same 
 height, which will allow eight nests to each house (but fewer 
 may do), with a small opening into each. The second board 
 from the bottom at the back of the house, should also be 
 hinged, to allow of gathering the eggs without entering the 
 yards or houses. The advantage of these hinged boards in the 
 back of each house, the houses being in a large row for a large 
 number of laying hens, will be quickly seen; barrels for the 
 
24 
 
 POUT/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 droppings being placed near enough to save carrying any dis- 
 tance, will save many steps, and in caring- for such large num- 
 bers, each item becomes of importance. For the accommoda- 
 tion of some cranky hens which you will find in almost every 
 flock, who will prefer to go up instead of down to deposit their 
 eggs, put a couple of nest boxes up close to the roof in one 
 corner, accessible from a small trap door at the back. Ideas 
 differ very much as to floors. We prefer a dirt floor for several 
 reasons. There may be an inch or more of clean sand over the 
 original soil, and a fine lawn rake will easily keep it clean. It 
 will take up moisture from the droppings deposited there dur- 
 ing the day, and will be a nice place for the hens during a 
 shower, and what is very important, it is an easy floor for 
 the hens to alight on, when flying down from the roost. There 
 may be an inclined board placed for going up and down on 
 to the roosts, or boxes will do. 
 
 Some advise placing the roosts much lower, but in that case 
 you lose much of the advantage of the droppings board, which 
 in this plan will have a slope of at least 15 inches. The ideal 
 house will have no opening at the top at all, not even a crack 
 for that is where the heat escapes, and not where the most 
 deadly gases collect, for they are heavy and collect at the -floor, 
 and we would advise having the bottom board at the front 
 hinged, that it might be hooked up at any point according to 
 the weather, and have fine netting over the space to keep out 
 animals which might add to the "loss" side of your account. 
 The door of each house should be at the corner, and this will 
 save cutting up the boards to some extent, and a penny saved 
 in labor is as good as that saved in any other way. A win- 
 do w may be placed in the end of each house, but we do not 
 believe in planning for a lot of glass to collect heat during the 
 day when there is plenty in the house without it, and radiat- 
 ing it rapidly at night when there is none to spare. There are 
 
COMMERCIAL POULTRY HOUSES AND RUNS. 
 
 very few hot nights here when fowls need an open house with 
 a current of air blowing over them to keep them cool as few, 
 in fact, as those in which we want such conditions ourselves. 
 Of course, we realize that conditions vary considerably in the 
 States west of the Rockies, and where people put up cots and 
 hammocks under trees and sleep there all summer, much more 
 open houses will be satisfactory than on the coast, but this 
 can be had in this plan, by raising the hinged upper front of 
 the house, which can be closed again as the weather gets 
 cooler. These are practically double houses, and can be built 
 wholly or in part of resawed or half-inch lumber, except the 
 roof, which will be of inch boards, about 8 or 10 inches wide, 
 with battens over the cracks, or may be shingles or shakes. 
 Another good roof is made of half-inch boards, covered with 
 a good roofing paper, which must be painted at least once a 
 year. This plan of double houses with 20 feet of scratching 
 ground between them, will be found to have many advantages 
 over a continuous house, and we scarcely need covered alleys 
 three or four feet wide, to be "in out of the wet" while doing 
 the necessary work. The runs 20 feet wide may have a row 
 of trees down the center, each row set diagonally with the 
 preceding one, giving a little more room between than if set 
 opposite, or in rows both ways. 
 
 Peach trees are very good for this purpose, as they grow 
 rapidly, make a dense shade, and the fruit will add to your in- 
 come when ripe, and the birds will enjoy what drops off. The 
 branches do not spread laterally, inducing the fowls to roost 
 in the trees. Some plant fig trees for this purpose, as the 
 fowls like the fruit; but the shade is not so dense, and the 
 limbs offer a very inviting perch. The runs being 150 feet 
 or more in length, with the trees in the center, makes it pos- 
 sible to plow the runs with a horse and keep the trees well cul- 
 
26 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 tivated and the ground loose, so the birds will have cause to 
 exercise when small seed or grain is scattered over it. If de- 
 sired, after irrigating and plowing, a temporary fence could 
 be thrown across the run and a small piece sowed to barley or 
 wheat, which, when well started, will make a fine forage 
 ground for the flock while it lasts. Drinking fountains may be 
 used, or pipes may be laid through the runs with a drip ar- 
 ranged near a tree; but don't have a pool of foul water for 
 the hens to drink from. A small earthen dish set under the 
 drip, with an overflow at one side, would give a place for them 
 to drink it fresh and clean, and has proved a good plan. 
 
 Racks should be put up for loose, green food, so the hen 
 can pick it to pieces without having to drag it around in the 
 dirt. Cabbage can be hung up, or fastened to spikes driven 
 through a board, and the heads pushed down upon them, keep- 
 ing it firm and clean for them to pick from; but don't use too 
 much of this, or the eggs will taste of it. Beets and turnips 
 can be fastened in the same way. This plan is highly recom- 
 mended by a bright woman, who believes it pays to use her 
 brain for the betterment of her working partner's (Biddy's) 
 condition and comfort. 
 
 Everything should be done to keep the food clean. All soft 
 feed placed in troughs that can be easily washed, but grain 
 should be scattered or fed in the scratching room, in a litter 
 of fine straw or chaff. For shade along the end of the yards, 
 gum trees make a rapid growth, but we would prefer pepper 
 trees, as they do not take the strength of the soil for such a 
 distance. Any good shade tree will do for the biddies to col- 
 lect under to talk politics. In this, as in other plans for animal 
 comfort, it is a safe plan to think what we would best enjoy 
 ourselves if obliged to spend our days in confinement. A "mer- 
 ciful man" will be as merciful to his poultry as to the "beast" 
 mentioned in the quotation. 
 
FEEDING FOR EGGS. 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 FEEDING FOR EGGS. 
 
 The question of what to feed to produce eggs is one requir- 
 ing much more study than most people give it. 
 
 Too many people feed wheat nearly all the time, because 
 some one says that is best, or it is cheaper or more convenient 
 than corn or other grain ; and then, by way of variety, they 
 will give a bran mash for a change (?) and expect the hens to 
 furnish eggs, large and often. 
 
 We do not claim that hens will not lay eggs when fed this 
 way, but the number will be much less than with a better ration, 
 and the eggs produced will come at a time when the price is 
 low. 
 
 Few people realize the egg is composed of more different 
 elements than will be found in almost any other animal produc- 
 tion, and that the hen must manufacture her own weight in 
 eggs from three to four times in a year. To do this, she must 
 have a variety of food. In a state of nature, the hen produces 
 eggs when the snows or rains are over, and the grass and herb- 
 age is fresh and tender, insect life is abundant, and there is 
 plenty of sharp grit of various kinds exposed, so that her 
 "mills" do not grind as slowly as at other times, yet equally 
 fine. The most profitable time on an egg ranch is during the 
 months when the stock which is left to shift for itself is "laying 
 off," instead of laying eggs. This is the time when the intel- 
 ligent poultryman will have his hens ready to utilize, as nearly 
 as he can provide them, the conditions met with in the spring 
 
28 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 of the year. This must be planned for, by having plenty of 
 pullets hatched in March and April, or perhaps the slower- 
 growing breeds in February, which will give them time to ma- 
 ture and begin laying as the warmer weather is over, and the 
 older stock should be fed a little sparingly in July, and perhaps 
 a part of August, except of green food, and particularly of 
 alfalfa, which should be used freely the year round. After this 
 enforced idleness and rest from egg production, induce your 
 hens to moult rapidly and early, by heavy yet judicious feeding. 
 This reminds us of a little girl who went to a store where 
 many foods are kept, and asked for "some kind of feed to put 
 in the bran. I don't remember what mama calls it, but it's 
 what you use when hens are mouldy." She got some linseed 
 meal. Hens at this time should have some nearly every day, 
 and many "egg men" use it regularly as an aid to egg produc- 
 tion ; but now it is used to assist the shedding- of the old feath- 
 ers, and the growth of the new coat. We have found a mixture 
 of one pound of linseed to five of meat meal (the kind that is 
 nearly one-half blood) to be of great help, used in the mash 
 with a small amount of good tonic powder and a "pinch" of 
 salt. Cocoanut meal is good to mix with the bran, and a small 
 proportion of corn meal makes a nice variety ; and as you have 
 had your hens on reduced rations for some time, they will 
 stand a fairly rich food now only don't feed very heavily of 
 it till they get to laying well, and then there is not so much 
 danger of getting them too fat. If you do not feed corn meal 
 or some other carbonaceous ingredient with the bran, then 
 give them a light feed of whole corn occasionally, or soaked 
 whole barley all they want Kaffir corn or oats, if you can 
 get them. It will pay to arrange things so that you can cook 
 food for your flock. Then, when you can get small, imper- 
 fect onions, or just the tops, and vegetables of any kind, you 
 can boil them (after washing clean), and when soft, stir in your 
 
FEEDING FOR EGGS. 
 
 29 
 
 mixed meal for the mash ; salt liberally, as it is an aid to diges- 
 tion, and just as necessary for hens as for people. Add the 
 proper proportion of meat meal with the linseed in it, and you 
 have an evening food that will compel almost any hen to lay, 
 without waiting for a new winter wrap. Now that word 
 "evening" has met the eyes of some one who says, "Why, my 
 folks back East always fed the mash in the morning." Good 
 plan on very cold mornings, if you only feed enough to satisfy 
 their huunger, but many of the largest egg producers use the 
 mash at night, and with the best results. 
 
 Here are some of the reasons : Under similar conditions 
 soft food is more rapidly assimilated than whole, hard grain ; 
 so that if a hen has a full crop of cooked food at bed time, she 
 can soon begin to use it in the production of "an egg for your 
 breakfast in the morning." She wakes up hungry, and is ready 
 to sing and scratch as soon as daylight comes; while the hen 
 who goes to roost with a crop full of hard grain must wait for 
 it to soak up, be ground and digested before she can utilize it, 
 which is a much slower process with a hen quiet on a roost 
 than it would be if she were on the move, and you will often 
 see some hens where the last feed of the day is dry grain, who 
 will sit moping on the roost till sunrise, unless some special 
 inducement is. offered to coax them down. After the hens are 
 quiet and shut in for the night, scatter grain in the litter in your 
 scratching room, and lightly over the run, and when you open 
 the doors in the morning, you will be pleased to see every hen 
 get out and begin scratching as hard as she can, and the grain 
 thus worked for is rapidly put in shape so the hen can use it. 
 A few beets or some other vegetable will be a welcome change 
 for them in the early part of the day, both for food and exercise. 
 Turnip tops, lettuce, cabbage or any green stuff easily picked 
 to pieces will be acceptable about noon, but not much grain any 
 time except in the morning, and yet arrange it so the persistent 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 digger has good reason to think there is another kernel of some 
 kind that is worth scratching for. 
 
 We advise cutting up all alfalfa and mixing it in the mash, for 
 it keeps the food loose in the crop and provides the necessary 
 fibre and coarseness to keep the bowels in good order and the 
 stem, which is beter than the leaf, is all eaten, while fed in 
 long pieces in the yard the stem would be wasted. At the even- 
 ing meal let them have all they can possibly eat, and they will 
 go to bed happy and the eggs will be plenty. Of course the 
 birds must always have fresh water. Where milk can be had it 
 will pay to use it, even if it costs something and whether sweet 
 or sour let them have all they want once a day, but not oftener. 
 Milk in any form is good in the mash instead of water. In pro- 
 viding a variety of food there is room for the exercise of fine 
 business ability, for a man must understand the grain market 
 to know when and where to buy ; how to be on the lookout for 
 broken rice, slightly damaged oatmeal, stale bread, good hotel 
 scraps and everything that his hens can make use of. "Va- 
 riety is the spice of life" and the more variety you can get in 
 the rations for laying-hens, the better the yield of eggs, and 
 Iheir fertility and vitality will be increased. 
 
VARIETY OP FOWI,S FOR THE EGG FARM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 VARIETY OF FOWLS FOR THE EGO FARM* 
 
 When the subject of eggs is mentioned the first thought of 
 many people is Leghorns. These are used more extensively on 
 egg farms perhaps than any other variety, for several reasons. 
 They lay a great many eggs in a year, are non-sitters, 
 active in habit, are not apt to get over-fat, are vigorous and 
 hardy, and their eggs large and white. The Minorcas lay a 
 very large egg and are a larger bird than the Leghorn, and 
 while the blacks are fairly hardy and will lay more eggs near the 
 moulting season, yet the black legs and pin feathers are against 
 them. All of the Mediterranean breeds have some serious 
 drawbacks when commercially considered. The young cock- 
 erels and old hens which must be turned off each year, are small 
 and do not meet with a ready sale, or bring a good price on 
 account of their size and the quality of the flesh. One man in 
 Pennsylvania, who hatches his young stock on the farm, 
 wrings the necks of all his young cokerels as soon as he can tell 
 the sex, claiming that it will not pay him to raise them for 
 broilers. Another does not raise any stock at all, but buys all 
 his pullets each year. There are many advantages in this plan, 
 as he can procure just as many layers as he can handle all the 
 time, and add to his flock just as he sells off the old ones, 
 while if he undertook to raise his own stock he would need to 
 have incubators and a house for them, brooders, runs, etc., etc., 
 and reduce the size of his flock each spring in order to have 
 time to care for the chicks, or hire extra help. We prefer the 
 
POUI/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 yellow-skinned American birds even for an egg farm, because 
 in the first place they can be handled, as we have outlined, so 
 that they will lay more eggs when eggs are high than the Med- 
 iterraneans, and in fact during an actual competition in egg 
 production of twelve months' duration, a pen of White Ply- 
 mouth Rocks took the first prize with a record of 289 eggs per 
 hen, a cross-bred pen took second with 282, while a pen of 
 Leghorns had to be satisfied with fourth place. 
 
 When you consider the fact that almost one-half of your 
 flock must be sold off each year, and that nearly as many cock- 
 erels will be hatched as you need pullets to keep up your lay- 
 ing pens, then one and one-half to two pounds per hen, at ten 
 cents per pound, and from three to eight cents apiece more 
 on broilers, will amount to quite a sum to put on the profit 
 side of your account. 
 
 The Barred Plymouth Rock is the best known of the Amer- 
 ican class, and as a rule people who go to a market to buy a bird, 
 young or old, for the table, will ask for a Plymouth Rock. The 
 White Rock is just as good a bird in most points and is better 
 in one in not having dark pin feathers ; but is not as well 
 known. The Wyandottes, White and Buff, are very good birds 
 for an egg farm, being very hardy, good layers, not nervous 
 nor apt to fly high. The flesh is good as the Rocks for table use 
 and not stringy like the very active fowls, and the broilers are 
 more compact while small, and look well when dressed; but 
 the grown birds are about one pound lighter than the Rocks. 
 The Buff Orpington and Rhode Island Reds are good layers, 
 and the Orpingtons are nearly equal to the Rocks in some points, 
 while the Reds seem to be a smaller bird. Some people think 
 a cross of two varieties may be very good. Perhaps the first 
 cross may be as good as either of the original breeds, but 
 after that what do you get ? Just a little poorer fowl each year 
 and why not keep the two pure if you want two varieties and 
 
VARIETY OF FOWLS FOR THE EGG FARM. 
 
 not mix them and have a mongrel. One writer says the people 
 who are anxious to cross breed their birds remind him of old 
 times when many men were not able to sign their names; sq 
 it would be written for him and he would simply make his 
 mark, thus X, and this is all some people can do with poultry 
 just make a cross and nothing more. 
 
 The Asiatics scarcely come into the question at all, as they 
 are low on egg production, except where a strain has been bred 
 for eggs for some years; and the Hamburgs are small, both 
 body and eggs. 
 
 The question of how to keep up the flock will come in here 
 after you have decided what breed to keep. One of the great- 
 est advantages of raising your own stock, and all points here 
 will apply to the dozens raised as well as the hundreds, is that 
 you can select your breeding pens and use only the birds which 
 come the most nearly to the standard you are aiming at be 
 that eggs or meat or show birds. 
 
 For your egg stock you should use good sized, vigorous birds 
 that produce the largest well shaped egg, and that have no 
 serious faults and one of these is a quarrelsome disposition. 
 An ugly nervous hen, that picks at her neighbor and will dash 
 in among a lot of her sisters and cousins and rout them out 
 of their dust or sun bath, or drive them away from food or 
 water, is reducing your bank account and should be disposed of. 
 
 Have your incubators and brooders, then breed from your 
 most profitable hens; give the young chicks dry grains and 
 seeds, all the green food they will eat and enough meat in some 
 form so that they can grow their feathers rapidly without get- 
 ting weak. Keep all lice off by the liberal use of insect powder, 
 cleanliness and sunshine, with a prepared ointment in case of 
 head lice. But don't grease the head with lard, unless you are 
 "agin the government" and want to "reduce the surplus" ; and 
 above all give the growing pullet a great deal of exercise. Take 
 
34 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 all the cockerels out at four or five weeks old and keep in 
 separate brooders. Keep them a little warmer and feed liberally 
 from this time on and with a good mash once a day, with one 
 part in four of cornmeal, or feed cracked corn once a day. 
 Give plenty of meat, but don't overfeed and cause them to 
 loose their appetites ; but force them up to one and a half or two 
 pounds as soon as possible and then let them go. Don't feed 
 them a day longer than necessary to get them ready for mar- 
 ket. If you do not wish to build properly for hatching in in- 
 cubators and brooders, then a lot of old hens of a good set- 
 ting variety must be kept, and many people use brooders for 
 the chicks hatched under hens and set the hen again or break 
 her up and get her to laying again. We know a Lanshan hen, 
 over six years old, that has set continuously for nine weeks 
 several times and keeps in good flesh all the time, but she is 
 kept clean. While it may be done, it does seem one kind of 
 "cruelty to animals" that few, I hope, will countenance or 
 practice. 
 
 If you have good stock you can find neighbors who will be 
 glad to hatch for you and raise the chicks to three or four 
 weeks old for one-half, or terms can be made on which the 
 pullets can be kept to laying age, the other party to have all 
 the cockerels and you pay a certain price for the raising of the 
 pullets. Whichever of these ways is used there must be care- 
 ful supervision by the one in charge, for a pullet to make a 
 good layer must have good muscle and bone- forming food like 
 oats and a variety of grains, with not too much corn; meat 
 in some form regularly, all the alfalfa and other green food she 
 will eat and a great deal of exercise, and this must be given 
 in the scratching room and a loose well plowed yard. 
 
CROPS TO RAISK. 35 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CROPS TO RAISE. 
 
 The first thing quite naturally that you expect to raise on a 
 poultry ranch is alfalfa. This is a good muscle and bone- 
 forming food, has a good percentage of protien in it, and 
 when all the stalk is cut and mixed with the mash it provides 
 the coarse fibrous matter that sometimes reminds us of the 
 boy's definition of salt "it's the stuff that makes potatoes 
 taste bad when you don't put any in." This fibrous matter is 
 good to absorb moisture in the crop and gizzard, keeps the 
 fine foods separated and is, taken altogether, a very essential 
 part of a hen's diet, aside from the nutritive value which is 
 much greater than that of the leaves. Alfalfa needs plenty of 
 water and if you haven't a good supply of water on your place 
 you will find yourself seriously handicapped from the first. 
 Three acres of alfalfa should be enough to keep your flock of 
 700 or 800 hens and a cow going most of the time, and when 
 this rests for a time in cold weather, you should have beets or 
 turnips and some cabbages to take its place ; or use dry alfalfa 
 chopped fine and scalded and mixed with your mash. A small 
 patch of pumpkins will furnish a good food for the production 
 of milk, and the hens enjoy picking at a big piece of rich, juicy 
 pumpkin, and when it comes to a diet for fattening stock for the 
 choice customers there is nothing better than a bran and meal 
 mash made in a big kettle of boiled potatoes, turnips and pump- 
 kins, on account of the starch and sugar contained in them; 
 and juiciness and flavor will be imparted to the flesh of the 
 
36 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 bird. The sugar beet is very rich in fattening properties, too, 
 but the large mangel wurzel is usually raised and is not very 
 rich in food values. All vegetables raised on a poultry ranch 
 should be put in long rows, so they may be worked with a 
 horse cultivator, and you should have one with many attach- 
 ments so you can plow, hoe or harrow and cultivate with it as 
 your crop may require. Don't try to raise much small fruit or 
 berries, for you will have more than your hands full when the 
 fruit work is on if you do, and the hens or chicks will be apt 
 to suffer and your pocket is next in line. In short, don't allow 
 conflicting interests, for if you have too many irons in the fire 
 some one or more of them will be too hot or too cold all of 
 the time. Concentration of effort on one thing is the watch- 
 word in all lines of business right now, and if you can't do 
 something a little better than anyone else, you are not going to 
 be as successful as you would like to be. Well, we were talk- 
 ing about our crops. You will be surprised to see what an in- 
 crease there will be in all kinds of crops after you begin to use 
 fertilizer from the hen houses. One man in New York tried 
 two acres of wheat side by side, one with fertilizer and the 
 other without, and the latter yield was 31^2 bushels, while the 
 former yielded over 57 bushels. 
 
 Mr. James Rankin has said lately that by using droppings 
 from his duck houses on his grass land, he has raised three 
 crops a year, and not as good a crop as alfalfa, either; and 
 wouldn't he be surprised to see us cut alfalfa from six to 
 eight times a year? Oh, we have a paradise for the poultry- 
 man, if he will only build right, feed right and keep the lice 
 down. Now a good plan would be to plant a few acres to wheat 
 just as early in the fall as convenient, say November. Irri- 
 gate the ground if the early rain is not enough to start it, and 
 then as soon as it is fairly turned yellow, cut it and let it 
 cure before stacking. It may be put up loose and it is just 
 
CROPS TO RAISE. 3 
 
 the thing for your scratching rooms, and how the hens and 
 chicks will enjoy threshing it out"! As soon as the wheat is 
 off irrigate again and put in corn or Kaffir corn, or perhaps 
 part of the ground to millet to be used in fall and winter, 
 as you have used the wheat during summer, as an exerciser 
 and food combined. If you have only a small place you can 
 probably rent hill land nearby suitable for raising a crop of 
 wheat without irrigation, without paying a very high rent for 
 it. A patch of sunflowers, say a half acre or more, planted in 
 rows and about a foot apart in the row and so that you can 
 cultivate them with a horse, will be a very paying crop, for you 
 will get the oily seed for the moulting season and cold weather, 
 for which your hens will say "thank you" as effectually as for 
 any crop you can raise. The heads when put in the pens should 
 be hung up so that the hens can reach them to pick out the 
 seeds. If thrown on the ground the seeds will be on the side 
 that is down and the hens cannot get at them. Two or three 
 fair-sized heads each day would be plenty for a pen of 30 to 40 
 hens. The stalks make pretty good fuel for your food cooker 
 if you pull them as soon as the seed is fairly ripe and the 
 stalk is not dead, but still green. It will then dry quite hard 
 and woody. In some parts of Russia the sunflower is grown 
 very extensively for the oil in which the seed abounds. The 
 seeds are also eaten raw by the people or roasted like peanuts, 
 while the stalks form a large part of the fuel of the peasants in 
 those districts. The roasted seeds are sold in the streets of New 
 York and are said to be very palatable and nourishing. Field 
 peas, such as are raised for fattening hogs in some parts of the 
 East and in Canada, are an excellent food for hens, having 
 some properties not carried by the cereals. 
 
 "Variety is the spice of life" is not more true of anything 
 than of poultry feeding and it will pay to raise as large a 
 variety of crops as your circumstances will allow. Fennugreek 
 
38 POULTRY WKST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 is a plant now being introduced from Egypt by the United 
 States Agricultural Department which will be tried in the 
 Coast states. It somewhat resembles Kaffir corn in growth, has 
 a great many leaves and is often cut just before the seed ripens 
 and used for fattening cattle. But the seed when ripe is very 
 rich and has a strong flavor and is used in the best condition 
 powers and "egg makers," such as Sheridan's Lee's, Nesbit's 
 and several others. With plenty of water your land may be 
 producing something nearly all the year round. In this part 
 of the business we can learn much from the Chinaman, who 
 has something growing all the time. 
 
INCUBATORS AND BROODERS. 39 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 INCUBATORS AND BROODERS. 
 
 Many, yes, most of the incubator companies try to make us 
 believe that their particular machine is "it." The scientific 
 knowledge of artificial hatching has become so general that we 
 only occasionally hear some one say, "Why ! were these chicks 
 hatched in an incubator? Why, for the land's sake, I never 
 heard of such a thing." And yet we do hear it sometimes. 
 
 In this western country where we claim to be pretty nearly 
 up-to-date in everything, there are comparatively few people 
 who do not know that the modern incubator and brooder are 
 successful when carefully handled, and almost all poultrymen 
 prefer artificial incubation to the natural method. 
 
 There is, however, one lady in this modern and enlightened 
 country who claims that an incubator-hatched chicken never 
 lays a good egg and that the flesh is never as good as that of a 
 chick hatched under a hen. She even went so far one day as to 
 send a grown fowl back to the market where she had ordered 
 it, claiming that she could tell by its appearance that it was 
 hatched in an incubator and she would not eat it. 
 
 Others claim that stock hatched and reared artificially will 
 soon loose their vigor and vitality. This is entirely refuted by 
 the fact that in some parts of Egypt where most of the poultry 
 has been thus raised for ages, the vitality is not impaired. Such 
 ideas are fallacious in the extreme and most people are better 
 posted than to hold such peculiar notions. 
 
 One day a grown man, looking at an incubator, asked about a 
 
40 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 slat or open bottom tray and was told that the chicks dropped 
 through there as they hatched. "But," says he, "do you open 
 the door to pick the shell off the chick ?" And when told that 
 they simply broke the shell and got out the same as under a 
 hen, he remarked, "Well, now, I always supposed the hen 
 reached in the nest and picked the shell off the little fellows. 
 I didn't know they got out alone." 
 
 There are many things that some people don't know, and 
 no one knows all there is to know about the poultry business. 
 One old gentleman told us one day that he had been keeping 
 poultry for forty years and there was a great deal for him to 
 learn yet. Another said that when he was a young man he sup- 
 posed he knew all there was to know about poultry, but in the 
 West he found much to learn every day. 
 
 All things considered, we would rather buy a machine made 
 near home than to send two thousand miles for one, even if 
 we thought the better advertised one might be a trifle the best, 
 for the chances are that something may go wrong with any 
 machine or something come up that you don't understand, and 
 while waiting two weeks for an answer to a letter your eggs 
 are spoiled and you have lost much valuable time ; while if your 
 machine is made near home you can save your hatch by a little 
 care while getting instructions or repairs from the manufac- 
 turer. In the Eastern states no one would think of running an 
 incubator in a room during the winter, where the temperature 
 varies as much as 30 degres, and yet it is done in California 
 every day and the poor incubator gets all the blame if it loses 
 a few degrees during the night in a thin-walled house where 
 the sun warms the room to 70 or 80 degrees during the day, 
 and the temperature falls to 40 or 50 degrees at night. The 
 machines which used to do good work in the east, known as 
 "tank machines," holding a large quantity of water, are not so 
 desirable in the west as those in which the change of heat can 
 
INCUBATORS AND BREEDERS. 4l 
 
 be made rapidly, to meet the outside change of temperature from 
 early morning to the heat of the day. The ventilation must be 
 under control, and in some localities, and with some machines, 
 supplemented by proper airing. While a variation of two 
 or three degrees is not good, yet it is not so harmful as 
 as a lack of proper airing, for though a chick has a per- 
 fect heat all the way through the hatch, if it has not the 
 proper amount of oxygen supplied by fresh air and ab- 
 sorption of carbonic acid gas by the same, it cannot come out 
 vigorous and healthy. Again, the manufacturer who claims 
 that he has solved all the problems of ventilation and mois- 
 ture, and that his machine will regulate those things under 
 all conditions, either knows he is well, you know or else he 
 don't know what varieties of climatic conditions we can furnish 
 in this empire west of the "great divide." 
 
 A good, patient man said once, when exasperated beyond 
 measure, without cause, "We sell incubators, but we don't agree 
 to furnish brains to run them," and that person woke up to 
 the fact that as many other people were running the same ma- 
 chine with great success, it must be possible, and developed by a 
 little study into a very good handler of the machine. 
 
 The whole question of hatching in incubators hinges on a 
 clear understanding of the needs of the chick, from the proper 
 feeding and exercise of the parent stock to the breaking of the 
 shell by the little point on the chick's beak, provided for that 
 specific purpose. 
 
 When running an incubator of any kind be sure you get a 
 large air space in the egg by a proper application of moisture 
 or by airing the egg. The instructions given out with most in- 
 cubators have some kind of a chart showing about the size 
 of air space that they consider necessary in the egg to hatch 
 healthy chicks. We have never yet seen such a chart in which 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 the air space seemed abnormally large, but have seen some in 
 which it was too small. 
 
 At about the seventeenth day this space is at its largest size, 
 for after this time the growth of the chick partially fills up the 
 space, and while it breaks the shell with its bill it pushes with 
 one foot, which is at one side of its head, and if its growth 
 has been added to by the amount of moisture left in the egg, 
 which should have been evaporated by airing, then the chick 
 will be cramped and unable to make the first movements which 
 gradually increase and result in the rending of the shell and the 
 release of the chick. 
 
 Again, the pressure on the chick, while not preventing its 
 getting out of the shell, will often result in throwing a joint 
 out of place and you have a cripple which must be killed, or 
 cured if you can. 
 
 When you have a nice lot of chicks in the bottom of your 
 incubator (for they must go through to the lower part of the 
 machine that they may not get too warm and be out of the 
 way of those just breaking the shell) do not begin to figure 
 out how much money you will get for so many dozen at so 
 much per dozen, for you are not out of the woods yet by several 
 large trees. One party somewhere in California told us that 
 they lost seventeen hundred chicks in one season. Too bad, 
 wasn't it, for the chicks but say, it seems as though almost 
 any one would find out the trouble before the mortality reached 
 such figures, doesn't it to you? You can't raise chicks un- 
 less you make a study of their needs and supply them as to 
 food, warmth and fresh air. Give the little fellows a place 
 to find a cooler atmosphere when they are too warm, for a chick 
 never is so sound asleep but that a radical change in the tem- 
 perature of the hover will cause every one to move in less than 
 ten minutes, and they will find a comfortable place before they 
 settle down again if there is one to be found ; and they do not all 
 
INCUBATORS AND BROODERS. 43 
 
 want the same amount of heat. Haven't you often noticed 
 some precocious youngster with his mother, who will spend 
 the most of his time partly or wholly out from under the pro- 
 tecting wing, while others will not show even a head out? Be 
 very careful if using bottom heat in your brooder and don't keep 
 them too warm. 
 
44 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 WHAT TO FEED. 
 
 Many people say feed hard boiled egg the first thing, and 
 one writer went so far as to say, "hard boiled egg is the natural 
 first food of a chick." Say, those chicks of his in a state 
 of nature must have been hatched on the edge of a volcano, 
 or near one of our hot sulphur springs, and even then after 
 the egg was boiled and hard they would have a hard time get- 
 ting it out of the kettle it was boiled in, now wouldn't they? 
 Where nature and the egg come together is in the fact that 
 the last act of the life of the embryo before maturity is the 
 absorption of the yolk of the egg, and after the chick digests 
 that in the first day of its life, we do not believe in giving 
 more of the same thing, and if you study nature you will find 
 them eating small seeds and fine grit of some kind and 
 they will pick up anything shining or white, green grass or 
 leaves, or any small moving thing. Water will be taken from 
 grass or leaves and if a little puddle is encountered, their im- 
 mediate business is to dip their bils in it and hold them up 
 "just like mamma does." 
 
 Then give your chicks water as soon as they will move out 
 of the brooder; a neat and convenient way is to take a small 
 tin fruit can or pail, punch a hole about half an inch from the 
 top, fill with water, place over it the cover of a lard pail enough 
 larger to give a chance to drink from, but not to get into, and 
 when you invert your "home-made" drinking fountain you will 
 find the water will stand in the cover, up to the height of the 
 
WHAT TO FEKD. 45 
 
 hole, and it will stay fresh and sweet until all is gone, being 
 preferable to an open dish, which can never be kept clean, 
 and is always being upset, if possible, to say nothing of catch- 
 ing the dust and litter always in motion near the lively little 
 atoms of puff balls, who scratch in just the cutest imitation 
 of their elders before they are a day old. Provide green stuff 
 like tender lettuce or beet leaves, hung up for them to pick at, 
 but not to walk on, small seeds, broken rice, rolled oats (dry) 
 and a little fine grit and charcoal where they can get it when 
 they want it. This can be placed in an open dish, but a better 
 plan is a tiny feed trough with bars or wires across the top to 
 keep them out of it as a promenade ; bread and cracker crumbs 
 and boiled egg sparingly the second day and after. Some lean 
 beef on a bone can be given after the third day, and it will 
 pay you to give a little meat in some form every day, from 
 now on. Don't put more than sixty to eighty in a flock, the 
 smaller number is better, and keep them in separate runs ; and 
 as they increase in size give them more room, both in brooder 
 and yard. Green cut bone is good up to a certain point, but 
 beyond that point you are taxing the system by forcing it to 
 throw off a lot of mineral that cannot be utilized, and there 
 is not usually enough meat with it to give them what they 
 require to meet their rapidly growing need for feather and 
 muscle forming foods. 
 
 A good mixed chick food can be had at most places where 
 poultry supplies are handled, and this is properly proportioned 
 and furnishes nearly all the kinds of food needed for rapid 
 growth, except green stuff and wheat, and it can be used all 
 the time until your chicks can eat whole grain. If you do not 
 use mixed chick food which has charcoal in it, then keep 
 powdered charcoal on hand and put some in a warm mash of 
 bran and cornmeal at the first sign of bowel trouble. Raw, 
 wet cornmeal has been found to be an almost impossible food 
 
46 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 in this part of the world, as many a person can testify who al- 
 ways used it in the East. An excellent plan is to make your 
 bran, charcoal and cornmeal or feed meal (a coarser ground 
 meal) into a johnny-cake with sour milk and soda, as if for the 
 table; when crumbled it is one of the best foods for little 
 chicks. Feed dry foods and let them drink pure water, but 
 don't try to mix it; it will bring on bowel trouble almost in- 
 variably. When you find there is a looseness of the bowels 
 see if they are warm enough in the brooder, for if the chicks 
 catch cold that is one of the first symptoms you will notice, and 
 you must immediately look for the cause, as well as to battle 
 with the effect. 
 
THE IvEADING VARIETIES OF FANCY STOCKS. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE LEADING VARIETIES OF FANCY STOCKS. 
 
 We shall not attempt to describe any of the breds as re- 
 gards fine points and judging, but simply the chief character- 
 istics of some of the principal varieties. The Mediterraneans 
 include the fowls that are the product of Italy, Spain and the 
 islands between (all the stock is supposed to be descended from 
 the jungle fowl of India, but "Quien Sabe"), such as the 
 Leghorns, the Minorcas, black and white, single and rose comb ; 
 the Blue Andalusian and White-faced Black Spanish. The 
 French fowls are somewhat similar in size and nervousness, 
 but are much talked of as having choice flesh. The most 
 prominent of these are the Houdans, Le Fleche, Creve Ceurs, 
 and now the Favourelles are coming into prominence. Then 
 there are the Hamburgs, the Polish, and some freaks from Japan 
 and China. The Asiatics including the Cochin of the different 
 kinds, the Light and Dark Brahmas, Langshan and Javas, be- 
 side the Indian and Pit Games, fancy Bantams, etc. The Orp- 
 ingtons, Scotch Greys, Red Caps and some other made up 
 varieties are rather "betwixt and between," and last, but not 
 by any means least, comes the American class with the Barred, 
 White and Buff Plymouth Rocks, the different members of 
 the Wyandotte family and the Rhode Island Reds. Careful 
 and persistent "line breeding" for a single purpose will almost 
 make anything you want, from any variety, as, for instance, the 
 Light Brahma has been made to lay over two hundred eggs in 
 a year, and a California man a few years ago had a White 
 
48 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Leghorn cock that weighed eleven pounds. Rather reversing 
 the characteristics, isn't it? 
 
 The Hamburgs are the smallest with the exception of the 
 Bantam, which, by the way, is a good money-maker when han- 
 dled for the fancy, and there are two men in Southern Cali- 
 fornia who raise large numbers of them each year. The Sil- 
 ver Spangled and Gold Spangled Hamburgs are very handsome 
 birds, good foragers, hardy and lay a great many (though 
 small) white eggs ; the flesh is just fair. The Leghorns perhaps 
 come next in size, though in actual farm life there is not much 
 difference between them and the French, Spanish and Polish 
 birds. 
 
 The Leghorn is small, plump, hardy and a good hunter, a 
 non-sitter, as are all the Mediterraneans, unless old or fat, and 
 lays a good-sized egg. 
 
 The Black Spanish, in our experience, lays a larger egg 
 than the Leghorn, but the bird is not quite so hardy, and the 
 black leg and white flesh is not in their favor here; while in 
 England the white-fleshed bird has the preference over the yel- 
 low-skinned one which our cousins take exception to as "look- 
 ing too fat and oily." 
 
 The Andalusian is not as widely known as the others of its 
 class, but we believe it to be a very good bird with many things 
 in its favor, and though it is hard to breed true to color, that 
 adds zest to the game for the fancier, and we expect to hear 
 much from this bird. 
 
 The Minorca is the largest of the Mediterraneans ; is not 
 quite so hardy while small, but lays probably the largest white 
 egg of any variety. A Black Minorca cock went to Pitts- 
 burg parties from one of our California breeders and has made 
 a record there for size, a point in which many Eastern birds 
 lack, for he weighed eight pounds just as he was picked up 
 from the breeding pen, and he netted his owner $35.00. 
 
THE LEADING VARIETIES OF FANCY STOCKS. 49 
 
 The French birds are not as large as the Minorca and 
 are not noted for the number or size of egg, but mostly for their 
 fine grained flesh. The Orpington and Greys are nearly equal 
 to our Rocks in some points, being a little smaller with white 
 skin. The Rhode Island Red is a bird slightly smaller than the 
 Wyandotte and seems to be a very active and yet not nervous 
 bird, hardy and vigorous, a good layer and setter, with a plump, 
 well-rounded body, laying a fair-sized egg. The bird seems to 
 have originated from a mixture of several breeds, does not 
 as yet breed very true and has not been admitted to the 
 Standard. 
 
 The Wyandotte, more particularly the white, is crowding 
 the old reliable Barred Rock for the first place in the hearts 
 of our Eastern brothers, and has many claims to prominent 
 notice. The hens should weigh seven pounds and the cocks 
 eight. The body of the "Dotte" is plump and well rourded, 
 and the point that gives them prominence in the East is the 
 fact that as broilers they look plump and round at an early 
 age, and are not as lank and leggy as the Rocks. 
 
 The Wyandotte has been well developed as a layer and In 
 Massachusetts, where it is about as prominent as any bird, the 
 laying ability is hard to beat and the fine creamy-brown eggs 
 are well liked in that market, so much so, in fact, that the white 
 eggs are often shipped to New York, where the white egg is 
 preferred and brown-shelled eggs are sent from there to 
 Boston. 
 
 Any one engaging in the egg business must study the de- 
 mands of his market and furnish that which will yield him the 
 best returns in dollars and cents. The Wyandotte is a good 
 hardy bird, a good winter layer, a good mother, not apt to 
 fly over a reasonably high fence and only second to the Rocks 
 as an all-round general utility fowl under ordinary conditions. 
 The Partridge Wyandotte is the latest addition to the Standard 
 
50 
 
 POUI/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and is a very prettily marked bird, with the regular Wyandotte 
 shape. There are, besides, the White, Buff, and Silver-Laced 
 Dottes. 
 
 The Plymouth Rocks, barred, white and buff, are so well 
 known that almost every one knows of their good qualities, 
 but remember when you see a pen of Barred Rocks that "'all 
 is not gold that glitters." 
 
 There are many people who get some eggs, perhaps, at the 
 grocery or of some one who sells "Plymouth Rock eggs from 
 the best stock in the city or state," according to the amount of 
 gall in the makeup of the person selling "for 50 cents per set- 
 ing," and then the buyers gets chicks of several colors, but 
 -every speckled one is a Plymouth Rock sure, and every white 
 one is probably a Leghorn. 
 
 Sometimes a cross between a Barred Rock and a White Leg- 
 horn will give you some very prettily barred birds, but they 
 are not pure-blooded Rocks by any means, and the same is true 
 of a Rock cross with any other variety. The White Leghorn 
 pure blood is about the only bird that will excel the Barred 
 Rock in marking its progeny. 
 
 We are sometimes asked if the Mammoth Barred Plymouth 
 Rock is not a different variety from the others, as it is so 
 advertised. This is only a dodge to pretend to have something 
 new, and the difference in size has been accomplished by care- 
 ful breeding and selection with the end in view of increasing 
 the size of the birds. The Standard calls for 73^ Ibs. for the 
 hen and 9 Ibs. for the cock, and if this can be increased without 
 sacrificing laying ability or activity very well, but an extreme 
 change in any direction must be made carefully that there be no 
 deterioration in some other. There is no other bird so thor- 
 oughly distributed over the United States as this same Barred 
 Rock and there are more crossbred birds lurking behind the 
 name than is possible with any other. Men in the poultry 
 
THE TRADING VARIETIES OF FANCY STOCKS. 51 
 
 markets in almost any of our western cities will tell you that 
 the majority of people who buy either a broiler or older chicken 
 will ask for a Plymouth Rock, and those who want a few hens 
 or some eggs for raising birds for their own table will get the 
 same, if they can. 
 
 The White Rock is likely to be about as well known as the 
 Barred in time, but as yet there is not the call for them, as their 
 good points are not well known and they have not been bred 
 as long as the others. The White Rocks are very fine layers, 
 and just the same as to size as the others of the family and have 
 no dark pin feathers. The plumage must be clear white, which 
 is the hardest part of the work of producing first-class birds. 
 The Buffs are hard to breed because of the tendency of all 
 birds to show dark on wing and tail and light undercolor. The 
 Rocks are all quiet and contented birds, tame and sociable, 
 good about raising chicks, lay a good-sized egg and do not 
 carry a surplus of feather or comb. For just egg production 
 they need watching in order to check the desire to set. If not 
 allowed to stay on the nest over night, they can be broken easily, 
 but if the fever gets a good hold it is sometimes hard to get 
 them to quit. The impulse to hatch is a physical change in the 
 hen and is attended by an activity of otherwise nearly dormant 
 blood-vessels in the lower part of the body and breast and 
 an increase of temperature of the whole body. In order to 
 break this fever, you must give as complete a change of 
 surroundings as possible, either by putting in a small open 
 coop with roost, but no boxes, and one preferably with a young 
 male bird in it, or turn out on a grass range with other birds 
 when there are no nests or dark places for her to go and try 
 to hatch china eggs or door knobs. 
 
 The Asiatics are all a more or less clumsy birds, with 
 feathers on leg and toe, and a general fluffiness which makes 
 the uninitiated think them much heavier than they really are. 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 At the same time they are our heaviest birds and where much 
 care has been given to breeding for egg, the Light Brahma 
 particularly, has proven herself to be a great performer. They 
 all lay a very large, dark, thick-shelled egg and are good winter 
 layers and the greatest setters in the whole list. One objection 
 to them as setters is their weight and sluggishness as they are 
 apt to break eggs by stepping on them, and when they step 
 on a young chick it takes them so long to figure out which 
 foot the little fellow is under, that he gives up and dies before 
 she moves. 
 
 The Light Brahma takes first place for size, and we have 
 never gotten over our preference for her, as she was one of the 
 first well bred birds we ever owned, and the clear white and 
 black plumage, the fine shape and size and the fine fluffy butter 
 balls of chicks, still takes us back to the time well, several 
 years ago when two "barefoot boys with cheeks of tan" were 
 the proud possessors of a pen of very fair birds of this variety 
 on the old farm near Madison, Wis. Good old days, and a 
 glorious mother who could show her seven boys the dignity 
 of labor and what a safeguard it is to keep boys out of mis- 
 chief. She is still living and in California, and spends part of 
 every day in her garden working, at 83 years of age, "and 
 her children rise up and call her blessed." 
 
 The Light Brahma is the largest of our hens and with her 
 full feather and fluffiness looks her weight all right, which 
 often reaches n Ibs. for the hen and 12 to 14 for the cock, 
 in extreme cases, and a capon of this variety has been said to. 
 reach 22 Ibs. 
 
 In the broiler section of New England the Light Brahma 
 is often crossed with the White Leghorn for the first lot of 
 broilers, as they develop rapidly, make a fair size at an early 
 age and stand forcing very well. 
 
 The Cochins are a little lighter than the Brahma; in fact. 
 
THE SHADING VARIETIES OF FANCY STOCKS. 
 
 the dark Brahma is not as heavy as his light brother and they 
 make a very handsome appearance with their full feathering, 
 low, blocky shape and massive look. They can be made to lay 
 well in winter and will do very well the year round if made 
 to scratch and not allowed to get too fat. 
 
 The Lanshan is a good large bird, but is not so well known 
 as the others. The Cornish Indian Game is about the weight of 
 the Rocks and is a good layer, but is most noted for the 
 flavor of its flesh and the amount of breast meat it carries. 
 
 We dislike the bird on account of its carriage. The droop 
 of its tail and awkward walk make its apearance anything but 
 beautiful. 
 
54 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONEY IN FANCY STOCK. 
 
 By "fancy" stock we do not mean some breed that is kept for 
 its beauty, or as pets or some freak, but the very best of any 
 variety that you can afford to buy, and utility must be one 
 of the points considered. 
 
 We firmly believe that the time will come when beside the 
 regular score card used now with a certain number of points 
 for each part, will be so amended for birds a year old and over, 
 that the egg record of each hen will have to do with her score 
 and also the stock raised from her eggs will help to determine 
 her standing, as will the grade of young stock sired by a male 
 bird and shown at the same time with him, help to make up his 
 total score. 
 
 Every one knows that some birds may score well and not 
 produce many eggs or good young stock, and other less showy 
 birds will be the ones that bring in the income. 
 
 When number, weight and vitality of egg, and size, vigor and 
 marking of young stock, together with a good score can? of 
 points is the rule at every show, we will have advanced far 
 beyond where we are now, with our comparison shows, which 
 simply demonstrate the fact that my bird is a little better than 
 my neighbor's who had birds at the same show as myself, but 
 unless I am a good judge I do not know how much my bird 
 is worth, nor if he is as good as some other man's bird, who did 
 not show his stock. 
 
 Some contend that since a score card show requires more 
 
MONKY IN FANCY STOCK. 55 
 
 judges to do the work and they must be paid for their time, 
 that a score card show is a luxury that few can afford. This is 
 true to a certain extent and yet the exhibits and consequent 
 income would be better, for the man who is making a business 
 of poultry raising cannot afford to show his birds simply for 
 the advertising he gets in that way, but will patronize a score 
 card show because he gets some return for his money, and, as 
 before stated, the performance and product of the birds shown 
 should cut some figure at every show, as they deserve to do. 
 
 In buying stock or eggs of any breed you should deal with 
 a man who has a record for fair dealing and who is a good 
 judge of the kind of fowl you wish to buy. 
 
 The man who has a good number of varieties is not as good 
 a judge of some as of others and for this reason we would deal 
 with a man who has made a good record with the variety 
 we wished to buy. 
 
 It is not a good plan in ordering birds to send two or three 
 dollars for each bird you wish sent and then describe the kind 
 of birds you want, which according to your requirements would 
 be 94 or 96-point birds, and expect a man to send you birds that 
 are worth anywhere from $15 to $50. Many people do this and 
 then brand the breeder as dishonest and decry his birds because 
 he could not do what no other business man would do. Sup- 
 pose a lady should send $10 to a good dry goods house and 
 ask them to send 15 yards of silk, and then give number of 
 sample and description of goods which retails at $3.00 per 
 yard ; would she get it ? Then if she does not get it, but gets 
 the number of yards she asks for of the grade of goods that 
 amounts to the $10.00, does this prove that the dealer is a rascal, 
 or is no judge of goods, or has no first-class goods? 
 
 If you want first-class birds, write to the man who has a 
 record in the show room and get the score card from a good 
 judge; find out the price and pay it, or else send the amount of 
 
56 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 money you wish to invest in a certain number of birds and ask 
 the honest breeder to give you the very best birds he can, for 
 that much money, and he will try harder to satisfy you than he 
 will if you undertake to tell him just what kind of a bird he 
 must send you. 
 
 A man who makes a living from fancy poultry cannot afford 
 to be dishonest and again perhaps the one receiving the birds 
 is not as good a judge of the value of them as the shipper. 
 
 Those who complain about stock bought, will often enter dis- 
 qualified birds at a show, and then register a good vigorous 
 roar because the judge didn't know anything about his busi- 
 ness. If we were to choose between judging at a poultry show 
 and umpiring a ball game, we would choose the latter, for free- 
 dom from trouble. 
 
 Not the least advantage you have in getting birds from a 
 man with a national reputation is that you can advertise your 
 stock as coming direct from his yard, and get more business 
 on his reputation then you possibly could on your own, and reap 
 a profit from the hard work he has put in for many years 
 
 Remember right here that it is not always the man \vho 
 tells the largest story that has the best birds, but the man 
 who has won the prizes and keeps up the quality of his stock ; 
 and often he doesn't say much about it himself, but the records 
 of the shows where he has exhibited speak for him. 
 
 Buy a pen of not less than three hens and you will probably 
 have as large a flock of good birds at the end of a year as you 
 would if you had bought four hundred eggs, or you can sell 
 eggs enough at $2.00 per setting to pay for the feed the birds 
 consume while you are getting your flock started. 
 
 If you have really good birds of any well known variety, 
 you will be able to sell eggs for hatching to some of your neigh- 
 bors who know a good thing when they see it, and there never 
 has been such a demand for the "best" as at present, and the 
 
MONEY IN FANCY STOCK. 
 
 demand is bound to increase faster than the supply, for all who 
 have thought on the subject realize that good stock pays better 
 than poor, and so buy a few good birds or eggs each year, and 
 by "crossing" and letting them run at large must get more 
 each year. And again, where one man proves that there is 
 money to be made by selling eggs for setting, some of his 
 neighbors will want to try it. 
 
 A poultryman of our acquaintance who pays for good ad- 
 vertisements in poultry journals and who has made a study 
 of just one breed of chickens for several years, has made a 
 flock of 80 birds bring him a net income of nearly $7.00 per hen 
 in the year 1901. A person who does not advertise freely may 
 have very good stock and not find a good market for stock or 
 eggs. 
 
 Selling eggs at a low price will not increase the sales satis- 
 factorily, for though some will complain if you charge $1.50 or 
 $2.00 for a setting of eggs and refuse to buy, there are more of 
 the kind of people who will not buy, if you offer to sell at 50 
 or 75 cents, because they are pretty sure that if you had the 
 kind of stock they wish to get eggs from, that you would not 
 sell at that price, and will buy from some one who can prove 
 that his stock is good and worth the price asked. 
 
 For this reason, get good stock from a well known breeder 
 and trade on his reputation until you get a good one of your 
 own, and make your reputation good or go out of the busi- 
 ness, for the tricky man will not last long in this business, and 
 is not wanted in it unless he can leave his tricks out. Honest, 
 fair dealing is the only kind that will pay for a great length 
 of time. 
 
 As we have said before, there is great satisfaction in having 
 first-class aristocratic looking poultry in your yards and know- 
 ing that is better than your neighbor's stock, and then if you 
 have enough of it, the income is not to be despised. 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 DISEASES. 
 
 The subject of diseases is one that, under the hand of an 
 expert like Dr. Salmon, is capable of much expansion, but we 
 propose to give a simple method of dealing with some of the 
 more common ailments, believing that there is no use in telling 
 a treatment for a disease that cannot be diagnosed until the 
 fowl is dead and dissected, or is so obscure that it can only be 
 guessed at. 
 
 Whatever the trouble may be that shows itself in your flock, 
 it is most likely caused by conditions of house or care, and not 
 often communicated by birds from some one else's yard. No 
 one remedy will cure all diseases, and some cases will be lost in 
 spite of all you can do. Some of our most successful poultry- 
 men say there is no need of having sick chickens. This is 
 short, and to the point, but when they say that sickness can be 
 prevented by proper housing and feding, etc., then the whole 
 question goes back to the chapter on care of chickens on a small 
 scale, and advice about keeping the lice out and the houses 
 clean. 
 
 Remember that a hen needs about the same sized dose of 
 medicine as a man, and if you use quinine, or aconite or cam- 
 phor or turpentine for your own colds, you may use the same 
 on a hen and expect the same results. A hen with a cold should 
 be placed by herself and have a good warm roosting coop, 
 where she can sleep warm, and you can give her choice food 
 and some good invigorating tonic to help her to overcome her 
 
DISEASES. 
 
 cold. It is a good plan to put all medicine in the soft food, for 
 then it will be taken, and the water will be pure instead of 
 being made distasteful to the hen when she is perhaps feverish 
 and needs to drink. 
 
 If a cold attacks the head and eyes, use a good liquid roup 
 cure, to dip or bathe the head, and see that the nostrils are kept 
 open, by syringing or greasing, for when a hen must breathe 
 through her mouth she is in a dangerous condition. If the 
 cold affects the throat, the remedies must be strong and applied 
 locally with a feather or camel's hair brush, while using a 
 good remedy in the food to combat the trouble through the 
 system, and circulation. 
 
 Don't give too much cayenne pepper, as it is very strong, 
 and one man has proven to his own satisfaction that it causes 
 enlargement of the liver, and he advises the use of ginger, as 
 it has the warming effect of pepper, besides having other good 
 properties and is not dangerous to use, from any effect on the 
 liver, as pepper is. 
 
 Judgment and care must be used when any trouble breaks 
 out in a flock, that you may apply the right remedy. An entire 
 change of conditions is the first thing, and change of food. 
 Chicken pox is a very troublesome thing, but not usually fatal, 
 except among the young chicks. It appears in round sores 
 and warty spots on comb and head. Use some good remedy 
 to clear the system and use camphorated lard or carbolic salve, 
 or a mixture of olive oil and turpentine, on the sores, or use 
 a liquid roup cure. 
 
 For any liver trouble, often indicated by dark comb, loss of 
 appetite and disordered stomach, use a good physic, such as 
 castor oil or a few pieces of fat salt pork, if the bird will eat 
 it, and give an entire change of feed, with plenty of grit and 
 charcoal, and clean water. This trouble is hard to deal with, 
 because you will often fail to notice the symptoms till the dis- 
 
60 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 ease gets a strong grip on the bird and it is hard to check it. 
 
 This trouble, with apoplexy and some other more obscure 
 diseases, is caused very often by over-feeding, and a lack of 
 grit. Charcoal is the best preventive of all such diseases, and 
 sharp grit, plenty of pure water and coarse food, such as rolled 
 barley and plenty of alfalfa, must be used, together with en- 
 forced exercise. 
 
 One party told us that they made it a practice to give their 
 birds a strong physic, once a month, giving Glauber salts, in 
 the mash for three mornings, and then feed as usual for the 
 rest of the month. 
 
 The old saying that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound 
 of cure" was never more true than it is of the care of poultry 
 in our glorious climate, and the man who "never gives his 
 hens any medicine at all," "and if one gets sick just chops its 
 head off," is not cut out for a really up-to-date successful poul- 
 tryman. He ought to have an orchard, so he could put his 
 decapitated birds where they would do the most good. He 
 needs an income from some source. 
 
 Gapes is shown by an opened mouth with stretched neck 
 and a sort of cough, and the fowl will often shake its head 
 violently, while holding the mouth open. This is an effort to 
 dislodge a parasitic worm that adheres to the sides of the wind- 
 pipe. A good remedy is turpentine, or liquid roup cure, ap- 
 plied with a feather. Kerosene will do it, but we seldom use 
 it. One poultryman tells me that kerosene is the only thing 
 that he ever gave his hens, that tainted the eggs. He now 
 uses turpentine for colds, and for intestinal worms, which are 
 sometimes troublesome, and on any sign of leg weakness, he 
 gives a dose of it, for its action on the kidneys, which may be 
 the cause of leg weakness or paralysis or other obscure troubles. 
 
 One disease mentioned by a very learned writer, is called 
 "Going Light." This reminds us of the old-time jingle about 
 
DISEASES. 61 
 
 something that "died for the want of breath," or the human 
 disease so often blamed for death, called "heart failure." 
 
 Of course, if a hen "goes light" long enough and keeps on 
 subtracting she will fade away after awhile, but the disease 
 that makes her "go light" is what kills her. 
 
 Now, this is our opinion, but we may be wrong about it. 
 
 Lice is the most frequent cause of hens "going light" of any- 
 thing we know of, and they also make the egg basket go very 
 "light," and so perforce must the pocketbook. 
 
 Here is where the poultryman must use the utmost vigilance, 
 for there is no such thing as righting the lice to a finish, for the 
 minute you think you have killed every one on the place, and 
 lay back on their oars, just that minute they will begin to get 
 in their work, and when you least expect it, the production of 
 eggs will begin to fall off, sickness will creep in, and the hen 
 weakened by lice has a slim chance against any kind of dis- 
 ease. 
 
 Crop-bound is one of the troubles you are liable to "meet 
 up with." 
 
 This may be caused by the bird having swallowed a piece 
 of string, cloth, or paper, or some obstruction that has closed 
 the passage from the crop to the gizzard, or it may be an in- 
 flammation of the crop, which destroys its natural gastric juice 
 and causes a dryness there, and so prevents the passage of 
 food into the gizzard. 
 
 The first thing to do is to pour a spoonful of olive or sweet 
 oil down the bird's throat, and then pinch and knead the crop, 
 to loosen the contents and get the oil through it, and then hold 
 the bird up by the legs and try to work some of the matter out 
 through the mouth, and force everything away from the lower 
 part of the crop. 
 
 If the obstruction cannot be removed this way, it will be 
 necessary to make an incision through the skin of the neck and 
 
62 POUT/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 the top of the crop, and with a bent wire remove the contents, 
 and the cuts will soon heal; but don't allow the bird to eat 
 much at a time, but feed often till well. 
 
 For sour crop, usually shown by fullness and yet soft, caused 
 often by lack of grit and charcoal, a dose of common soda as 
 large as a bean, dissolved in part of a spoonful of water will 
 usually reduce the fermentation and stop the trouble, but re- 
 member that it is your part to remove the cause. This dose 
 may be given twice or three times in a day, if necessary, to re- 
 lieve the bird. 
 
 Scaly leg is caused by a small parasite which burrows under 
 the scales on a fowl's leg, and causes them to raise and be- 
 come partly deadened, and the bird will sometimes become 
 lame, and does not seem thrifty. It can be cured by using a 
 good poultry or sheep dip, diluted in water and thoroughly 
 washing the legs, and then anoint with oil or vaseline, or you 
 may mix turpentine and olive oil, equal parts, and bathe the 
 legs with that every two or three days till cured. Some use 
 kerosene, but that is pretty harsh, and will sometimes injure 
 the leg, and you will be "out" the price of a hen. 
 
 Pip is not a disease of the tongue, but is a hardening of 
 the tongue, caused by the breathing through the mouth when 
 the nostrils are closed. Cure the cold and grease the fowl's 
 beak and nose. 
 
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN. 63 
 
 A TRUTHFUL WOMAN IN THE POULTRY BUSINESS IN 
 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The above title may seem presumptuous, in view of the fact 
 that poultrymen are not considered strictly truthful by many 
 people, and "man" generally embraces "woman." But in the 
 face of this fact I shall try to give a truthful and lucid account 
 of some of the failures and successes of one woman in South- 
 ern California with the end in view of showing what can be 
 done by a woman in this line. 
 
 When I came here it seemed to me that the climate and condi- 
 tions in Southern California were well adapted to the success- 
 ful rearing of poultry by women, and after several years' ex- 
 perience I can see no good reason for changing my mind. 
 
 Here we have neither the extreme heat nor cold of the East 
 and Middle West, and, save for comparatively few days in the 
 winter, none of the inclement weather of most other sections 
 of the country. 
 
 The quickest and surest returns, with the least outlay at the 
 start, and the least heavy labor, come from hatching in its va- 
 rious phases, and from broiler-raising. 
 
 These branches can be carried on successfully, on a large 
 enough scale to insure a good income ; on a small plan, if neces- 
 sary. Even on a large place it is better to have houses, etc., 
 concentrated, in order to accomplish the largest results with the 
 fewest possible steps. 
 
 The chief requirements of success lie in the woman her- 
 self. She must be fond of an out-of-door life, and like the 
 
64 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 poultry well enough to spend all the waking hours of many of 
 her days with them, and still "be not weary in well doing." She 
 must have patience, even as Job, for the business is made up of 
 little things and is easily ruined by little things; therefore the 
 closest attention to details must be given. For eternal vigilance 
 is the price of success. 
 
 Do not start in unless you mean to stay by it, and having 
 started, stick to it, "for better, for worse" and it will be "for 
 better." 
 
 The first expense is good incubators. Any of the standard 
 makes will do good work if properly managed, and if in good 
 condition (working order) when received. Follow directions 
 carefully and use common sense. No incubator company can 
 send out infallible instructions for all places and to be used 
 under all conditions, and no machine can think, though some 
 of them would seem to come nearer to it than some people do. 
 
 Study your machine carefully. Nobody's success or fail- 
 ure can do more than serve as an encouragement or a warning. 
 You must "work out your own salvation," not in " fear and 
 trembling," but with good common sense. 
 
 I have found in hatching some 16,000 chickens that the ma- 
 chine best suited to my purposes is one holding from 200 to 
 300 eggs. These will give you with fair success an average for 
 the season of 150 to 200 chicks at a hatch, which number I like 
 best to run through the brooder in one batch. Put about 50 
 chicks in a colony, give plenty of good sweet food and fresh 
 water, green food, preferably lettuce thrown in the runs whole ; 
 observe absolute cleanliness, not what most people call clean- 
 liness for chickens, but cleanliness, remembering they are for 
 food ; keep brooders the right temperature ; and you will bring 
 out as fine a lot at the time of removal from the brooder as any 
 one could wish to see. 
 
 One smaller machine of 100 to 150 egg capacity will be found 
 
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN. 
 
 useful for small lots of eggs, and to be used some times as a 
 supernumerary to the larger machines. 
 
 Do not buy second hand machines unless you know enough 
 about it to know what you are getting (and most people don't 
 when they start in), or unless you are sure of the parties you 
 buy from. 
 
 The best place to run an incubator is in a cellar one that 
 can be properly ventilated and still free from draughts. Fail- 
 ing this, a good large "dug-out" is an excellent place, always 
 provided there is plenty of ventilation. Failing both these, a 
 north room on the ground floor is best; but there is so much 
 vibration in most California houses that it never seemed to 
 me quite the right place to achieve successful hatches; above 
 all, be sure of the ventilation the eggs must have fresh air; 
 any odor in the room is most objectionable and must be avoided. 
 
 Having placed your machines we next consider the eggs. If 
 you can raise your own it is more satisfactory, but as this re- 
 quires a large plant and more labor than one woman can carry 
 on alone, it is better to buy at the start at any rate. If one could 
 get "dependable" help it would do, but my experience has led 
 me to regard this in the light of "angels' visits." 
 
 Eggs from good vigorous stock (not fancy, but not 
 "scrubs") can be bought at a price that will pay, by making 
 an agreement to take a certain number regularly, and at a 
 uniform price for the year. This price may seem a little high 
 when eggs are cheap and plenty, but on the average is an ad- 
 vantage both to the producer and yourself. In this way you 
 are assured of your supply in the season when you need them 
 most, in fact, when you must have them to get your stock ready 
 at the time of highest prices. 
 
 There is always some income from the young stock as there 
 is a good demand for little chicks from one day to ten weeks 
 old, from good vigorous stock. 
 
66 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Begin hatching not later than September, as this brings on 
 broilers just at the time when the price is good, and it stead- 
 ily gets better the best prices coming in March, April and 
 May. So it behooves us to run to the fullest capacity in order 
 to have all we can to market during these months. The first of 
 June the price declines rapidly, as the farmers begin to bring 
 in surplus stock, and the tourists are about gone. Hold what 
 you have on hand at this time and get them ready for young 
 roasters in the fall. 
 
 Remember you want what other people have not; study this 
 and make your harvest by having your stock ready at the right 
 time. 
 
 The machines ready, we must look to the brooders and pre- 
 pare for the coming family. The house must be light, tight and 
 warm, but well ventilated. The little fellows are a good deal 
 like children in many ways, and require much attention. 
 
 The house to be satisfactory need not necessarily be expen- 
 sive rough lumber well battened is as serviceable as a finer 
 house; but in my opinion the house is absolutely necessary. 
 The out-of-doors brooders are used by many, and with suc- 
 cess, but it is much more work, and I believe the extra time 
 and strength required to obtain good results would be better 
 employed in some other way. 
 
 A house 50 to 60 feet long will accommodate from 800 to 
 1 200 chicks of ages from one day to six or eight weeks old, and 
 is as much as one woman should attempt, with the incubating 
 and other necessary work on a plant of this kind. Even then 
 there will be little time for household duties, but it is better 
 to hire help for the house than for the poultry work, for the 
 poultry must not be neglected even for an hour. 
 
 My house was eight feet wide. This allows for a good inside 
 run. The outside runs may be as long as practicable. Mine 
 were ten feet in length 3^ feet high of one-inch mesh wire. 
 
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN. 67 
 
 These dimensions allow of all necessary exercise, and should 
 have some arrangement for shade, if only canvas. 
 
 Inside the house there should be a space at one end for 
 feed bins, shelves for scales and extra dishes, etc., used in the 
 house, and also for a sink where dishes can be washed; this 
 saves many steps. 
 
 The chicks stay here from four to eight weeks, when some 
 arrangement must be made for them out of doors. 
 
 I have found dry goods cases as good, and cheaper than 
 anything else. Get the largest you can, turn on side, put in 
 movable roosts, have the front on hinges at top, so it can serve 
 as an awning during the day, put on a slant roof of shakes to 
 shed rain, bore holes in sides near the top for ventilation, and 
 you have a good substantial house at small cost, which will ac- 
 commodate from fifty to seventy-five chicks just out of the 
 brooder. These you will gradually sort over as the cockerels 
 develop and as you sell from the pens, till you have from 
 twenty-five to forty left at ten or twelve weeks of age, when 
 most of them go to market ; the best ones will bring from fifty 
 cents to one dollar per dozen more as breeding stock than the 
 table fowls do. 
 
 The yards to go with these houses were 15x30 feet with .a 
 five- foot fence made of inch-mesh wire for two feet from the 
 ground, the remaining three feet being two-inch mesh. Get the 
 best wire it pays. 
 
 Do not buy eggs from "scrub" stock, nor keep it yourself. 
 You can never tell what the chicks will make, even for market. 
 Whereas you can estimate pretty correctly where you will 
 come out with any "straight" vigorous stock. It is better 
 to select one breed and stay by it, if possible ; but as you must 
 have broilers when the price is highest, you may have to use 
 more than one kind of eggs. If you do this, send only one 
 breed to market in the same coop, and sort the birds so that 
 
68 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 all in the same coop shall be as nearly of a size and weight 
 as possible. They bring a better price every time. One dealer 
 told me he gave me a better price than any other person he 
 dealt with, because he never had to look over the coops for 
 under-weight or ailing birds ; he could take broilers or fryers 
 from my coops and send to his most exacting customers and 
 be sure that there was nothing wrong with them. Still I have 
 had more than one person tell me I was "too fussy" and "put 
 too much work into it," but nothing is too much work if it 
 brings the returns. 
 
 Do not feed "hotel waste" nor "swill." It is most disgusting 
 to handle and will not produce satisfactory table fowls. The 
 flesh will be flabby and poor in flavor not firm, dainty and 
 sweet as it should be. Remember, always, that your product 
 is for food, and that it is time wasted to cater to any but the 
 best trade. Absolute cleanliness must be observed in the in- 
 cubator room and machines, for no successful hatch ever came 
 from a dirty, ill-smelling incubator ; in the brooders, because the 
 little chicks cannot do well in dirt, though many seem to think 
 they can ; in the broiler yards and houses, for I believe the chief 
 c?use of most "chicken ailments" is just dirt. Above all, feed 
 clean bran, grain, etc., with fresh green food or vegetables of 
 some kind, in clean troughs. Give plenty of fresh, clean 
 water. These things they must have. 
 
 In looking over my records I find that for the first season 
 iitty per cent of all eggs put in machines hatched; of these 
 chicks a little better than eighty per cent were raised that is, 
 eighty per cent of those kept on the place. Sixteen hundred 
 chicks were hatched for one party who furnished his own eggs ; 
 the number of chicks delivered to him at 24 hours old were 
 75 per cent of all eggs put in machines for him. 
 
 Another party took away 1050 chicks which was a little bet- 
 ter than 80 per cent of all eggs she brought. These are verx 
 
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN. 
 
 69 
 
 good averages for such a large number and for the breeds 
 handled mostly Brahmas and Buff Cochins. Many small 
 lots of eggs one or two settings each hatched 95 to 100 
 per cent. One whole incubator lot of 450 eggs were absolutely 
 infertile, and one lot was upset on the floor by an assistant. 
 This lot contained 205 fertile eggs which had been incubating 
 15 days. These accidents may be expected or rather may come 
 to any one, but must not be allowed to discourage one. And in 
 spite of these things the average hatch from all eggs put in 
 machines for eleven months remained a fraction over 50 per 
 cent. 
 
 As to prices for hatching, here is where common sense comes 
 in again. I charged five cents for each chick but as so many 
 infertile eggs were brought I put a tariff of 2,^/2 cents on each 
 infertile egg to pay for space taken up in machine. This 
 worked well as people were more careful when bringing eggs 
 to have them fresh and from good stock. Before I charged 
 for the infertile eggs, one woman brought me 26 eggs, 20 of 
 which were infertile and the remaining six weak germs died 
 about the twelfth day. When she came for her chickens I 
 told her there were none, and she said: Well, I didn't 
 expect them to hatch really; I sold all the fresh ones 
 and some of these had been on hand six weeks" This 
 was exasperating, but as I had agreed to charge only for 
 what chicks I hatched, I could do nothing but change my 
 rates for the future. 
 
 If one is selling young chicks from the brooders, they will 
 bring from ten to twenty-five cents each according to quality 
 and breed, at hatching time; add to this from 2^2 cents to 5 
 cents per week each for care and feed, and it is fair to both 
 parties. 
 
 I have hatched on shares, and have also made a charge of a 
 "lump sum" for the use of the incubator put in the eggs 
 
70 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 brought me, and turned over chicks at not later than 24 hours 
 old ; if kept longer an extra charge was made. One must use 
 judgment and there are many ways to keep up a steady in- 
 come from this branch of the business. But be careful and give 
 np one customer an advantage over another. It does not pay to 
 work on anything but a strictly business basis. 
 
 The best hatches were obtained in March and April, and the 
 greatest demand for chicks was in those months, though it was 
 fair in February and continued till June i. But the early 
 hatches, though lower in per centage, brought in more money, 
 as the chicks hatched were the ones that made the broilers for 
 the best market, and also many of them sold well for breeding 
 stock. 
 
 I think it better to go slow the first year till one "gets her 
 bearings," so to speak. After you are well accustomed to the 
 incubators, brooders, etc., and have had experience in deal- 
 ing with customers, then you can get on as fast as strength 
 and ambition allow. 
 
 There are many pleasant things to counter-balance the disa- 
 greeables. Try and think of this when things go "contrary" ; 
 and though there are many mistakes and bothers to encounter, 
 remember that everybody has these same experiences whether 
 they own up to it or not, but everybody hasn't the courage to try 
 again when defeated. 
 
 You will have much advice given you, some good, some bad, 
 but after all is said, you must work it out for yourself. Take 
 a good poultry paper, or two, keep up with the times, keep in 
 touch with what others are doing in the same line, study your 
 work carefully. The most experienced never learn it all, and 
 the work is most fascinating to one who is adapted to it. 
 
 Many people think "anyone can keep hens," but it is a bus- 
 iness as well as any other, and as to mental equipment, T have 
 met some of the brightest and most refined women "keep- 
 
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN. 71 
 
 ing hens." Some of them reared in luxury and with college 
 educations, so that on this score no one need flout the 2Oth 
 century poultry- woman. Right here in Southern California, 
 some of the most successful breeders are women and though 
 the financial phase of it should not be the main object, still 
 it is one that we all are aiming for, and there is no success with- 
 out it. 
 
 I do not mean to say that there is big money in it at the 
 start, but there is a good living if it is managed properly ; and 
 for a woman who must earn her own living, and perhaps has 
 children to make a home for, there is no better way than 
 poultry raising. 
 
 She can keep her children with her, and if her health is not 
 good, she will find it improving steadily, and still be making 
 a good living. There are many other branches of the busi- 
 ness and one is about ceftain to gradually work into one or 
 more of them as time goes on, but I believe the incubating 
 and broiler-raising to present the best opening for an immediate 
 income. 
 
 The chicks will cost an average of about six to seven cents 
 each when hatched. This is counting the cost of the full 
 machine and the number of chicks obtained, these, of course, 
 being the ordinary stock. These chicks will readily sell for 
 10 cents each. Those that are not sold can be raised for 
 broilers. They should weigh at 10 to 12 weeks old about two 
 pounds each, at an average cost of 15 cents each, and will 
 readily sell at from $3.50 to $5.00 per dozen, according to sea- 
 son. To obtain these results one must make it a business, put 
 in your whole time, as you would in any other business, and 
 you will find yourself amply repaid better, I believe, than 
 in nearly any other occupation a woman can take up in this 
 country. 
 
72 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The plan described is only a fair sample of what can be done 
 by a woman, with a boy fourteen years old to assist. 
 
 This is not a "Fairy Tale" nor a theory, but an impartial 
 record, to the best of my ability, of work actually done. 
 
 EVA M. P ARCHER. 
 
 Sunnyside, Cal., Jan. I, 1902. 
 
 RAISING CHICKENS IN THE BACK YARD. 
 
 "Every lawyer," said Horace, something like 2000 years ago, 
 "hopes some day to be a farmer," and retired to the Sabian 
 farm, which his former political enemies had given him, to 
 show that he, at least, would gladly forgo the excitement of city 
 life for the calmer and truer happiness of a life passed in the 
 country. The man is much the same in our day as in his. Every 
 professional man whom I have met has an eye turned on the 
 country, where he hopes one day to know at first hand the 
 joy of the fruits of his return to the land. 
 
 HOW I BECAME INTERESTED. 
 
 Men of any given profession appear to have a certain prefer- 
 ence for some particular line of country life. Newspaper- 
 men, for instance, pin their faith on chickens. It is not proba- 
 ble that the newspaper man lives or has lived, who had not had 
 at one period of his career, an elaborate but hazily conceived 
 plan by which he was to be freed from the slavery of his city 
 existence through the medium of the modest hen. 
 
 I call to mind one enthusiast who night after night sat at a 
 desk at the writer's left, "heading up copy" and talking chick- 
 ens, their possibilities and the stupidity of the farmer who 
 
RAISING CHICKENS IN THE BACK YARD. 73 
 
 failed to find a fortune in eggs. In the course of newspaper 
 events, the gentleman in question drifted to New York, and 
 the writer found himself in the country. 
 
 An express package and a letter came to me from New 
 York one day, the package containing thirteen doubtful-look- 
 ing eggs, and the letter a reminder that my old friend was 
 still daft on chickens. It was a genial letter, filled with kindly 
 humor and happy reminders of the old days when we had 
 discussed chickens and news together. It had a sob in it, too, 
 for my old friend is worthy of a better fate than that of New 
 York correspondent for a San Francisco paper. 
 
 I was to set the eggs, since I was living in the country, and 
 report results to him. They were from "the purest blooded 
 fowls (he, in his enthusiasm neglected to name the breed) 
 in the country." 
 
 I set the eggs under a hen purchased for the occasion. They 
 did not hatch. 
 
 So interested had I become in speculating on the probable 
 color of those unhatched chickens, however, that by the time 
 I had buried the New York eggs, I had two other hens setting 
 on Plymouth Rock eggs for which I had parted with four 
 dollars. Two days before the first of these hens was to hatch, 
 I found her dead on the nest. A not very close inspection 
 disclosed the fact that she was covered with vermin, a con- 
 tributing cause, at least, for her ill-timed death. The second 
 hen hatched six chickens, of which the hen and I were alike 
 pardonably ashamed. My little boy came in the second day of 
 the existence of those unhappy chicks, and informed me that 
 "dear little chickey bird gone to sleep." I went out to dis- 
 cover that the "chickey bird" had indeed gone to sleep the 
 lad had dropped a brick on it. It is useless to deal with the, 
 brief and unhappy lives of those five chickens, which stood 
 me eighty cents apiece at the shell. They were a melancholy 
 
74 
 
 POUI/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 object lesson that I didn't know how to raise chickens. My 
 enthusiasm, however, was flourishing and I commenced study- 
 ing chickens. I am still studying. 
 
 The amateur chicken raiser, they tell me, commences by pur- 
 chasing a bone cutter and chicken literature. I didn't get the 
 bone cutter. The literature was interesting but confusing. 
 One authority said that chickens should be taken from the in- 
 cubator as soon as they are dry ; another said to leave them in; 
 the incubator from 24 to 60 hours. One said that boiled eggs 
 are the natural food for little chicks ; another had it that eggs 
 are fatal and that nothing but grain should be fed from the 
 start. One had it that money in chickens comes from care- 
 ful crossing of thoroughbreds ; another that only from pure- 
 bred fowls is money to be made. One said to set hens ; another 
 to set incubators. They all agreed that brooders can not be 
 gotten too hot. At the expense of forty-nine thorough-bred 
 brown Leghorn chicks, from eggs that had cost a small for- 
 tune, I learned that all were mistaken about the brooders. 
 Some said feed millet seed; others told of clutches lost from 
 millet feeding. 
 
 As I read, I had had the chicken house freed from vermin, 
 and had hens setting on eggs that had cost much money. When 
 the chickens began to arrive they passed in rapid succession 
 from the nest, to the brooder, to the steadily growing burying 
 ground. My chicken book learning was found to be worse than, 
 useless. I had to learn from experience. In a measure I have 
 learned. Now the mortality is decreasing, practically stopped, 
 in fact. My back yard, that of an ordinary city lot, that with 
 fifty unhappy, too-sick-to-get-around chicks had presented 
 scenes of disorder that had called from an unsympathetic fam- 
 ily the parody on Byron: 
 
A SUCCESSFUL BROILER 
 
 "When people say I've told you fifty times, 
 
 They mean to scold and very often do. 
 
 When people say I've written fifty rhymes, 
 
 They make you dread lest they recite them too 
 
 When people say I'm raising fifty chickens 
 
 They make you think their yard looks like the dickens," 
 
 now, with 260 lively youngsters is as neat and free from con- 
 fusion as a lawn. The chickens are healthy, happy and grow- 
 ing, and the hourly funerals attended by my young but inter- 
 ested son, the cat scandalized that tender chicks were buried 
 and not eaten, have ceased. That the chickens are doing so 
 well, shows that they can be successfully raised in quantities 
 by any family who has a back yard. I shall not attempt to 
 tell how it is done for the poultry authorities do that. In a se- 
 ries of articles which are to appear in Tree and Vine, I shall 
 endeavor to tell of my experiments, experiences and disap- 
 pointments, that he who reads, and desires to do so, may avoid 
 the many mistakes that I have made, and raise chickens from 
 the start without first turning half his yard into a burying 
 ground. Franklin Hichborn, in Pacific Tree and Vine, San 
 Jose, Cal., July, 1901. 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL BROILER PLANT. 
 
 At the request of the author we are going to present to the 
 readers of this book some hints on broiler-raising as exempli- 
 fied by us on our ranch in Pasadena. 
 
 Let us first consider the climatic conditions to be overcome 
 in Southern California. We came from New England, where 
 
76 POUI/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 the winters are long and severely cold, where chickens are 
 housed in buildings constructed equally as well, and in many 
 cases better than many of the so-called ranch houses in this 
 country. If we had listened to the advice of others we would 
 have built houses with little or no protection from the weather, 
 but after studying the situation we finally decided to erect 
 buildings that were substantial and warm, also free from 
 draughts and convenient for the caretaker. 
 
 When the thermometer varies from thirty to fifty degrees 
 in twenty-four hours one can readily see that it is quite es- 
 sential to provide suitable quarters for young chickens. You 
 may locate in almost any section in Southern California and 
 find ideal conditions for poultry raising. We do not claim 
 to have a model or an ideal poultry plant, but we do claim to 
 have mastered the secret of broiler-raising in this climate. We 
 will not enter into the details of hatching, as that subject 
 is thoroughly and scientifically discussed elsewhere. We are 
 now ready to remove the chicks from the incubator to the 
 brooder. To do this we procure a basket or box that is well 
 lined and covered with a cloth of some kind to keep them warm 
 during the short trip from one house to the other. 
 
 In our opinion many chicks lose their lives from being 
 chilled while on this journey. The brooder, which has been 
 previously heated to a temperature of ninety or ninety-five 
 degrees, is well sprinkled with fine gravel. The first day of 
 their lives in the brooder has almost passed and they have not 
 eaten anything but sand. As night comes on we scatter down 
 for the little fellows a liberal supply of rolled oats, the white 
 flakes of which will instantly attract them. In the evening 
 as we are regulating the heat and locking up for the night 
 we look in upon them and are pleased to find them well dis- 
 tributed over the hover bottom. 
 
 Their contented little chirp is a sure sign of sufficient heat, 
 
A SUCCESSFTL BOILER PI<ANT. 
 
 and we feel reasonably sure they will not huddle. The next 
 morning as we enter the brooder the babies are calling for 
 their breakfast. After starting the fire in the grain room we 
 give them a feed of rolled oats and then a dish of skimme4 
 milk warmed. Some of the chicks will drink but will not eat, 
 and the milk keeps them along until they will eat. We have 
 placed before them a dish of powdered charcoal and one of 
 grit, which in our case consists of finely ground shell. The 
 charcoal we consider one of the best of regulators, and the 
 grit is absolutely necessary, as everyone knows. These we 
 keep before them at all times. Our chicks are fed every two 
 hours from the first day until they are ready for market. This 
 is done by the clock and proves very satisfactory, as it evens 
 up the day and allows the other work to be done regularly. 
 We feed nothing the first week but rolled oats and millet seec^ 
 with a little fine cracked corn. During the second week we 
 change the feed somewhat by adding cracked wheat to the 
 bill of fare. We also try them this week on a little mash com- 
 posed of one-third cornmeal and two-thirds wheat bran, sea- 
 soned with salt and red pepper. This is made into a crumbly 
 (not sloppy) mash by adding boiling water. They will not 
 eat much at first, but before the end of the week will get so 
 they will look for it as you alternately feed your soft and hard 
 grains. Do not put too many chicks in one brooder. Many 
 people over-crowd them. You will have healthier and faster- 
 growing stock if you give them plenty of room. We have 
 now brought them along to the third week, and from now 
 until they are ready for market we intend to force them with 
 all the feed they will stand up under. Let the first feed be a 
 hard grain. At nine o'clock we give them some chopped raw 
 potatoes. These with an occasional feed of chopped cabbage 
 constitute all the green feed they have. 
 
 At eleven o'clock feed the mash as above described, and 
 
78 POUT/TRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 again at one and three. The last feed at night is usually 
 cracked corn. We feed only what they will clean up quickly. 
 The idea is to keep them a little bit hungry all the time. If 
 the feed is not all consumed each time scant the next feed. 
 We do not let our chicks out of doors the first week, but after 
 that it is absolutely necessary to have them out on the ground 
 each day. There is nothing so strengthening to growing chicks 
 as plenty of exercise and an abundance of fresh air. Our 
 brooders are cleaned twice the first week, three times the second 
 and daily thereafter until the chicks are moved to larger quar- 
 ters. The feed trays and drinking fountains are thoroughly 
 disinfected and the water changed twice every day. With 
 our system of feeding and with the close attention we give 
 our chicks we have succeeded in producing two-pound broilers 
 at nine weeks and, by continuing the same feed, four-pound 
 roasters at fifteen weeks. PACKARD & 
 
 Pasadena, Cal. 
 
 COLD BROODER. 
 
 Much trouble has been experienced in getting the chicks to 
 do well after they are taken out of the brooder, at about six 
 weeks old. 
 
 The temperature in the brooder must be run very low for 
 several nights before the chicks are removed, and reduced as 
 much the last as can be done without causing the little fellows 
 to crowd, and then the cold brooder or roosting box must not 
 be too large, but should be quite tight; and unless you have 
 rats or weasels use no floor in it. 
 
 One breeder says he uses a box with lath set up about two 
 
PORTABLE HOUSES AND YARDS FOR ORCHARD. 79 
 
 inches from the ground and an inch apart for his chicks, and 
 has never known them to huddle. One end of the box is on 
 hinges and is propped open during the day; and about six or 
 eight inches above the lath floor some three-inch perches are 
 nailed or set in tightly, and the chicks, using the box for shade 
 during the day, will jump on the roosts, and very soon acquire 
 the habit of roosting, and the earlier this is done the safer your 
 chick. 
 
 PORTABLE HOUSES AND YARDS FOR ORCHARD. 
 
 If it should be desired to keep poultry in an orchard, where 
 thorough cultivation is often necessary, it may be done by using 
 light houses and a portable fence made in panels and fastened in 
 such a manner that it can readily be taken down and moved. 
 
 The houses may be built about 4x5 feet and 30 or 40 inches 
 high, and 40 to 50 in height in front, or varied to suit individ- 
 ual preference, and with shed or gable roof, as preferred. 
 
 Give a little ventilation at the bottom in such manner that it 
 can be increased or diminished at will, according to the state of 
 the weather. We would advise putting part of one side or 
 end on hinges, so that it may be thrown open during the day 
 to allow air and sun in the house ; and this hinged part may be 
 so arranged that in warm weather it may serve as an awning 
 for shelter from the sun, if necessary. 
 
 We would not plan to turn each house over during the 
 day and make the hens feel like homeless orphans, as we have 
 seen some do. A couple of nest boxes may be placed at one end 
 of this house and made quite dark. 
 
 These houses may be made of inch lumber, resawed and 
 nailed on a frame of 1x4 stuff and a couple of pieces of 1x3 
 
80 
 
 POUI/TKY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 nailed on the outside to project several inches beyond the ends 
 of the house, at the right height for two men to take hold of, 
 and the house will be easily moved. 
 
 For the fence, panels may be made of about 1x6 inch boards 
 10 or 12 feet long and of a height suitable to the wire netting 
 you wish to use. The upper horizontal bar should be about 
 eight inches below the top of the uprights at the ends. These 
 uprights should be tapered above the horizontal board, to about 
 two inches, so that there is no good footing for a bird that 
 may wish to fly over the fence, and there is no top bar for them 
 to fly up on, as the wire will be even with the tops of the 
 posts. 
 
 Make triangular supports of 1x4 stuff and about three feet 
 on base and perpendicular, and hingle one to each end of the 
 panel, so that one will be opposite the other when opened at 
 right angles to the panel. These may be laid flat on the panel, 
 if you wish to load them on a wagon. Two 3-inch gate hooks 
 and eyes, or hooks and staples, on the ends of the panels to 
 fasten them together when in use will give you a very firm and 
 serviceable fence that may be moved rapidly when you need 
 to cultivate your orchard, or change the pens for any reason. 
 
 The height of your fence depends on the variety you keep, 
 the size of the run and the age of the birds, as old hens are not 
 as apt to fly as young ones. 
 
 A 4-foot fence will hold most of the Asiatics, with good- 
 sized yards, and a 5-foot fence will hold the Americans, and 
 a 6- foot fence should confine the Mediterraneans; but if any 
 prove hard to confine, a smooth wire may be run on supports 
 about six inches above the top or the same distance inside and 
 parallel with the top. 
 
HOW W. E. MERCER MAKES POULTRY PAY. 
 
 81 
 
 HOW W. E. MERCER, OF VENTURA, HAKES POULTRY PAY. 
 
 In May, 1899, The Cultivator of Los Angeles published the 
 following item : 
 
 Mr. W. E. Mercer, who has made many friends in Los An- 
 geles while building the Los Angeles incubators for J. D. Mer- 
 cer, will return to Ventura this month, where he will be better 
 fixed to keep up with the growing demand for his Brown Leg- 
 horns, which are exceptionally fine as to shape and color and as 
 money-makers are hard to beat. He started with an imported 
 trio at a cost of $30. From these he raised 20 birds which cost 
 for the first year's food $24. They produced 1264 eggs, which 
 sold for $137.20; besides there were plenty for home use. He 
 values the present 18 pullets at $18, which leaves a credit bal- 
 ance for the year of $131.20. 
 
 "Yes," says Mr. Mercer, "there is money in hens the right 
 kind. They are up-to-date, standard-bred birds, and the sale 
 of hatching-eggs at $2 per 13, which was accomplished by ad- 
 vertising is where the money comes in." 
 
 And now we have the record he has made since that date. 
 He says : 
 
 "On the ist of January 1899, we had eighteen hens, and 
 up to June ist, when we moved to Ventura, we had sold $80.85 
 worth of eggs and chickens. From June ist to January ist, 
 1900, we took in $135.70 for eggs and birds, besides increas- 
 ing our flock by ten hens, worth at least $i each. 
 
 'J'anuary ist we had 28 hens, and used trap nests in one pen 
 of four hens for three months, with the following result : 
 
 "Hen No. I laid 22, 24 and 24 eggs in January, February 
 and March. No. 2 laid 21, 23, and 22 eggs. No. 3 laid 18, 20 
 and 17 eggs. No. 4 laid 16, 14 and 15 eggs. 
 
82 
 
 POULTRY WKST OF THE: ROCKIKS. 
 
 "Most of these eggs brought $2.00 per setting. From Jan- 
 uary ist we sold eggs and stock to the amount of $83.65. From 
 July ist to January ist, 1901, the sales amounted to $136.70. 
 We raised to maturity about 50 pullets that began to lay in 
 September, when eggs were worth 30 cents per dozen. 
 
 "All the feed used during the year cost just $104.00, which 
 leaves a net profit of $116.35, beside increasing the stock to 
 80, or an increase of 52, at $1.00 each, or a total return of 
 $168.35 or $6-73 per hen. On January ist, 1901, our flock con- 
 sisted of 80 laying-hens, and up to July ist took in $225.43 for 
 eggs and stock, at a net profit of $181.25. 
 
 "Most of these sales came from ads. in The Live Stock 
 Tribune and Fanciers' Monthly. From July ist to January ist 
 my income from my poultry has been $135.17 and my flock 
 is now 1 60 strong, an increase of 80, or an additional $80, giv- 
 ing me a gross income for the year of $440.60." 
 
 HOW I SUCCEEDED AS A POULTRY RAISER. 
 
 "Nothing succeeds like success" is a common saying, and if 
 I can help anyone to success in poultry raising I shall be glad, 
 especially any one in search of health as well as money. And 
 poultry raising is quite as conducive to health as to wealth, if 
 not more so. 
 
 How to succeed in making poultry profitable in California 
 has always been a puzzling problem, for undoubtedly it is more 
 difficult to raise chickens successfully in Southern California 
 than in the Middle and Eastern States ; in proof of this there 
 are no wild turkeys and no wild prairie fowl here. 
 
HOW I SUCCEEDED AS A POUI/TKY KAISER. 
 
 83 
 
 The difficulty, I think, is in the climate with the long, dry 
 summer, and the lovely, mild winter. This lovely health-giv- 
 ing climate is particularly healthy for vermin of all kinds lice, 
 mites, ticks, fleas, etc. It is also conducive to roup and kindred 
 diseases. From May to October there is no rainfall, green 
 food is all dried up and there are no bugs, grubs or worms 
 above ground for the poultry to feed on ; rarely a stray grass- 
 hopper. 
 
 The prevalence of vermin and lack of green food and animal 
 food are, in my opinion, the causes of failure in poultry raising 
 here. Counteract these and the few other difficulties vanish. 
 
 MRS. BASLEY'S POULTKY YARDS. 
 
 There are three conditions of successful egg production: 
 Comfort, proper food and exercise. 
 
 Comfort means clean, comfortable, quiet, shady nests and 
 roosts, free from vermin. 
 
 Proper food. Supply what is lacking in nature here, green 
 food and animal food giving plenty of clean water and grit 
 and furnishing the materials with which to make eggs, shells 
 and all. 
 
84 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Exercise. To be healthy, the hens must work ; they must 
 scratch for their living, as well as for yours. Every grain 
 must be scratched out, dug out, if you want healthy, vigorous 
 egg layers. 
 
 When I started in the poultry business in California I wanted 
 the fowl that would bring me in the most money. I had tried 
 many varieties in the East and decided that the most paying 
 fowl was one of the American breeds. "America for the 
 Americans" ; they are the "all-purpose fowl," excellent layers 
 and large, delicious table fowl. 
 
 MRS. BASLEY'S RESIDENCE. 
 
 The White Plymouth Rocks I selected as the ideal fowl 
 among the Americans, knowing them to be almost non-setters 
 and better layers than any other of the Rock or Wyandotte 
 families, and when dressed for table presenting the finest ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 I purchased two dozen White Plymouth Rocks, the cock-bird 
 a prize winner ; took good care of them, saved some of the eggs 
 and the following year raised about two hundred. 
 
 To commence with, I had two henneries, the following year 
 six, and each year I increased the number of henneries and 
 
HOW I SUCCEEDED AS A POULTRY RAISEK. 
 
 fowls, adding very cautiously new blood in one or more pens. 
 
 The American standard of perfection I diligently study, cull 
 out every fowl that does not come up to the mark, and cull 
 again and again. Save the eggs from my best layers, which 
 fortunately are my highest scoring hens, and year by year 
 succeed in having "better poultry and more of it." 
 
 My "culls" I kill, dress and sell to customers in town, above 
 the market price, and I have a larger demand than I can supply. 
 Eggs that are not fertile, such as pullet eggs, I also sell to pri- 
 vate customers, getting five cents a dozen above the market 
 price, because the eggs are not only fresh, but my fowls, being 
 kept so clean and healthy and fed so well, the eggs have a de- 
 licious flavor and my customers are only too glad to pay extra 
 for them. 
 
 During the spring months the demand for eggs for hatch- 
 ing is larger than I can supply, without robbing myself, for not 
 only are my fowls noted for their superior egg-laying, but 
 whenever they have been exhibited either by my customers 
 or myself they have been prize winners. 
 
 The two enemies of the poultry breeder in California I have 
 found to be vermin and roup. Roup was a new disease to me, 
 my fowls in the East never having had it, and when it first 
 appeared in my yards it came from one pen having been shut 
 out all night in a very heavy fog; all took cold and about half 
 died. 
 
 After that I Was on the watch and as soon as I perceived a 
 chicken sneeze, or one running at the nose, that one was rele- 
 gated to the hospital and treated for a few days, by which 
 time it was usually cured ; or, if not, it was killed and buried. 
 
 I find that a two-grain pill of quinine and half a teaspoonful 
 of 'red pepper mixed with a little butter will usually cure a 
 cold with one or, at most, two doses. 
 
 I have also discovered that early hatched chickens are less 
 
86 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 liable to take cold, which develops into roup, than those hatched 
 late in the summer; also, that those fowls that have all the 
 green alfalfa they can eat are almost immune. 
 
 MRS. A. BASLE Y. 
 Prospect Park, Cal. 
 
 SOME "POINTS" ON RAISING CHICKS. 
 
 In giving advice on this line I have a record of ten years 
 of successful work in poultry raising to show that I have 
 learned some of the things that all should know who undertake 
 to raise poultry in Southern California. 
 
 The rules which, if followed here, will bring success, will 
 accomplish the same result in other localities. I would advise 
 any inexperienced person who wishes to engage in poultry 
 raising to work for some successful breeder until they get the 
 necessary experience in caring for stock, unless they have 
 plenty of capital, for it takes a great deal of money to get ex- 
 perience by experiment sometimes. 
 
 The amateur should have the best works on incubation and 
 care of chicks. Regularity in feeding is a very important point 
 in raising chicks, as they must not go hungry too long. 
 
 Protection from storms and cold winds must be provided in 
 good brooders and roomy houses. 
 
 Plenty of shade is also very necessary in warm weather. 
 
 All these are essential to success in poultry raising. If 
 hatching and raising chicks artificially, you cannot be told too 
 often that the chicks must be allowed to run out of doors as 
 much as possible and the brooder house should be warm enough 
 so that they will not have to depend on the brooder, but can 
 
POULTRY METHODS AT .PKTALTJMA. 87 
 
 find a comfortable place in the house, without entering the 
 brooder, during the day, after the first few days. 
 
 If using a pipe system or any top heat brooder, there should 
 be an adjustable bottom to keep the little chicks near the pipe 
 and this must be lowered as they get larger. 
 
 I use no fixed bill of fare, but usually feed in the morning 
 a mixture of as many grains as possible, broken fine enough for 
 the chicks, with plenty of green food. At noon meat in some 
 form and table scraps, cooked vegetables, etc. During the 
 afternoon mixed grain and green stuff, and at the last meal of 
 the day I give them all the cracked corn they will eat. 
 
 When I can get it, I give sweet milk to drink instead of 
 water, and all drinking dishes and feed troughs must be kept 
 very clean and wholesome. 
 
 Keep plenty of bone, shell and charcoal where the chicks 
 can have free access to them at all times. Your brooders and 
 houses cannot be kept too clean, and they should be disin- 
 fected once a week. C. E. L3 POINTS. 
 
 POULTRY METHODS AT PETALUMA. 
 
 The following is an extract from a write-up of Mr. C. Nis- 
 son's poultry ranch in the vicinity of Petaluma, and was pub- 
 lished some years ago: 
 
 Mr. Nisson's ranch is located about ten miles west of Peta- 
 luma in Two Rock Valley, with only a low range of hills in- 
 tervening as a barrier to the winds from the ocean. 
 
 The western part of Sonoma county, and all of Marin county 
 is hilly and mountainous, and is devoted mainly to dairying 
 and grain-growing. Potato and poultry raising are side is- 
 sues, but the latter is increasing in importance. 
 
83 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE KOCKIHS. 
 
 Contrary to expectations, the soil increased in fertility toward 
 the ocean, and, when we arrived at Mr. Nisson's, the soil 
 looked rich enough to grow anything. However, the lime rock 
 crops out and runs too close to the surface for fruit-growing, 
 except in favored spots. 
 
 Our first sight on entering the yard was 1000 Brown Leg- 
 horn chicks, about one week old, running in and out of a large 
 brooding-house. These chicks were all hatched at once, in one 
 incubator, and occupy one apartment or brooder, without parti- 
 tions to separate them into small flocks. The theory that only 
 a few chicks, forty or fifty, should be allowed to brood to- 
 gether is entirely upset by Mr. Nisson's success in raising 1000 
 in one compartment. I was both surprised and pleased at see- 
 ing so many chicks in a brooder, and all as lively as a cricket ; 
 not a droopy one in the whole lot. 
 
 The heating apparatus is quite simple and inexpensive. A 
 common cast-iron heating stove is set underneath the floor, 
 and the smoke is carried in tiles underneath and through a bed 
 of sand and up through the roof. The sand is thoroughly 
 warmed during the day, and no heat- is given the chicks at 
 night ; that is, there is no fire kept up in the stove. The 
 chicks hover on the sand, and are covered with a "mother 
 board," about six inches above the sand. The heat from their 
 bodies and the warm sand is ample. They do not crowd and 
 do not get chilled. 
 
 From the brooder-house we climbed a hill, from the top 
 of which we could view the whole ranch of 100 acres, and 
 its eighteen colonies, containing 1500 Brown Leghorns. From 
 the hill we could see a man plowing around the houses of a 
 colony, and sowing grain, and another hauling water on a sled 
 with two horses. The colonies are not stationed at regular 
 intervals, and some are only eight or ten rods apart, and yet 
 the fowls know their own house, and do not leave it. The 
 
POULTRY METHODS AT PETALUMA. 
 
 89 
 
 roosting and laying-houses, of which there are three in each 
 colony, are moved about occasionally, and the droppings are 
 scattered over the adjacent grain land. Soft food is given 
 them every two days, and a water-fountain at each colony holds 
 a two-days' supply of water. A hopper of grain is kept be- 
 fore them all the time. The land immediately about the roosts 
 is sown several times each year. The last time, corn is plowed 
 in and barley sown on top. The fowls eat off the barley, and 
 then the corn comes up, and they have green food and some 
 shade all summer ; otherwise they have no protection from sun, 
 wind or rain, except their roosts and the laying-houses. It 
 is very windy so near the coast, and, sometimes, the fowls 
 are compelled to seek shelter in their houses, yet Mr. Nisson 
 says that they do as well on the west side of the hill as they 
 do on the east, where the wind is not so strong. Mr. Nisson 
 raises grain on his hundred acres, all of which goes for chicken- 
 feed, and he has to buy more. Last year his feed bill amounted 
 to $2000. Besides raising broilers and eggs for market, Mr. 
 Nisson also offers stock and eggs for sale from his select col- 
 onies, for which he claims the desirable merit of hardiness, as 
 well as other points that go to make up good Brown Leghorns, 
 and, while his fancy has led him to keep the Brown variety 
 only, he still claims equal hardiness for the White variety after 
 a thorough trial on the same ground now occupied by his 
 flocks. 
 
 In answer to an inquiry as to present methods in the great 
 egg country of Sonoma and Marin counties, Mr. Nisson writes 
 as follows: 
 
 "The colony system is still practiced by a large and suc- 
 cessful class of poultrymen all through these two counties, 
 where poultry is kept in large numbers of from 700 to 7000. 
 Moreover, it would be hard to persuade them that it is not 
 the best way to handle poultry. 
 
90 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 "Most of them keep the Leghorn, and you will find some 
 flocks as well up in fancy points as a fancier could wish ; but 
 laying it has got to be first and foremost. 
 
 "When we set eggs, we use from one to five cases at a time, 
 and, of course, in incubators. Eggs for hatching, from good 
 stock, bring from three to ten cents per dozen above the mar- 
 ket price. Yet there are some who sell at from-$i to $3 per 
 setting. 
 
 "The colony system is used only on farms large enough to 
 make it practicable. Hundreds of poultrymen in and near 
 Petaluma, with limited space, must use pens. 
 
 "I have myself, after having sold my ranch in Two Rock 
 Valley, bought land here in Petaluma, and am therefore not 
 using the colony system, but have my land divided up in pens 
 of various sizes." 
 
 In talking with Mr. Nisson a few days ago, he remarked 
 that he was only .keeping poultry in a small way now, and 
 had only incubator capacity for 5000 eggs at a time. If that 
 is "small," we would be pleased to see more "large" plants. 
 
 THE GUINEA FOWL HER WORTH AND HABITS. 
 
 One of the most valuable, and yet one of the most neg- 
 lected, factors of the poultry yard is the guinea fowl. The 
 reason for this state of affairs is due to the fact that but few 
 people know or realize the true worth of this peculiar, yet val- 
 uable, bird. Let us look at her and see wherein her good 
 points lie. 
 
 She is a persistent layer, scarcely, if ever, missing a day- 
 Sundays and holidays included. The eggs, while seemingly 
 
THE GUINEA FOWL HER WORTH AND HABITS. 
 
 91 
 
 small, are, in reality, nearly as large and afford quite as much 
 eating as the average hen's egg, for the reason that the shell 
 is full. This may seem a little strange to the person who has 
 not compared the two; but if you will take a guinea's egg 
 and a common-sized hen's egg and break the two in a plate 
 or any other flat dish, you will see that there is but slight dif- 
 ference in size. Then, again, in quality they are far supe- 
 rior to hen's eggs ; but there is little sale for them, because of 
 their apparent deficiency in size. 
 
 Another very valuable feature of the guinea is one to which 
 many people seriously object, and that is their "continual 
 racket" ; but right here is the secret of their value. That "con- 
 tinual racket" is not so continual as one might suppose. Their 
 never-ceasing cry of "buckwheat," "buckwheat," is no more 
 annoying than the quacking of a duck. But the ear-piercing 
 screech (a characteristic of the bird) is only occasioned by 
 the approach of danger. This is their only means of defense, 
 and while they are defending themselves, the other fowls are 
 safe as well. There is no danger of chickens being carried 
 off by hawks if one keeps a few guineas, for upon the ap- 
 proach of Mr. Hawk, he is greeted by such a volley of screams 
 and heart-rending cries as to frighten him away. Should he 
 be daring enough to come on, he will be met in the air by the 
 guinea, who will soon give him to understand that it is to his 
 best interest to leave and that without delay. 
 
 Many people are of the opinion that, although the guinea 
 lays a great many eggs, she steals her nest where it is impos- 
 sible to find it, unless by chance one stumbles upon it. 
 This is true in a measure so far as the stealing of the nest 
 is concerned but this drawback is very easily overcome by 
 simply studying their habits a little. Mrs. Guinea is very 
 clever in the selection of a depository for her fruit, but she 
 has a very unwise habit unwise for her own good for when 
 
92 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCK IKS. 
 
 she is sitting on the nest she will, every few minutes, utter a 
 peculiar cry, which is entirely different from any other. If 
 one will observe this, the nest is very easily found. 
 
 The guinea has many peculiar traits of character. What- 
 ever one does, they all do. Especially is this true among the 
 young. If one takes a notion that the sight would be better 
 from the top of the fence and flies up there, they all follow 
 suit without delay, and when one gets ready to fly down, they 
 are all ready. Should some apparent danger present itself 
 or should something out of the ordinary take place, a loucj 
 cry is raised by one member of the flock, and just that instant 
 the leader is joined by all the rest.. When the little fellows 
 are hatched, they greatly resemble the little prairie chicken, or 
 grouse, and their first feathers are brown, much like those 
 of the prairie chicken ; but when about two or three months old, 
 they shed these brown feathers, and they are replaced by the 
 blue and white-spotted ones. 
 
 As a table fowl, the guinea is not so valuable, as the flesh 
 is dark, more like that of wild birds, but when young, is very 
 good eating. No poultry yard especially on the farm is 
 complete without a few of these pretty fowls. If they have 
 their liberty which they are very likely to have, unless their 
 wings are clipped they need never be fed, as they are great 
 foragers, and will make their own living without asking as- 
 sistance from anyone. F. W. HAWES. 
 
 Oxnard, Cal., January 30, 1902. 
 
 FEEDING DUCKS. 
 
 The food of the duck is both vegetable and animal in na- 
 ture. In the wild state, it gathers its food from brooks and 
 
FEEDING DUCKS. 
 
 marshes, consisting of flag, grasses, small fishes, water in- 
 sects, etc. When the birds are raised in confinement, this 
 diet must, in a measure, be imitated to get the most satisfac- 
 tory results. The duck has no crop, the food passing directly 
 from the throat to the gizzard, and as a consequence the food 
 must be in a soft, mushy state. Too much hard food, such as 
 grain, does not agree with these birds, and they cannot thrive 
 on it. While some raisers use a small allowance of grain, 
 others do not, and it has not been proved to be of any advan- 
 tage to feed it. Soft food is their natural diet, together with 
 grasses, vegetables, and animal food. The proper selection of 
 the food is extremely important to secure the rapid growth 
 of the duck, and the ingredients of the food must be such as 
 will afford a well-balanced and substantial ration. As a 
 whole, it may be said that the rations used by the largest 
 duck raisers are essentially the same, differing only in the 
 quantities used in the mixing. Investigations show the real 
 values of the food to be the same for producing rapid growth 
 and early development. The duckling grows twice as rap- 
 idly, and is a much heavier eater than the chick, and to pro 
 duce the best results, its food must be such as will be easily 
 assimilated. The various methods of feeding given in this 
 bulletin are recommended for raising ducks successfully. 
 
 It costs from 6 to 12 cents a pound to raise a duck for mar- 
 ket at ten weeks of age. The cost of feed is from 4>^ to 5 
 cents a pound, and that of labor, etc., is from 4 to 8 cents a 
 pound. It costs from $1.75 to $2.50 each to keep breeding 
 ducks a year. 
 
 The three different methods of feeding ducks are as fol- 
 lows : (i) Feeding ducks for market (ten weeks old); (2) 
 feeding young ducks to be kept as breeders; (3) feeding old 
 ducks. The first method, for the sake of convenience and to 
 
94 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 explain more fully the composition of the rations, is subdi 
 vided into four parts, as follows : 
 
 (1) From time of hatching to five days old, provide the 
 following mixture : Cracker or bread crumbs and corn meal 
 equal parts by measure; hard-boiled eggs, 15 per cent of the 
 total bulk of crackers and meal; sand, 5 per cent of the total 
 of crackers and meal. Mix with water or milk, and feed four 
 times a day. 
 
 (2) From five to twenty days old, the following mixture: 
 Wheat bran, two parts by measure; corn meal, one part; rolled 
 oats, 50 per cent of this bulk ; beef scraps, 5 per cent ; sand, 5 
 per cent; green food, 10 per cent. Mix with water to a dry, 
 crumbly state and feed four times a day. 
 
 (3) From twenty to forty-two days old, the following mix- 
 ture : Wheat bran, two parts by measure ; corn meal, one part ; 
 beef scraps 5 per cent of this bulk; sand, 5 per cent; green 
 food, 10 per cent. Mix with water to a dry crumbly state, and 
 feed four times a day. 
 
 (4) From forty-two to seventy days old, the following 
 mixture : Corn meal, two parts by measure ; wheat bran, one 
 part ; beef scraps, 10 per cent of this bulk ; coarse sand or grit, 
 5 per cent ; green food, ten per cent. Mix with water to a dry 
 crumbly state and fed four times a day. 
 
 The hours for feeding are 6 a. m., 10 a. m., 2 p. m., and 6 
 p. m. 
 
 Below is given another system for feeding ducks for market- 
 ing at ten weeks of age. This system is practically the same as 
 the one given above, differing only in the ingredients used 
 for the first two parts, or until the duckling is twenty days 
 old. The method given below is used successfully by one of the 
 largest duck raisers on Long Island. It is divided into three 
 parts, as follows : 
 
 (i) From time of hatching to seven days old, feed equal 
 
FEEDING DUCKS. 
 
 95 
 
 parts by measure, corn meal, wheat bran and No 2 grade flour, 
 and 10 per cent of this bulk coarse sand. Mix with water to a 
 dry crumbly state and feed four times a day. 
 
 (2) From seven to fifty-six days old, feed equal parts by 
 measure, corn meal, wheat bran, and No. 2 grade flour; 10 per 
 cent of this bulk, beef scraps; ten per cent coarse sand, and 
 \2.y 2 per cent green foods (green rye, oats, clover, etc.). Mix 
 with water to a dry crumbly state, and feed four times a day. 
 
 (3) From fifty-six to seventy days old, feed two parts by 
 measure, corn meal ; one part wheat bran ; one part No. 2 grade 
 flour; \2.y 2 per cent of this, bulk beef scraps; 10 per cent 
 coarse sand; 12^/2 per cent green food. Mix with water to a 
 dry crumbly state and feed three times a day morning, noon 
 and night. Give last feed an hour before sundown. 
 
 When ducks are raised for breeders they are fed differently 
 from those intended for market. They are not forced so much 
 as are the latter, and less fattening food is given them. The 
 corn meal and beef scraps are reduced to one-half the quantity 
 used in the above rations. The following is an excellent ration : 
 Equal parts corn meal, wheat bran, green food, 5 per cent 
 beef scraps, and 5 per cent coarse sand or grit. 
 
 A ration for breeding (laying) ducks is recommended as 
 follows : 50 per cent, by measure, corn meal ; 1 5 per cent wheat 
 bran; 15 per cent green foods (cooked vegetables, such as 
 potatoes, turnips, etc.) ; 12 per cent beef scraps, and 8 per cent 
 coarse sand or grit. Mix with water to a dry crumbly state 
 and feed twice a day morning and night. After the breeding 
 season is over and the ducks have stopped laying they are 
 changed from this to the equal-parts ration, as given above, 
 for ducklings from seven to fifty-six days old. 
 
96 POULTKY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The White Leghorn is not indigenous to the soil and climate 
 of California, but it is certainly adapted. This fact is appreciated 
 by those who have reared the White Leghorn in the eastern 
 states, where it is often a question of keeping the birds in the 
 cellar during a portion of the winter or having them appear in 
 the spring minus more or less of their head ornaments. I 
 would not be surprised at any time to hear eastern fanciers 
 advocating frost-combed Leghorns as the "proper thing" as 
 much as bob-tailed fox-terriers. 
 
 The Leghorns are natives of Italy, and it is impossible in a 
 few decades to entirely readjust their constitutions to cold 
 climates. However, I do not believe there is a clime where 
 they will not hold their own in egg production, but their highest 
 production is naturally found in mild climates, of which there 
 is none more favorable than the Italy of America. Here they 
 are at home. They can range for the greater portion of theii 
 food the year around, which they love to do. Here it is even 
 possible, though not best, for them to go without shelter the 
 entire year. Here, with an alfalfa patch to roam in and a 
 limb to roost on, their production will exceed that in the eastern 
 states where expensive buildings and a long season of grain 
 feeding are necessary. By inexpensive shelter and a little grain 
 their production in this climate can be still farther increased. 
 
 In the east, according to the best available data, there is one 
 Leghorn in every eight fowls turkeys, ducks, and geese in- 
 cluded. 
 
 According to the same data, there is, in California, one Leg- 
 horn in every four fowls, or exactly double the proportion. 
 This is a large showing considering the large variety of fowls, 
 
THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 97 
 
 and proves the special adaptation of the Leghorn to this climate. 
 No other class of fowls is raised in such large numbers and 
 none with as much success. 
 
 HUMBERT II. AND MATES. WHITE LEGHORN PEN NO. 4. 
 LYTLE POULTRY RANCH. 
 
 Of the total number of Leghorns the White form nearly one- 
 half. They are the favorites. They average a little larger 
 because inbreeding is not so often resorted to as it is with the 
 Brown and Buff varieties in order to get the proper shade of 
 plumage. The popularity of the White is doubtless still further 
 accounted for by the impressive sight of a flock of White Leg- 
 
98 POULTRY WKST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 horns on a green. Such a sight has, without question, in- 
 fluenced many a one in his selection. 
 
 None should let the thought that the Leghorn is not a good 
 meat or market fowl deter him from keeping them. I have 
 sold White Leghorn chicks at ten weeks of age that weighed 
 one an one-half pounds each, which is as much as the chicks 
 of any breed can be brought to weigh at that age. At any age 
 a Leghorn will bring as much in proportion to its cost of pro- 
 duction as any other fowl. Ten pounds of Leghorn meat can 
 be procured as cheaply as ten pounds of Plymouth Rock, Wyan- 
 dotte, Brahma or Cochin meat and will bring as much per 
 pound. I do not say I would select the Leghorn if I intended 
 to do a large broiler, fryer or roaster business. The shape of 
 the Leghorn is not quite so good at the fryer age, and the 
 Leghorn will not, of course, make a large roaster, although 
 two Leghorns will equal any large roaster both in quantity 
 and quality. The disadvantages of the Leghorn along the 
 meat line are, therefore, small in comparison with other con- 
 siderations. 
 
 But the successful rearing of any class of fowls is not at- 
 tained without study and effort. The way is not an easy one, 
 but if persistently followed will bring one to the desired goal. 
 What I shall say in this article is intended for the one who 
 contemplates rearing White Leghorns for profit, the one who is 
 in earnest and who will do whatever is necessary to succeed. 
 I shall endeavor to outline the essentials of a progressive and 
 profitable business. 
 
 In the first place, the prime requisite of success is space. 
 I believe it is a greater mistake to try to raise fowls on too 
 limited an area than it would be to try to raise any other kind 
 of live stock in close quarters. For a number of reasons, cattle, 
 sheep or hogs can be raised more successfully in comparatively 
 small yards than can fowls. In the first place fowls breathe 
 
THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 99 
 
 more rapidly, live at a higher temperature and consume more 
 food in proportion to their weight than do the larger animals 
 and are in every way more active. For these reasons they need 
 more proportionate space for their daily evolutions. 
 
 RICHELIEU AND MAThS. WHITE LKGHORN PEN NO. 8. 
 LYTLE POULTRY RANCH. 
 
 In the second place, they need at least sufficient space to grow 
 all the green food they will eat. A fowl prefers to pick its 
 own green food at will. 
 
 In the third place, they need more space than merely 
 enough to supply what green they will eat. They are 
 
100 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THK ROCKIES. 
 
 better off when not compelled to eat the large, coarse 
 spears or stalks of any kind of green. Their natural 
 food is the tender spears and the leaves of the larger 
 stalks. The area upon which fowls are kept should be 
 large enough to allow the full grown alfalfa, or what- 
 ever the green may be, to be cut occasionally for larger stock. 
 In this way there will be no waste. The full production of 
 the land will be secured. The fowls will not trample down 
 tall, green food. In the main they will simply have paths 
 through it. For this reason alone it is evident that fowls re- 
 quire more area in proportion to their size than do larger ani- 
 mals, for larger animals are well provided for when they have 
 sufficient space to furnish just what green food they will eat. 
 In the fourth place, fowls should have more area in propor- 
 tion to their size in order to enable them to get all the animal 
 food in the way of bugs and worms which they require. A 
 piece of ground barely sufficient to pasture them will not fur- 
 nish sufficient animal food. I know that there are a great many 
 places where fowls are kept in a small space with fairly good 
 success, and occasionally with marked success. I have done 
 so myself. Sometimes the success is real, but often it is only 
 apparent. Even where it is real it cannot last long, for the 
 effect of unnatural conditions is bound to tell sooner or later. 
 Whether or not an undertaking is profitable does not depend 
 upon the amount of production but upon the value of the pro- 
 duct over and above the cost of production. The production 
 may be large and yet the profit wanting. Cost of production 
 is much greater under unnatural conditions. For instance, 
 the cost of the green food is much greater where labor is neces- 
 sary to prepare it for the fowls. No inconsiderable amount of 
 time is required to cut it, to run it through a feed mill and to 
 feed it to the fowls. All this time is saved where the fowls pick 
 their own green food. I do not mean to say that green food can 
 
THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 101 
 
 not be cut and fed to the fowls with profit, but I do mean to say 
 that the profit will be greater where the other plan is pursued, 
 and that it should be the ultimate aim of every poultry keeper. 
 
 The same is true of the fowls' animal food, and to an even 
 greater degree. Good meat, meal, blood meal or ground bone 
 can be fed with profit, but their cost in both cash and labor 
 reduce the profit to a moderate amount. Naturally everyone 
 desires to pursue the course which will yield the greater profit. 
 There will also be indirect profit in giving fowls sufficient range 
 to enable them to get all the bugs and worms they need. It 
 is their natural food and they will be healthier, and in every 
 way thrive better upon it; first because of the exercise neces- 
 sary to obtain it, and, second, because of the absence of objec- 
 tionable features such as uncertain ingredients in the meal or 
 blood meal, or fat, and sharp splinters of bone in the fresh 
 ground bone. From practical experience I can recommend 
 meat and blood meal and ground bone as profitable, and often 
 necessary, poultry foods, but I can recommend the natural food 
 still more highly. The natural animal food will give the health- 
 iest, the most productive and the most profitable fowl. And 
 that is what we all desire. 
 
 The question of housing is next in importance. 
 
 As already stated a fowl can get along without any housing 
 in this climate, and it can be said most emphatically that they 
 are far better off roosting in a tree or on a fence, than in a 
 poorly ventilated house, or a crowded house, or an unclean 
 house. But if these objectionable features are avoided, fowls 
 can be housed with advantage and profit. Protection from 
 rain and wind means a saving in feed, better health and in- 
 creased production. 
 
 In planning a poultry house one should aim to give all the 
 space necessary for the health of the fowls and at the same 
 time not allow any superfluous space. If unnecessary material 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 and labor are put into the building the fowls will not be able 
 to return a good interest on the investment. Five square feet 
 of floor space for each fowl is sufficient, many poultry writers 
 notwithstanding, and it is all one can afford to allow, even 
 in breeding pens. Three square feet of floor space to each 
 
 BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCK PEN NO. 21, CONTAINING FORTY FEMALES 
 A~ND THREE MALES. LYTLE POULTRY RANCH. 
 
 fowl is often sufficient in houses intended for fifty or more 
 laying hens. In other words a building 10x15 feet is large 
 enough for two breeding pens of fifteen fowls each, or a single 
 pen of fifty laying hens. 
 
THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 103 
 
 The walls of the building, to a point at least one foot below 
 the roosts, should be tight. Below that there should be large 
 ventilators on all sides of the building, or the entire space from 
 one foot below the roosts to the ground may be left open, the 
 building resting on posts. A building with large ventilators is 
 shown in cut 3. In either case the wind passes through be- 
 neath the fowls, carrying out the impure air and furnishing a 
 constant supply of fresh air. The air from the fowls at first 
 rises and then, as it cools, settles to the floor and is carried 
 out with the current of air which also supplies the fresh air. 
 In this way the fowls are never in a draught, which is essential, 
 and at the same time they have the advantage of the impure air 
 removed and a constant supply of fresh air, which is also very 
 essential, even more so than the avoidance of a draught. It 
 any ventilation is put in the roof it should be a regular chimney 
 top ventilator, so that there can be no draught down through it. 
 
 The building should have a good shake or shingle roof with 
 twelve to eighteen inches pitch to every three feet of hori- 
 zontal space covered. Some may consider such a roof expen- 
 sive, but even a good roof will leak too much. 
 
 At least one-third of the south side of the building should be 
 glass. It is a good plan to place the roosts and dropping boards 
 also along this side of the building. If the window or windows 
 are properly arranged, the sun will then sweep all the roosts 
 and dropping boards in the course of the day. 
 
 I consider the question of board or ground floor, optional. 
 If one desires to use scratching material, board floors are prac- 
 tically necessary, as straw, mixed with dirt, becomes damp 
 and musty. Large ventilators, instead of sides entirely open 
 at bottom, will have to be used with board floors and scratching 
 material. Otherwise too much rain can enter. 
 
 I do not consider scratching material necessary. If the fowls 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THK ROCKIES. 
 
 have plenty of space to roam over they will get plenty of ex- 
 ercise, and can be fed their grain in a trough. 
 
 A building entirely open around the bottom and without 
 floor is decidedly cheaper. 
 
 The question of food has been more or less discussed in con- 
 nection with yarding and housing. In addition, a number of 
 points remain to be considered : First, in the natural state a 
 fowl begins the day with an empty craw which it proceeds to 
 fill, and which by night time, and not before, is ordinarily well 
 stocked. If a fowl is fed in the morning it does not need to 
 hustle for its food, and indolent habits are induced. Some 
 may say feed them in litter and make them scratch for their 
 feed. To be sure that is better than feeding them their morning 
 feed in a trough, but even from litter the food is easily ob- 
 tained. Still more important the fowl should be out on its 
 range hustling for its own food instead of eating up what has 
 cost much human labor to produce. The exercise in the fresh 
 air will enable the fowl to make the best use of what it gets, 
 and in that there is a great deal. In all life it is not the amount 
 of food consumed but the use that is made of it. The system of 
 a perfectly healthy fowl will get more good out of one kernel 
 of wheat and produce more out of it than a quasi healthy fowl 
 will out of two kernels of wheat. 
 
 Where the range is what it should be it will not be necessary 
 to give the fowl any noon meal either. What has just been said 
 with regard to a morning meal can be said with equal force 
 with regard to a noon meal. During the day the fowl will find 
 all the food it needs or should have. Any more would be a 
 detriment, making the fowl sluggish, and adding expense. 
 
 In the evening the fowls should be fed grain in a trough 
 and allowed to have all they will eat in the space of twenty 
 or thirty minutes. As their craws are already fairly wen filled, 
 they will only eat what they need in the way of grain food. 
 
THE WHITE LEGHORN IN CALIFORNIA. 105 
 
 This will supplement what they have found during the day, 
 and they will eat little or much according to the appetitie they 
 have remaining. Their day's work is done and they should 
 be allowed to have all they need to supply the requirements of 
 a full and abundant life and production. Such an amount 
 they will take in a few minutes time after the food is placed 
 before them. Corn and wheat are, of course, the staple foods, 
 and should be fed alternate evenings, with a feed of barley once 
 a week. Any food remaining should be removed at the end of 
 half an hour at the latest, for after that time the fowls will 
 simply eat because the food is before them, and not because 
 they want it or need it. It will simply tend to gorge them and 
 do them more harm than good. 
 
 During the night the fowl will readily take care of its craw 
 full of food and in the morning will be ready for another day 
 of activity, production and, in a large measure, self-support. 
 
 In connection with the food there are two other items which 
 require close attention. : They are the water and grit supplies. 
 The simplest and best watering device is the ordinary milk 
 pan. I consider it the best because there is only one piece to 
 clean and because its shape is such that it is easily cleaned. 
 The pan should have a stationary cover beyond which only a 
 lip of the pan should extend, so that the fowls cannot soil the 
 water, nor the sun warm it too much in summer. 
 
 The grit supply should consist of two kinds. A box of com- 
 mon gravel should be kept before the fowls. It is cheap grit, 
 and at the same time relished by them. They should also have 
 a box of some kind of lime-shell, such as oyster or clam shell. 
 They need this in their business as there is not enough lime 
 in gravel. 
 
 Avoid broken crockery and glass, especially glass, for the 
 sharp splinters will often pierce the gizard and cause the death 
 of the fowl. Charcoal is a good article to keep before the 
 
106 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 fowls, and should be, whenever its cost and the labor of prepa- 
 ration are not too great. 
 
 In conclusion let me say a word in regard to the disposal or 
 sale of the stock and eggs. In the first place, keep thorough- 
 bred fowls and only thoroughbred fowls. A flock of uniform 
 color is much more sightly and there is much more satisfaction 
 in working with them. There is an incentive to see how well 
 one can do with them, in perfecting their shape and plumage 
 and in increasing their production. 
 
 In addition there is always call for thoroughbred stock and 
 eggs, which can be sold at good prices. Thoroughbred fowls 
 will bring at least twelve dollars a dozen for breeders, while 
 mixed fowls will not bring more than five or six dollars a 
 dozen for any purpose. Thoroughbred eggs will bring at least 
 one dollar a setting when other eggs are selling for twenty 
 cents a dozen. In short, if you do not want to become inter- 
 ested in your poultry, and do not want your business to grow 
 and expand, keep fowls that are not thoroughbreds. 
 
 A flock of thoroughbred fowls is sure to become known, and 
 will become a source of pleasure and profit to its owner. 
 
 G. I. LYTLE. 
 
 MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I am only an old rooster. Don't blame me for that. I can't 
 help it and wouldn't if I could. I wouldn't be a hen or woman 
 for anything, and so far as my experience with men goes, they 
 are mostly feather-headed cranks that can't be depended on. 
 For instance, let me tell you about my first master: He knew 
 that he thought he knew all about poultry raising, but he 
 didn't know that he didn't know the first principles. 
 
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 107 
 
 His mother had raised chickens in Massavania I think it 
 was, and he was sure her methods would be all right for Cali- 
 fornia. So he bought a large number of fowls of all kinds and 
 no kind, mostly no kind "like mother had." He let his poultry 
 roost in trees "like mother did." It kept them vigorous, he 
 said. He let all kinds and ages run together "because mixed 
 chickens and scrubs are more vigorous than the pampered, 
 high bred, pure stock," he said. 
 
 He had such poor success along this line, however, that he 
 had to buy some eggs for hatching, and from such eggs I and 
 my mates came forth. 
 
 We were, of course, hatched by a hen, and though I don't 
 want to be hatched that way again, yet let me tell you my mother 
 was as good an old yellow hen as ever trod on chicks. 
 
 How well I remember her great foot getting across my neck 
 once and how I wished I could "raise the wind" enough to 
 peep, but just as I thought my finish was come, a louse bit her 
 on the neck and she lifted her foot to scratch. I was saved. 
 I have never known a louse to do any good since, and surely I 
 have had experience with them. 
 
 My poor old mother did her best to take care of us, but 
 lice clung to our feathers by day and mites made the night hid- 
 eous. Our master said we would dust the lice off when we got 
 older, and once he greased our mother's feathers with sulphur 
 and lard, and I just wished he had to sleep in that kind of a 
 bed himself. Of the ten of us, one fell into a pail of sour 
 swill that we were expected to drink from. It died. Three 
 were squeezed to death under mother's feet. One a rat got, 
 and the rest of us picked lice until mother wanted to get mar- 
 ried again. Then came a hard time for us. How we did 
 plead with mother to come back to us, but no ! she left us one 
 cold night and took the bed with her. 
 
 Our owner heard us crying, and drove us all into the rasp- 
 
108 
 
 POULTRY WKST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 berry patch so that we would learn to roost on the branches; 
 but we all huddled in a bunch of weeds till morning and kept 
 each other warm. 
 
 After that we found an old box that we crept into after night, 
 but it was awfully cold "round the edges." I remember how 
 m y bigger brother used to crowd me out of a warm spot and 
 take the place in the center of the bunch himself; but one 
 
 night he got too warm and sweaty and in the morning it was 
 very cold, so he caught a bad cold, and, some way, it went to 
 his head and Oh ! what a sight ! His eyes were swollen and sore ; 
 his nose refused to do its work ; his throat got sore, and such a 
 smell came from him that we could hardly stand it. He died. 
 Then the sister that I thought the most of was taken the same 
 way and soon went the same road. Two more died from cold 
 and lice, and I, alone, was left. I had to scratch for a living 
 then I tell you, for master always fed us all together, and if I 
 had any food, it was picked up between the pecks of hens or 
 from between* the toes of the roosters. Still I kept on growing 
 
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 109 
 
 and bye and bye I could fly into a pepper tree to roost, and I 
 will admit that the mites were not so bad there as where we first 
 roosted on the ground. I always did hate it though to have 
 to get up and turn round in the night, if the wind changed, to 
 keep it from blowing under my feathers. I grew to be pretty 
 big for I was from large parentage, and how proud I was when 
 I first made an attempt to crow, and actually succeeded. It 
 was in the early morning and all the older roosters were crow- 
 ing their level best and they turned to look my way and scold 
 when I crowed, so I made up my mind I would crow harder 
 next time, and I made such a strong and vigorous effort that 
 I lost my balance and fell to the earth with a screech. 
 
 Then the hens all laughed and the oldest cock made a sage 
 remark about pride before destruction and a haughty spirit 
 before a fall. 
 
 They had little time to poke fun at me, however, for that 
 night I was sold to a lady by the name of Miss Seek Advice. 
 It would take me a long time to tell you all I went through 
 during her ownership, and I shall never try to do it, but I did 
 pass some very uncomfortable times there to be sure. 
 
 My mistress was a very estimable lady who had moulted sev- 
 eral times since her youth ; but I never thought less because of 
 the years she had scratched out. Indeed, having now acquired 
 with my age, more of an ability to distinguish the good or bad 
 traits in my human friends, I took quite a liking to my new 
 owner. Her motives were of the best and if she made us un- 
 comfortable she, too, was sorry. 
 
 Her very kindness often caused trouble and even brought 
 disaster to our roost, for here we had a roost. My mistress 
 had "started small, intending to work up," and mostly she was 
 worked up. I was soon the head of the flock which made me 
 the husband of ten wives. 
 
110 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 Someone told her that ten wives was the right number for 
 one cockerel to have, so ten it was. 
 
 None of my wives were of my color or shape, but they all 
 declared themselves to be well bred. I believed it. We were to 
 produce crossed chicks that were to lay like Mediterraneans, 
 be as heavy as Asiatics and as vigorous and compact as Ameri- 
 cans. 
 
 Mistress was told that she must have a tight house with no 
 drafts over her chickens, so our house was as tight as a tomb, 
 and just as foul of smell. 
 
 Perhaps you think we can't smell and that air with the oxy- 
 gen all worn out of it is agreeable to us. Why my sense of 
 smell is so acute that I wouldn't stay in a human house over 
 night for anything. Humans can't smell or they never would 
 eat and drink the things they do. Coffee and ice cream may 
 smell and taste very good to you but they are not to be com- 
 pared in flavor or aroma to a nice fresh bunch of juicy little 
 white worms that we get from good ripe meat. I am just 
 telling you this to show you that tastes and smell differ; and 
 now one more idea that may be new to you : Nothing in the air 
 is more disagreeable or deleterious to an animal of almost any 
 kind than the discharges and exhalations from its own body 
 or that of its kind. 
 
 For these reasons have I wished many a night that I could 
 pick^a hole in the side of our sealed up house and let in a 
 draft of fresh air. I was th-nki'v of this one day as I stood on 
 one foot overlooking my hens, when my mistress came out with 
 a strange man who proved to be a carpenter. Someone had 
 told her that we needed more air in the house and that we must 
 be kept dry at the same time, so taking the advice of several 
 friends she had the roof of our house raised till it looked 
 like the tower over the "angel's flight," and the sides were filled 
 in with latticework. 
 
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ni 
 
 I liked the looks of it and hoped for fresh air now, and of 
 course I got it. I was reminded of my former experience of 
 sleeping in trees, but this was better in that we had a roof over 
 us, and even a lath helps to break the wind. Our roosts were 
 raised so high however, to keep us dry, that we several times 
 hurt our feet when we jumped down in the morning; indeed 
 two of my plumpest wives were permanently lamed. 
 
 When the carpenter got our house opened so he could see 
 the inside, he called the mistress to show her little mounds of 
 red mites in every corner and in every nail hole. If he had 
 had eyes and a nose as sharp as mine he could have seen germs 
 of consumption and diphtheria and all sorts of ailments right 
 among the mites and nits, and if we had been kept in that tight 
 house when the little chicks came along there would have been 
 a "mysterious taking off" among our family. 
 
 As it was, we came nea-r all being taken off, for our mistress 
 hurried to ask her neighbors what was the best thing to do for 
 mites and she got advice both free and costly in the same chunk. 
 
 One said, "put in ashes" ; another said "whitewash the coop." 
 Another advised the free use of insect powder. Still another 
 insisted that painting the roosts with crude petroleum was 
 cheap and effective. Another knew of a prepared lice killer 
 that killed lice with its fumes., while a dear friend said that 
 coal oil and carbolic acid would do the work. Uncle Zeb told 
 her that tobacco juice would kill mites, lice, ants, fleas, rose- 
 bugs, roaches, spiders, plant lice, slugs, coddling moth, black 
 scale, and but by this time she had her crop full of advice, and 
 went away by herself to digest it. The result was a deluge of 
 ashes and six kinds of guaranteed lice powders thrown into 
 our house, followed by a spray of whitewash in which the lime 
 had been slacked with tobacco water, and into this was dumped 
 coal oil, carbolic acid, lice killer, and crude petroleum until the 
 
112 
 
 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 fumes were like those of the Stygian depths, and our sense of 
 smell was far more acute than we wished it was. 
 
 One nice little wife fell off the roost before morning, and the 
 rest of us had sore eyes and sore feet for many a day. 
 
 The mites mostly died or hid in our feathers, but by the time 
 the house became cleared of the horrible smells the mites had 
 again begun to build their nests and rear their numerous off- 
 spring, while the old germs of many kinds formed new habita- 
 tions on the ruins of the old like the human Carthagenians. 
 
 I wanted to tell the mistress that the worst enemy of these 
 pests was sunshine, and that their deeds were so evil that they 
 preferred darkness to light; but I couldn't make her under- 
 stand. She was not getting as many eggs as she thought we 
 ought to furnish her so she asked her neighbors the reason 
 why. Of course they told her ; they knew. 
 
 One told her a wheat ration was the best for laying hens, 
 so we had wheat three times a day till it seemed that my tail 
 was made of wheat straw and my eyes were filled with chaff. 
 Still the eggs were too few. On another's advice she tried a 
 corn diet, and we ate corn, corn, corn, until one hen was too 
 fat to fly up to our high perch, and I became too lazy to crow 
 more than thirty cents' worth. 
 
 Still advice was sought, and of course found: We had 
 green stuff of all sorts cabbages, onions, tomatoes, beets and 
 every kind of grass, with a little bran for tonic or something; 
 I don't know just what the bran was for. 
 
 Then we got thin fast enough, but the egg basket was thinner 
 than ever. 
 
 We were then treated to a diet of table scraps, but in order 
 to get enough of this food, several of the neighbors were asked 
 to contribute; also a village boarding house. 
 
 These places were visited every other day and when we re- 
 ceived the messes donated, the sour condition of the food re- 
 
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. H3 
 
 minded us of church donations which were used as a means of 
 proving the text : "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 This diet so nearly disheartened me that I longed for the 
 hatchet, and the eggs laid wouldn't hatch at all. I never blamed 
 the eggs. 
 
 Uncle Zeb read in the paper that a certain compound, called 
 "White Stodge" would make hens lay whether or no, so away 
 went the mistress to buy "White Stodge," but like Mother 
 Hubbard she still found a bare cupboard. Other tonics and 
 egg fcods were tried with like results until the poor woman 
 sold us all to a Mrs. Read well, who kept us until a few weeks 
 ago. 
 
 This new mistress seemed to have bought fowls from many 
 people, most of whom had made more failures than money, 
 and seemed to be in the business for the experience they re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Some she bought from Mr. Feedquick, who would toss the 
 hens a few handfuls of grain whenever he happened to think of 
 it, and then turn his back and not look at them again till the 
 "spirit moved him" to repeat. He didn't love chicken? he said, 
 and I am told he soon had few to love. 
 
 Some chickens Mrs. Readwell bought from Mrs. Change, 
 who kept well bred stock but by the time she knew enough 
 about one breed to tell a prize winner from a cull, she would 
 tire of the breed and try another. Among those fowls were 
 some of my most highly respected friends, not to say sweet- 
 hearts. 
 
 As I have told you, I am from good stock myself, and as 
 our mistress was a good judge of the merits of birds, we were 
 well sorted and well mated. 
 
 Our food was not all one sort, but what we most wanted 
 seemed to be what was given. 
 
 If the weather was cold, we had a hot hash for breakfast; 
 
114 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 but the exact style of it was often changed. We ate corn, 
 wheat, vegetables raw and cooked; barley, scraps, bone, 
 greens and whatever else came our way. I soon grew to be 
 glad that I was alive and glad to see my mistress come into the 
 yard at any time for she most always had some nice morsel for 
 us, and would walk around and talk to us as if she was one of 
 us. 
 
 I was glad to notice at the first that she would not let the 
 hens set, not even over night. 
 
 If there is anything I detest it is an old setting hen crabbed, 
 crusty old thing. She is a stirrer up of strife and commotion ; a 
 disturber of the peace of home ; a perfect virago and a breeder 
 of mites. 
 
 So I was pleased to see every setter landed in a yard remote 
 from her own, upon the first indication of the setting fever. 
 All our chicks were hatched by an incubator, and raised in a 
 brooder where they were kept warm and dry and clean and 
 fed just a little less than they wanted of all sorts of food. 
 And there you have the secret of my mistress's success in rais- 
 ing chicks. Our houses were different from those for young 
 chicks, and never by any chance were they allowed to roost 
 with us or eat with us. 
 
 The chick's houses were small affairs about four feet square 
 and one shake (three feet) high, with a comb roof and one 
 whole end up to the eaves, hinged at the bottom so it could 
 be opened clear down to let in the sunshine. The roosts were 
 like an oven grate, all fastened together and could be easily re- 
 moved. The floor was raised, or rather the whole house 
 was raised from the ground a foot, and the floor made slant- 
 ing, almost up to the roosts at the back so that the chicks could 
 not bunch up at the back corners to smother, but would step 
 up on the roosts. These houses were tighter than ours, but a 
 few cracks never killed a healthy, clean chick. 
 
DUCKS. 115 
 
 Our houses were mostly without floors and raised slightly 
 from the ground ; the roosts were like those for the chicks, only 
 placed about two feet from the bottom, and we had more space 
 over our heads. Our houses were not for warmth, and we 
 don't need it, but rather for a dry shelter. 
 
 Some of our houses were larger than others, but all could be 
 opened out to the sun or tipped up for the sunshine to get in. 
 
 A little attention to cleanliness and once in a while a dash of 
 some good disinfectant kept us free from lice, and we scratched 
 a good many dollars' out of the litter thrown into our yards. 
 
 I am getting too old to be of much more use, except for eat- 
 ing, so Mrs. Readwell sold me to a dealer, and I am just waiting 
 here for some decent person to buy me, who will kill me merci- 
 fully and cook me properly. Then I may have it said of me: 
 "He does us good even after death." 
 
 J. H. 
 
 DUCKS. 
 
 Duck culture in California has made so little progress that 
 but few rules of care and management have been discovered 
 as belonging particularly to this Coast. This is not as it should 
 be and the reasons, while not very far to seek, are not well 
 enough understood. Very few raisers of ducks in this country 
 have stuck to the industry for two years, while the vast ma- 
 jority quit the first fall. Under these conditions a goodly num- 
 ber of ducks are raised, but the science of duck-raising makes 
 no progress. 
 
 It is a matter of daily regret among California poultry breed- 
 ers that so few of us are poultry fanciers, and ducks have suf- 
 fered to the extreme in this respect. The writer is acquainted 
 
116 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 with only one man in California who could be called a fancier 
 of ducks, and even he devotes most of his time to other poultry, 
 birds and dogs. In fact, in the eyes of everyone, except a very 
 few park managers and a still smaller number of breeders, 
 ducks are good to eat and that is all. So far then as the Far 
 West is concerned, the success of the duck depends upon the 
 market. Fortunately the number of ducks called for is fairly 
 large. Resident Calif ornians eat but few ducks. The demand 
 comes from tourists and Chinese. The former visit us in win- 
 ter when no ducks are to be had they are willing to pay good 
 prices, but their demand is never satisfied. On the other hand, 
 the thrifty Chinaman takes his ducks when he is able to buy 
 them at his own price, which, owing to the demoralized state 
 of production is the case during the latter part of each season. 
 Unlike chickens, ducks must be marketed when they have 
 reached the desired size ; the breeder cannot afford to feed them 
 until next winter in hopes of a better market. In Los Angeles, 
 in summer, the price of live ducks falls to seven cents a pound ; 
 and often a large percentage of that part of the year's crop 
 which goes to commission houses and dealers is sold at not more 
 than eight cents a pound. In winter and spring prices in the 
 open market reach twelve to fourteen cents for the old and 
 inferior ducks offered then. If some enterprising breeder can 
 arrange to bring his crop on the market in the early spring; 
 if he can produce goo'd young ducks and enough of them so 
 that it will pay him to develop his own market, he can get 
 twenty cents a pound for his output. I do not mean to argue 
 that it is easy to produce ducks out of season, but it would 
 appear that either the seven cent price is ridiculous or the 
 twenty cent price is profitable. Good prices cannot be found in 
 Southern California outside of Los Angeles and the larger 
 towns situated directly on the Coast. Good prices cannot be ob- 
 tained by consigning a shipment of ducks to a commission 
 
PEKIN DUCKS. 
 
 117 
 
 house. The owner must go to town and sell his ducks him- 
 self. If he lives too far away for that, it makes no difference 
 how big a lake there may be in his neighborhood, he had better 
 let duck raising alone. 
 
 We have had a glance at the condition of the market. The 
 next question is the cost of production. This involves the 
 whole science of duck breeding, and would require a larger 
 book than this whole volume to be treated completely; but we 
 will find a few main points, the first of which shall be the se- 
 lection of a breed. Nine breeds are recognized in the Ameri- 
 can Standard; of these four have appeared in California, 
 namely, Pekin, Indian Runner, Muscovy, and Rouen. The 
 last named is also incorrectly called Mallard on account of its 
 resemblance to the wild Mallard in color. 
 
 PEKIN DUCKS. 
 
 These are the ones most raised ; they are the largest, have the 
 best color, grow fastest, and, I think, the majority of duck 
 raisers consider them the best. They are the most noisy of 
 the four and the most timid. In fact, in some flocks, it is 
 hardly possible for the attendant to go among them, especially 
 to catch one, without causing a perfect panic. At such times 
 wings are always made to bleed, and sometimes a wing is 
 wrenched out of shape, a hip dislocated or a duck injured in- 
 ternally. Ten minutes after this crazy display of fear, these 
 same ducks will eat from a pail held in the same attendant's 
 hands. Unfortunately, Pekin ducks are not the only ones who 
 have this peculiarity, but I think they are the worst. 
 
 The average Pekin duck, if well cared for, will lay about 
 140 eggs per year, and during the time that she is laying at 
 
118 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 all, she will lay an egg nearly every day. Thus her full number 
 will be finished within the first six months of the calendar, 
 while during the last six July to December she will bring 
 her keeper nothing but her astonishingly voracious appetite. 
 It is not usually profitable to set the late summer eggs and 
 hatch seven cent ducks, so she must be marketed before the 
 laying season is over, or be kept over till next year, thus being 
 fed twelve month for the sake of what she can do in four or 
 five. In California, Pekin ducks often lay out of season, and 
 I have no doubt that if such individuals were selected and 
 bred from, the important problem of having ducks at the 
 season when they are wanted, could be solved within five 
 years. 
 
 The next most important breed is the Indian Runner the 
 great egg duck. Indian Runner ducks lay more eggs that a hen 
 as a rule, frequently passing the high mark of 200 eggs a year 
 for each duck. They reach a little more than half the weight 
 of the Pekins but will get up to three pounds a proper size for 
 marketing just about as young as the Pekins. I do not think 
 they will average four days longer in coming to market size. 
 With chickens one might disregard this as a trifle, but with 
 ducks this is not a trifle, and the man who keeps his ducks two 
 weeks after they are ready for market, will hardly succeed in 
 the business. 
 
 The most important point in favor of the Indian Runner 
 is that she will lay the year round. To be sure she will gradu- 
 ally quit when she moults but the young ducks will be laying 
 before that time. I have known them to lay at four months 
 and three days old. In the experience of this writer, covering 
 only one season, the fertility of the eggs laid during the moult- 
 ing season by young and old alike, was very bad, at one time 
 yielding only about ten ducklings to the hundred untested 
 eggs. These eggs were laid in September by ducks hatched 
 
PEKIN DUCKS. 
 
 119 
 
 the preceding April. If these ducks had been hatched in 
 January, as they could have been, I believe their eggs would 
 have been fertile in the fall. Other breeders report much better 
 fertility, the next year, from the offspring of these same ducks, 
 still as a rule these early fall eggs do not hatch well. In 
 spite of this trouble it would appear that the Indian Runner 
 is practically the only profitable duck under average California 
 conditions, though we may hope for the development of an 
 egg strain of Pekins. 
 
 The Muscovy duck is popular in California because it was 
 well pushed here several years ago and has simply remained on 
 the ground. It is an exceedingly interesting breed, but, from 
 the market man's point of view, it has nothing to commend it. 
 Its only advantages over the Pekin, are: First, that it has no 
 voice, and so cannot disturb the neighbors with squawking; 
 and, second, that its meat has a characteristic gamey flavor, 
 different from that of any other duck. Some persons are ex- 
 ceedingly fond of Muscovy duck, but it brings no better price 
 in the market. 
 
 The Rouen duck is a French breed, in color closely resem- 
 bling the American Wild Mallard, and in size, shape and use- 
 fulness, similar to the Pekin. It is generally acknowledged to 
 be behind the Pekin in practical points, but only a very little 
 behind. 
 
 In the rearing of ducks only a few points are found to be 
 essentially Californian. The first is that here the duck must be 
 kept in the brooders longer. It is profitable to furnish them 
 artificial heat until two weeks old. Ducklings should be raised 
 in brooders not by hens. They may be hatched by hens or 
 by incubators either, but if you are raising ducks as a business, 
 you will use incubators. 
 
 Other points are as to feed. Green food and meat are pri- 
 mary necessities. In the East, where the birds run on grass. 
 
POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 there is very little in the way of a green-food-problem, but here, 
 the lack of green has caused many a failure. You must raise 
 it yourself not buy it of the Chinaman have plenty of it 
 at all seasons and for all ages of birds. In other words, the 
 profitable duck ranch is so situated that it can yield a plenti- 
 ful supply of alfalfa, and if you propose to raise ducks as a 
 side issue, as is usually the case, but have not the space or 
 conditions for an ample supply of green, you cannot make 
 duck raising profitable. Remember that ducks are very gross 
 feeders and must be filled up on green stuff, or they will eat 
 their heads off. 
 
 The dry blood or meat meal mixed in the mash will answer 
 well as meat, but the duck raiser who is situated where he 
 can get very cheap meat and feed it freely, especially to breed- 
 ing stock, has a long advantage over competitors. The most 
 successful duck ranch I know of in California is conducted by 
 the wife of a man who has a slaughter house. Aside from 
 such a special advantage, an ideal location for a California 
 duck farm is a well-watered, not too high-priced piece of land 
 situated very near to a port where the fishermen come in. The 
 fishermen throw back into the sea countless tons of wholesome 
 fish that are not considered suitable for human food, and that 
 they would sell to the duck man for a mere song if he were 
 located close at hand. 
 
 Ideas for the general care and feeding of ducks on this coast 
 may be gotten from any eastern writer of experience better 
 than from a local man who has raised ducks as Californians 
 do, and this experimenter feels that he can benefit the public 
 most by leaving this important branch of the subject to able 
 duck breeders, who have already written wisely and exhaust- 
 ively on the subject. G. R. ALHKRS. 
 
FOOD VALUES. 121 
 
 FOOD VALUES. 
 
 In feeding for eggs, there should be not only a variety of 
 foods used, but the elements of the eggs should be partly un- 
 derstood, and the elements of the different foods, so that the 
 food consumed may be as nearly as possible composed of the 
 egg elements in the same proportion as the egg. 
 
 James Dryden, of the Utah Experiment Station, says that 
 an egg is made up of 10.81 per cent shell, 32.47 per cent yolk, 
 and 56.72 white. 
 
 The shell is carbonate of lime. 
 
 The yolk is composed of 50 per cent water, 15.5 per cent pro- 
 tien, 33.4 per cent fat, and about .01 per cent mineral matter. 
 
 Of the white, 86.48 per cent is water, 12.07 P er cent P ro " 
 tein, and .23 per cent fat, and .34 per cent mineral matter. 
 
 In order, then, to keep up the strength of the hen and have 
 her produce the largest possible number of eggs, it has been 
 found that for every pound of protein she must have about 
 four pounds of carbohydrates, and this will vary slightly, as 
 the hen needs more of the heat and energy-producing carbo- 
 hydrates during cool weather than in the warmer part of the 
 year. 
 
 Those foods which we have in the West which are richest 
 in protien come in the following order: Meat scraps (lean), 
 dried blood, cottonseed meal, linseed meal, middlings, bran. 
 
 Those rich in carbohydrates are, rye, corn, wheat, oats bran, 
 alfalfa hay and linseed meal. 
 
 Some of these foods which have a fair supply of both ele- 
 ments might be a good ration, except for the fact that a hen 
 cannot digest enough of them. 
 
 With those foods which are strong enough in one element, 
 she must have enough of that which is strong in the other to 
 give her the elements to make eggs of. 
 
122 POULTRY WEST OF THE ROCKIES. 
 
 A FEW STATISTICS. 
 
 Mr. W. B. Barnwell of the Santa Fe Railroad Co. has very 
 kindly furnished me with the following facts and figures, which 
 will be of great interest to 'all poultrymen : 
 
 There is practically "no live poultry shipped into Southern 
 California. 
 
 "Northern California will handle approximately seventy-five 
 cars from over the 'Divide' each year. 
 
 "Of dressed poultry, Southern California will handle about 
 twenty cars, and Northern California one hundred cars yearly. 
 
 "Southern California imports about one hundred cars, each 
 containing four hundred cases, annually." 
 
 This, reduced to dozens, is 12,000 dozen per car, a total of 
 1,200,000 dozens, or 14,400,000 eggs. 
 
 As you will notice by reference to shipments reported at 
 San Francisco last year, from January first to November nth, 
 the total of Eastern eggs was 50,749 cases, or 608,988,000 
 eggs. 
 
 The poultry business is a small thing, but at the low aver- 
 age of 1 8 cents per dozen, these eggs cost us the nice sum of 
 $9,350,820. 
 
 The total poultry product of the United States for a year is 
 estimated at over $560,000,000. Small, isn't it? 
 
STANDARD WEIGHTS. 
 
 123 
 
 Standard Weights of Leading Varieties and Principal 
 Disqualifications. 
 
 VARIETY 
 
 WEIGHT 
 
 DISQUALIFICATIONS 
 
 CocklC'kr'l 
 
 Hen 
 
 Pullet 
 
 Light Brahma 
 
 Dark Brahma 
 Buff Partridge and 
 White Cochins 
 
 Black Cochins 
 Langshans 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 8 
 
 sy 2 
 
 7 2 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 7 
 
 7 
 6 
 
 6^ 
 
 Shanks, other than yellow, black 
 feathers in back; black spots in 
 feathers, except stripe in saddle 
 and cape. 
 Light Weight and Vulture Hocks. 
 
 Vulture Hocks and less than 9, 7 and 5. 
 
 Vulture Hocks and less than 9, 7 and 5. 
 Yellow skin, or yellow on bottom of 
 feet. 
 Permanent white in ear lobes for 
 right color. 
 Solid white ear lobes. Comb other 
 than rose, or too large. 
 
 One-half ear lobe red ; shanks other 
 than blue ; white feathers. 
 One-third ear lobes red ; any foreign 
 color in plumage. 
 
 Plymouth Rocks.... 
 Wyandottes . 
 Javas 
 
 Leghorns 
 
 Andalusian 
 
 8 2 
 
 6j| 
 
 i 
 
 % 
 
 Minorcas 
 
 
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14, 1901. 
 EGGS IN SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 Statistics taken from the records of the San Francisco Dairy Exchang-e, showing" 
 le rise and fall in receipts and the averag-e quotation for each week during- the year. 
 
 the r 
 
 WKEK ENDING 
 
 EGGS 
 
 QUOTATION 
 COAST 
 CENTS. 
 
 RECEIPTS CASES 
 
 COAST. 
 
 EASTERN. 
 
 Jan. 
 Feb. 
 
 14 
 
 March 
 
 April 
 ii 
 
 14 
 kl 
 
 May 
 
 June 
 ii 
 
 14 
 14 
 
 July 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 1 
 Aug. 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 II 
 
 Sept. 
 
 <i 
 
 Oct. 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 ii 
 
 Nov. 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 30 
 27 
 26 
 27 
 24# 
 19 
 17 
 14 
 13 
 12# 
 13# 
 13# 
 13>^ 
 15 
 15 
 15# 
 15 
 15 
 14# 
 14# 
 14 
 14# 
 16 
 
 I'M 
 
 K% 
 
 16 
 16 
 19 
 
 18 
 19 
 20^ 
 23 
 23 
 26 
 27 
 29 
 32/2 
 32y 2 
 34 
 34 
 39 
 39 
 39 
 39 
 42 
 
 3,533 
 3,363 
 3,336 
 4,375 
 5,471 
 6,433 
 7,114 
 7,363 
 8,653 
 9,842 
 9,429 
 9,952 
 9,566 
 9,422 
 8,387 
 8,926 
 8,836 
 8,587 
 8,852 
 7,874 
 7,414 
 6,782 
 6,415 
 6,532 
 6,320 
 5,824 
 4,926 
 5,547 
 5,193 
 4,395 
 4,205 
 4,000 
 3,705 
 3,437 
 3,314 
 3,415 
 2,926 
 2,818 
 2,554 
 2,346 
 2,205 
 2,237 
 2,239 
 2,156 
 1,977 
 
 389 
 
 385 
 2,043 
 1,736 
 2,202 
 3,158 
 5,220 
 2,790 
 1,200 
 1,265 
 
 780 
 1,268 
 2,842 
 385 
 1,024 
 385 
 385 
 1,204 
 
 770 
 3,030 
 1,813 
 1,980 
 3,358 
 2,006 
 600 
 1,200 
 2,155 
 1,195 
 1,177 
 2,654 
 1,144 
 
 15 
 
 22 .... 
 
 29 . . 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 26 
 5 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 26 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 30 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 30 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 20 
 
 27 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 17 
 
 24 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 22 
 
 29 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
To Poultry Raisers: 
 
 Thousands of people in this country 
 have received financial benefit 
 through the use of Morris' Poulty Cure, 
 and we are anxious to extend its use to 
 every poultry man on the Pacific Coast. 
 While many "Egg Foods" and "Condition 
 Powders" are being placed on the 
 market, we desire to remind you that 
 Morris' Poultry Cure is the only abso- 
 lute Poultry Cure yet discovered. 
 Morris' Poultry Cure expels colds and 
 regulates the liver. Keep your poultry 
 free from colds and their livers in 
 healthy condition and you will have 
 little sickness to contend with. Morris' 
 Poultry Cure aids digestion and assim- 
 ilation. With its aid your poultry 
 will digest and assimilate more food, 
 yielding you more eggs, and fattening 
 for market very much quicker. 
 
 Morris' Poultry Cure is just the 
 thing to put poultry in condition 
 for exhibiting. 
 
 We sell under a positive guarantee 
 to refund money if remedy does not 
 cure. This applies to all diseases of 
 poultry. Send in your name and address 
 for trial package. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 MORRIS POULTRY AND STOCK CURE CO. 
 
 123 California St. , San Francisco, Cal. 
 135 W. 14th St., Los Angeles, Cal. 
 145 41st St., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 ii . 
 
%&*** 
 
tV ERSITy OP 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 er das 
 
 
 MAR 
 
 11 
 
 *^5 
 

itisil 
 
 :,.'',' ;:;.- wM^WWAV 
 
 illlii