HOW I STARTED WITH HENS

I am a boy, thirteen years old, and have always been very fond of farm animals, especially chickens. I like the White Wyandottes best for all-around, general-purpose fowls. They lay well, and when they are dressed for market there are no dark pin-feathers to spoil their looks.

In April, nineteen hundred and five, I purchased two settings of White Wyandotte eggs at the Rhode Island College, and borrowed two broody hens. I bought one of these hens later, but she soon died. I fixed up an old pig house that was on the place, and set the hens in this house.

While they were sitting, papa helped me make two coops and pens for them. For the coop I took a dry-goods box, about four feet by one and one half feet by fifteen inches, and made a door in one corner large enough to admit a hen. In one end I bored some holes and covered them with wire netting, for ventilation.

For the pen I took four pieces of scantling and a good supply of laths. I used the pieces of scantling for the corner-posts and nailed the laths on the sides, top, and one end. I did not put anything on the other end except the top and bottom strips. The pen is just the length of a lath, but the width is a little less. The open end is placed against the front of the coop; the hen can then come out into the pen, and the chicks can go anywhere.

After awhile the chicks hatched and there were sixteen of them. At first I fed them a mash of corn meal and bran and later a little cracked corn and wheat. They grew finely, but I raised only thirteen of them, eight of which were pullets.

I fed them in the back yard for a while, but they dug the grass up so that I had to stop it. Then I built a scratching-pen by the wood shed, to feed them in.

In the summer the chickens were roosting in the trees, and when cold weather came and I wanted them to roost in the hen house they would not do it. I tried feeding them there, and driving them in; but that did not work very well, because I could not drive them all in at once, and when I drove some in and tried to get the rest, the first ones would come out again. So I had my brother help me, and every night we would carry them down to the hen house. After a time they learned to roost there.

The pullets began to lay early in November and laid well all winter. I am proud of one of my hens. She laid two hundred and thirty-eight eggs from the eighth of November, nineteen hundred and five, to the fifth of August, nineteen hundred and six. I think this is a very good record, considering that during the most of that time she was fed nothing but cracked corn.

During the first part of the winter of nineteen hundred and six to nineteen hundred and seven the hens did not lay very well, and I asked one of the poultry men at the Rhode Island College what to feed them to make them lay. He told me what he had fed with good success, and as it made my hens lay, it may make somebody else's hens lay.

GRAIN
	{ Whole corn
Equal parts, by weight, of	{ Wheat
	{ Oats
MASH
	{ Bran
Equal parts, by weight, of	{ Middlings
	{ Corn meal
	{ Beef scraps

This means that they will get more wheat and oats than corn, and more bran and middlings than corn meal. I feed the grain morning and night, and the mash at noon. The mash may be fed either wet or dry. I have tried it both ways but I like to feed it dry fully as well for two reasons: First the hens cannot gobble it up so fast and all get an equal share; second, the hens lay just as well and it saves labour.

Feed is expensive here and it cost me three dollars and thirty-nine cents for one hundred pounds of both kinds. I think I shall continue to feed it till I find something better, and I would recommend it to any one who desires a good, satisfactory feed.

My poultry record for one year is as follows:

POULTRY ACCOUNT
DR.		CR.
Jan., feed	$3.15	Jan., eggs	$2.63
March, feed	.24	Jan., roaster	.75
April, shells	.20	Feb., eggs	2.28
May, feed	1.85	March, eggs	1.88
June, feed	1.26	April, eggs	1.41
July, feed	1.28	May, eggs	1.96
Aug., feed	3.38	June, eggs	2.32
Oct., feed	1.24	July, eggs	1.85
Nov., feed	1.24	Aug., eggs	.63
	———	Sept., eggs	1.12
Total	$13.84	Sept., roaster	.65
		Oct., eggs	1.32
		Oct., premium	.75
		Nov., eggs	.38
			———
			$19.93
			———
Profit		$6.09

Two of my hens died during the first year, leaving six, hence these six paid a profit of one dollar and one and one half cent each, above cost of feed.

Leslie E. Card