Outdoor Sports and Games

by Claude Harris Miller

The first two weeks of a chick’s life are the important time. If they are chilled or neglected they never get over it, but will develop into weaklings. There are many rules and remedies for doctoring sick chickens, but the best way is to kill them. This is especially so in cases of roup or colds. The former is a very contagious disease and unless checked may kill an entire pen of chickens. A man who raises 25,000 chickens annually once told me that “the best medicine for a sick chicken is the axe.”

A very low fence will hold small chicks from straying away, but it must be absolutely tight at the bottom, as a very small opening will allow them to get through. Avoid all corners or places where they can be caught fast. The mesh of a wire fence must be fine. Ordinary chicken wire will not do.

A home-made chicken coop built on the “scratching-shed” plan

A brooder that will accommodate fifty chicks comfortably for eight weeks will be entirely too small even for half that number after they begin to grow. As soon as they can get along without artificial heat, the chickens should be moved to a colony house and given free range. They will soon learn to roost and to find their way in and out of their new home, especially if we move away the old one where they cannot find it.

A chicken coop for grown fowls can be of almost any shape, size, or material, providing that we do not crowd it to more than its proper capacity. The important thing is to have a coop that is dry, easily cleaned and with good ventilation, but without cracks to admit draughts. A roost made of two by four timbers set on edge with the sharp corners rounded off is better than a round perch. No matter how many roosts we provide, our chickens will always fight and quarrel to occupy the top one. Under the roost build a movable board or shelf which may easily be taken out and cleaned. Place the nest boxes under this board, close to the ground. One nest for four hens is a fair allowance. Hens prefer to nest in a dark place if possible. A modern, up-to-date coop should have a warm, windproof sleeping room and an outside scratching shed. A sleeping room should be provided with a window on the south side and reaching nearly to the floor. A hotbed sash is excellent for this purpose. The runway or yard should be as large as our purse will permit. In this yard plant a plum tree for shade. The chickens will keep the plum trees free from the “curculio,” a small beetle which is the principal insect pest of this fruit. This beetle is sometimes called “the little Turk” because he makes a mark on a plum that resembles the “star and crescent” of the Turkish flag.

Whether we can make our poultry pay for the trouble and expense of keeping them will depend on the question of winter eggs. It is contrary to the natural habits of chickens to lay in winter, and if left to themselves they will practically stop laying when they begin to moult or shed their feathers in the fall, and will not begin again until the warm days of spring. When eggs are scarce it will be a great treat to be able to have our own supply instead of paying a high price at the grocer’s.

The fact that it is possible to get really fresh eggs in midwinter shows that with the proper care hens will lay. The average farm hen does not lay more than eighty eggs a year, which is hardly enough to pay for her feed. On the other hand, at an egg-laying contest held in Pennsylvania, the prize-winning pen made a record of 290 eggs per year for each hen. This was all due to better care and proper feed.

The birds were healthy pullets to begin with, they had warm food and warm drinking water throughout the winter, their coop was a bright, clean, dry place with an outside scratching shed. The grain was fed in a deep litter of straw to make them work to get it and thus to obtain the necessary exercise to keep down fat. The birds in this contest were all hatched early in March and were all through the moult before the cold weather came. Most of the advertised poultry feeds for winter eggs are a swindle. If we give the birds proper care we shall not require any drugs. It is an excellent plan to give unthreshed straw to poultry in winter. They will work to obtain the grain and be kept busy. The usual quantity of grain for poultry is at the rate of a quart of corn or wheat to each fifteen hens. A standard winter ration is the so called hot bran mash. This is made from wheat bran, clover meal, and either cut bone or meat scraps. It will be necessary to feed this in a hopper to avoid waste and it should be given at night just before the birds go to roost, with the grain ration in the morning, which will keep them scratching all day. Always keep some grit and oyster shells where the chickens can get it; also feed a little charcoal occasionally.

A dust bath for the hens will be appreciated in winter when the ground is frozen. Sink a soap box in a corner of the pen and sheltered from rain or snow and fill it with dry road dust. Have an extra supply to fill up the box from time to time.