Fig. 79. Flock of Single-Comb White Leghorns
Hens that are laying must be well supplied with oyster shells or lime in some form for the shells of the eggs. They can get a part of the lime required for this purpose from the lime in foodstuffs, but not nearly enough to make good thick shells for all their eggs when they are laying well. Ground oyster shells are sold by all dealers in poultry supplies.
Fig. 80. White Wyandotte hen and chicks
Growing chickens. Where old fowls have to be kept in close confinement, very little can be done in growing chickens. Some amateur poultry keepers raise in small, bare yards birds that are as good as the average chickens grown under more favorable conditions, but where one succeeds in doing this a hundred fail. Most of the chickens grown in close quarters are very poor indeed in comparison with farm-grown chickens, and quite unfit to be kept for laying or breeding purposes. Those who succeed in growing good chickens in a small place usually give a great deal more time to the work than the chickens produced are worth. The best way for a poultry keeper so situated to get as much as possible of the pleasure of this interesting line of work is to hatch a few broods and, when the chicks are large enough, broil, eat, or sell all but a few of the best pullets and one or two cockerels. If these thrive, they may be worth keeping for a year; but if, as they mature, they do not seem rugged, it is not wise to use them for laying stock.
Where there is room to give young chickens a good grass yard, a limited number can be grown to maturity year after year on a town lot and used for laying and breeding purposes. Many town poultry keepers who might grow a few very good chickens never grow a good one because they always try to raise too many for the space at their disposal. Fifty or a hundred chickens may be kept until two months old on a plot of land only large enough to carry twelve or fifteen to maturity. So people start out with a great many more chickens than they ought to have on their land, never thinking that the better their chickens do at the start the sooner they will begin to overcrowd their quarters, and that when that stage is reached, the promising results of several months' work may in a few days be ruined beyond remedy. After they are two or three months old, young chickens will not make the best growth of which they are capable unless they have either a great deal of room or a great deal more care than most people who raise only a few, and have other work to do, can afford to give them.