Making Home Profitable

by Kate V. Saint Maur

Early in March a half-barrel was secreted among the brush, in both the occupied yards, so that the hens would be accustomed to their appearance and, we hoped, consider safe hiding-places for their eggs. The plan answered splendidly. About the middle of the month we commenced to keep a lookout for eggs in the half-barrel and for stolen nests. When an egg was found, it was purloined, and a china one put in its place; ditto when the second egg was taken, but after that, no more china eggs were dropped, for two always seemed to satisfy Mrs. Turkey.

Unlike common hens, turkeys are not attracted to a nest by an egg. In fact, they retain so much of the wild bird that they will not adopt a nest that has been used by any other bird, so never distribute nest-eggs as decoys, but only as substitutes for those abstracted.

The matter of feeding the old birds is of great importance and is the rock most farmers founder on. Too often the birds are left to forage for themselves or, at the best, are given uncertain quantities of corn, which means that they are miserably thin and dilapidated or outrageously fat. In either case they lack the components which the egg for hatching should possess. Result, weak youngsters which are doomed to die, no matter how much care is lavished on them.

I once heard an old poultryman say that the care of the chick must commence when its mother is hatched. This may seem ambiguous to the amateur, but it is literally a fact and one which my Massachusetts friend had made me understand was most potent when applied to turkeys. So our turkeys are fed with special reference to supplying the ingredients to be converted into bone and vigour in the birds to be. Breakfast: Chopped clover-hay, steamed overnight, two quarts; corn and oats ground together, one quart; beef-scraps, half a pint. At noon, one quart of oats, Kafir-corn or barley scattered broadcast in the yards. At night, whole corn when the weather is very cold, but as it moderates in the spring the amount is decreased and wheat is used in its place.

These are their regular rations from December to April, when the beef-scraps and corn are entirely omitted. Water and grit is before them all the time. We buy screenings from the stone-crusher and, as it is cheap, dump a lot into each yard twice a year.

I generally steal the first ten eggs from each nest and set them under the hens. However many a turkey lays after that, she is allowed to keep and hatch them. It takes them twenty-nine days to hatch, and large, motherly old hens should be chosen from the chicken-house to do the incubating. It is not safe to put more than five such eggs under an ordinary hen.

When the hatch is over, put the hen into a brood-coop and, in front of it, put a box about nine inches deep and large enough to form a yard for the babies to exercise in. It is, of course, necessary to remove part or the whole of the end of the box which joins the front of the coop, so that the little ones can run in and out. Cover the bottom of the box with coarse sand and put a small drinking-fountain in one corner. Thus the babies will have a safe place to play in the first few days of infancy, when they must be kept dry. After that the box can be removed and the coop moved a few feet every day for the sake of cleanliness.

When Mrs. Turkey’s brood hatches, we treat them in the same way, only the brood-coop is specially made and is much larger than the ordinary hen-coop. The first feed the babies have is stale home-made bread soaked in scalded milk, which is squeezed out of it before it is fed. Like little chicks, they must have nothing for twenty-four hours, then little and often must be the rule.

Never leave food in front of little turkeys, for they are very apt to overeat. After two weeks they need only be fed four times a day; after the fourth week three times a day. After the first two days add a little hard-boiled egg which has been chopped fine, without removing the shell, and a few days later, pin-head oatmeal and ground charcoal; about a teaspoonful of the latter to a cupful of bread and oatmeal.

By the end of two weeks gradually reduce the bread and increase the oatmeal, which should be cooked about half an hour and allowed to dry out, so it is easily crumbled when cool.