After the fourth week, ordinary ground oats, just moistened with scalding milk, may be used. Half-boiled liver, chopped fine, is the best animal food to give. When that is not practicable, use the best brand of commercial ground beef, one teaspoonful to a quart of meal, because it is very strong and liable to produce diarrhea, a disease which attacks young turkeys almost sooner than any other young bird. Watch carefully and at the first evidence of any looseness of the bowels give boiled rice to eat and rice-water or cold tea to drink.
Watch newly-hatched babies for a few days at feed-time, for there is often one or more that needs to be taught how to eat. This is especially so when they are with common hens. But a little patience in crumbling close in front of them and coaxing them to pick it up will overcome the difficulty. After they are eight weeks old we take them from the hens and put them into the third yard, which is kept exclusively for young stock.
At night they are driven into the shed, the front of which is always kept covered with wire netting, so that they can be closed in until they get accustomed to roosting. Of course, the perches in this shed are put nearer the ground and are much smaller than those intended for grown birds. About October 1st they are allowed the free range of the farm and are fed on corn at night and given all the milk they will drink, to get them into good killing condition before Thanksgiving, when they are all sold off, except perhaps a few extra good ones, which we may keep for stock. The old birds are also allowed free range from October until February, but they are fed in the yards at night and are shut in so that they don’t form any bad wandering habits.
In buying stock, be generous and get the very best, from some well-known turkey-raiser. Ordinary farm stock is so apt to be inbred that, although the birds may look all right, it is not safe to buy them for breeding purposes, as a want of stamina will surely show in the youngsters.
For the same reason it is best to get the hen-birds from one place and the toms from another. If you are going to keep Bourbon Reds or bronze, it is advisable to buy half-wild toms. These are the result of crossing wild gobblers with domestic hens, which is done by large breeders to infuse new blood and keep up the vigour of their stock. Personally, I like the White Holland turkey best, as they are domesticated and bear confinement well.
If you are only going to keep a few birds, say a trio or five hens and a gobbler, large yards are not necessary, but a shed over which netting can be put, should always be set apart for their use, so that they can be fed and shut up at night. Never, under any circumstances, keep any of the pullets you raise, unless you change your gobbler. Don’t let two gobblers run with the flock at the same time. If you want to increase your number of birds, you must either put up inclosures or alternate the gobblers every two days.
DUCKS AND GEESE
Ducks are so profitable that I cannot understand why so few keep them, unless it is the mistaken idea that they must have a stream or pond in which to swim. It is true that the old-fashioned puddle duck did seem a miserable creature out of water, but the improved strains are almost as much land birds as chickens are. My stock started with two ducks and a drake which had cost me seven dollars. The first season I raised fifty-eight, sold forty-six, and kept twelve to stock. They were ready for market when eleven weeks old, and the lowest price was eighteen cents a pound.
Ducks must have dry, comfortable quarters, but a splendid house for twenty ducks can be made on any farm for a dollar, or even less. One man who keeps large flocks makes duck houses with hurdles of green boughs for walls and roof, the outside padded with leaves, straw, corn stalks or cedar boughs. Each house is six feet by four feet and two and one half feet high, and accommodates seven ducks and a drake.