Making Home Profitable

by Kate V. Saint Maur

Yarded fowls need exercise. It must not be understood that because they are confined they do not get exercise, or as much as if let run at large. The yards should be at least one hundred and fifty feet long, if they are the width of the average coop, which is ten to twelve feet. Some breeds are decidedly more active by nature than others; for instance, the Leghorns as compared to the Cochins or Brahmas. This does not affect the health of the fowls particularly. A Leghorn is no healthier because of her activity than a Cochin is. It is simply the difference in their natures, but because of this excess of activity of one breed over another, the one must have more room than the other. The Leghorn stands the confinement of a coop ten by twelve feet in winter, provided she can be kept actively hunting for her food; but the same bird would mope and become out of condition if confined too long in an exhibition coop in a show room. On the other hand, a Cochin, being of a lazier nature, forages slowly, and wanders quietly over her yard, takes things easy in the winter coop, and stands the confinement of the exhibition coop excellently.

The foraging nature of any breed can be killed by excessive feeding. Even birds with free range, if overfed at special meal hours, will take but limited exercise, exactly as those treated the same way and yarded. Exercise is induced by short feeding. In other words, no laying strain should be fed all they can eat except at night. Hunger induces exercise, whether a fowl be let run or yarded. Therefore, fowls fed short and induced to hunt for more, will lay eggs, while those overfed, in the morning especially, will sit around moping in the sun, and convert the food into flesh instead of eggs.

Another advantage of yarded fowls is the certainty of finding all the eggs laid every day, and then being able to guarantee them as strictly fresh. This is a point of great importance, and constitutes the difference between eggs produced by an up-to-date breeder with yarded fowls, and those sold by the “honest” farmer who collects them wherever found, and cannot swear that they were laid to-day, not two weeks ago.

The wise poultry keeper will not delay getting things in order for the breeding season. New blood is necessary to keep up the vigour of the flock. Buy the best male bird you can afford. The rooster is more than half the flock. A good bird will grade up young stock next spring. Remember even if you have pretty good birds of your own rearing, there is danger in inbreeding for more than one season.

Select only the largest, brightest hens for the breeding pens. Reject any which have shown signs of illness at any time of their lives. The eggs are the main point; only the best layers should be selected. From seven to twelve birds are enough for one flock. If you haven’t the coops, or a long house divided into compartments with accompanying yards, and can’t divide your birds into small flocks, adopt the alternating plan. Keep several male birds in a house and yard separated from the hens, and let only one run with the hens at a time, alternating them every day or every week, according to the number of hens. For example, if I were compelled to keep fifty hens in one flock, I would keep seven male birds, and let each one in turn run one day with the flock, rather than allow three or four birds to remain with the flock all the time.

Now is the time to overhaul things. There is no opportunity when spring comes, for then there is always a rush, and you will bring trouble on yourself by using coops which haven’t been properly cleaned, or which have no fastenings, or have broken hinges or leaks in the roof. The boys want something to amuse them during the winter evenings; get them interested in showing off their mechanical skill by making feed-hoppers and drinking-fountains. Self-feeding hoppers save a great deal of food, especially round brood coops. They prevent the grain being spilled or trampled into the ground or spoiled by thunder showers.

The brand of tea which we use in the house comes in square pound tins, and these we convert into self-feeders by cutting out two inches of the front an inch from the bottom, and fitting a sloping false bottom inside. Any handy boy can look at the picture of a self-feeder in a catalogue, and make one that will be just as serviceable. Pound baking powder cans can have a hole the size of a pea cut about an inch from the top, and when filled with water and turned upside down in a two-inch tin pan make capital little drinking-fountains for brood coops, and cost only five cents for the dish, so there is no excuse for not having plenty of them, and they save chicks getting drowned or the water getting defiled, which is usually the case when open dishes are used. Having all the little things ready and in order counts for a lot in the spring, when everyone has more work than he can comfortably do.

At least two-thirds of the letters I receive are about “mysterious” cases, nearly all of which are due to the presence of vermin in the houses. Most of the women who write seem to be horrified when they find their hens infested by such pests, but my experience has been that it is the nicely-kept, presumably clean, house and flock which is apt to be the worst. Why, is a puzzle, unless it is that women are apt to keep their fowls’ home so tidily clean that one never thinks of hidden troubles, and for that reason the house and flock are never drastically attacked, as they should be, with eradicators and preventives. And, naturally, the hidden pests multiply undisturbed, and infest the whole place before their presence is suspected.

Few people know that there are any number and variety of pests which are difficult to discover because of other secretive habits. For instance, there is the depluming scab mite, which is a very minute, vicious pest, that often causes hens to be accused of feather-pulling, when in reality the poor things are only trying to rid themselves of intruders who cause them positive torture. When a bird is noticed to have bare places on neck or back or body it is well to catch it and pull out one of its feathers near the bare spot. Ten to one you will find a scaly collection near a quill. Rub it off on to a sheet of paper, and examine it under a magnifying glass, and you will discover that every grain that looked like dandruff is a living mite. Another tiny atom, which buries itself under the skin of fowls’ legs, causes itself to be known as “scaly legs.” Many of the mysterious deaths can be traced to another variety of the same family which attacks the air-passages of the bird’s throat, and occasionally reaches the lungs. The affected bird gets drowsy, mopes about for a few days, and at last dies from suffocation, and people wonder what has been the trouble. Then there are three varieties of fleas, so dark in colour that they look almost black, which live in the soil, or in cracks and crevices of the poultry houses, and sally forth when hungry to feed on the poor defenceless hen. One species of these crawls, instead of hopping like the ordinary flea, so people frequently make the mistake of thinking that it is a plant insect which will not molest poultry. It is all these unsuspected visitors which attack poultry at night, rob them of their vitality, and the poultryman of much of his profits.

Long ago, when I first started my poultry plant, I found a recipe for liquid louse exterminator and a worm powder published in some magazine recommended by Dr. P. T. L. Woods, the great poultry expert. The liquid is easily made, and very cheap. Dissolve crude naphtha flakes in kerosene oil. Mothaline and naphtha camphor are two preparations put up in packages, which can be bought at any drug store, and would do as well as the flakes, if you have any difficulty in getting them. A Boston firm puts up a preparation with aromatic naphthalens and camphor, in packages which cost twenty-five cents, and is very good. One package dissolved in two gallons of kerosene makes a good mixture to spray house, nests and roosts. For the birds themselves, paint the inside of a box with the liquid, and keep a bird in it for from fifteen to twenty minutes. I had a box made with a compartment one foot square, so that we could treat six birds at one time. Near the top of each compartment there is a hole large enough for the bird to put his head through, and outside we put a trough which is slightly raised from the ground, so that the birds can just reach the contents. Fill it with small grain, and they keep busy most of the time, which insures their not being smothered, and their necks passing through the hole prevents the fume of the wash escaping too rapidly. Of course, someone must remain and watch the birds all the time; otherwise there is the danger of the bird pulling its head in and being suffocated. To be sure that the bird is perfectly clean, fumigation should be repeated three times, with an interval of three days after each. If houses are kept clean and all new birds are thoroughly fumigated before they are turned into the flock, it will not be necessary to attack the whole flock more than once or twice a year. Nests for setting hens are always swabbed out with the mixture, and brood coops get a dose once a week. As soon as any hen shows signs of getting broody, she is dredged with powder, which is well rubbed down into the “fluff” of the feathers; then on the tenth and nineteenth days she is again well powdered, and from the time the chicks are a week old she receives a dose of powder once a week as long as she broods them. The recipe for the insect powder is as follows: