Part 4
About July 5th commence to cut down the feed gradually, until at the end of two weeks forty hens are having only a pint of oats and a pint of wheat mixed, night and morning. Scatter it amongst cut straw or some litter, so they will have to scratch for every grain. The first of August commence to increase the rations, and keep it up for a week, so that by the fifteenth they are getting two quarts of mash in the morning, a quart of meat scraps and a pint of cracked corn at noon and wheat and oats or barley at night. Give them just about all they will eat up clean in fifteen minutes. The morning mash should be composed of two parts ground feed (corn and oats), one part white middlings and one part oil-meal, mixed with scalding milk or water. The semi-starvation followed by the heavy feed forces the moulting season and allows plenty of time to feather out and get into condition before October, when their rations should be made up of the essentials for egg-production, which are clover hay, bran, wheat, corn and animal food.
You see, it takes about three months for hens to get rid of their old feathers and put on a new coat, and if the process is not forced in some way, they will not commence before August, which would make it October before they finished. Of course that would be time enough if it happened to be a warm, late fall, but if cold winter weather sets in, as it often does in November, hens would not lay before spring, as moulting leaves them in a more or less debilitated condition.
Lots of people make the mistake of selling off hens as soon as they cease laying at this season, which means that they are usually parting with the birds that would make the real winter layers. Hens that lay through the summer, and do not cease until the fall, will be idle and unprofitable in the winter. It is the general disregard of the moulting period which causes so many failures in the winter supply of eggs. The rule should be to sell off all the hens that have been laying steadily through the summer and commenced to shed feathers in September. Growing feathers is a trying ordeal, and the consequence is that when the hen begins to moult she ceases to lay, for she cannot produce eggs and feathers at the same time.
Feathers are composed largely of nitrogen and mineral matter. That is why the food at moulting time has to be so very nutritious. To feed nothing but corn at such a time is simply waste, as the hen cannot produce new feathers from such a diet. If she is on free range she would have a better chance of gathering the necessary material, but even then, if the feathering process is delayed too long, the hen becomes exhausted, and is susceptible to cold and all sorts of diseases. This is the real reason why roup and swelled head are so prevalent in the fall.
Young birds hatched out in April or thereabouts usually commence to lay in November, because they have not been subject to the drain upon the constitution caused by moulting. But chickens that have been hatched in February or early March are very liable to moult late in the fall, just when they should be commencing to lay. For this reason it is as well to market all the first-hatched chickens, and hold over those hatched late in March or through April, to increase the laying flock.
Cull all young stock down closely. Don’t keep a lot of young cockerels to eat up the profits during the winter. Even pullets which are at all backward should be marketed, for they won’t develop after cold weather sets in, and it does not pay to keep them through for summer layers. Most of the failures made in the poultry business are due to people not having the courage to clean out non-productive birds. Just calculate how many quarts of feed ten growing birds will eat in seven months, and I think you will be convinced that it is unfair to expect the flock to support them and still show a profit. The trouble is that people don’t realise that young stock stand still as soon as cold weather starts, remaining almost stationary until spring. Another evil of keeping undeveloped stock is that they occupy house-room and crowd the older birds.
Now is the time to wage war on vermin, while the bright days last; turn the hens out and have a good housecleaning. Use plenty of hot limewash to which kerosene and crude carbolic acid have been added. If you have two houses, crowd all the birds into one for a few days, and when the empty house has been thoroughly cleaned, commence to catch the birds at night, and powder thoroughly. Use Dalmatian or the home made powder in an ordinary tin flour-dredger, and after shaking a good supply into the feathers, use your hands to rub it well into the fluffy parts near the skin. It is well to repeat the dose about three days after. In thus doing house and birds at the same time, you may be reasonably sure of having exterminated the pests for a few months, at least. Remember to rake up all the falling leaves, to be used for scratching material. A bagful scattered on the floor of the chicken-house once or twice a week will increase the egg-yield and keep the birds healthy during enforced confinement.
Before I forget it, let me remind you not to feed new corn to the fowls. Every year, about this season, I get quantities of letters telling of good, fat hens, the picture of health, which have been found dead. Acute indigestion, brought on by eating unseasoned corn, is the cause. So be careful. If your last year’s supply has run out, it is better to buy a few bags than lose hens on whom you depend for winter eggs. Store all the cabbage or other green vegetables you can before it is too late. Look the house over and stop up all cracks and crevices. A draft from a small hole may give one bird a cold which may develop into roup and infect the whole flock, though an open-front house with only muslin screens may be healthy.
About open-front houses, I don’t believe in them for laying stock. If I were going to carry a lot of young birds or hens which will not lay until April, I might adopt the open-front house as a matter of economy, but not otherwise. I can’t see what is gained by them--that is, in cold latitudes. In the South they are probably all right. We all know that the great percentage of food supplied during cold weather goes to keep up bodily warmth, and that if we expect eggs in zero weather we must supply the hens with sufficient provisions to nourish the body, generate heat and allow a surplus to be converted into eggs. By providing tight, warm sleeping-quarters, we save some of the food which would be used for warmth in a cold house. Plenty of fresh air I do believe in, but everything likes to be warm during the still, dark hours.
I have often seen the argument used that wild birds, which have no houses at all, are always healthy. But how often do we hear about numbers of birds being found dead after a severe storm. What is more, wild birds only lay during the spring of the year. When man upsets Nature’s laws to supply human wants, he should stop quoting Nature’s ways. Our present-day hen, which lays, or is expected to lay, one hundred and eighty to two hundred eggs a year, is a very different creature from the wild hen, and she must be provided with better food, housing and care.
As of course you know, different food materials contain different qualities. Some give us the fat necessary for warmth; others, nitrogenous qualities, which form flesh; still others, minerals, such as lime, soda, etc., etc., needed for bone and muscle. All kinds of animals, birds, and even human beings, require some quantity of these ingredients, otherwise one part of the body or nervous system will be starved, while another will be overfed. With the hen it is of great importance that she have all these different ingredients well blended in her food, as she requires them not only to sustain her in health, but also for the formation of eggs.
We will start with the foods that give the greatest quantity of lime, because it is needed for shell, and some fractional part in the white and yolk, most essential, for it is turned during incubation into bone, the very foundation of the chicken. Clover hay, linseed-meal and wheat bran contain about six pounds of lime in every hundred, and turnip-tops, carrots and all grasses have a goodly percentage. Flesh comes from nitrogenous or albumenal foods, first of which are beef, linseed-meal, middlings, bran, clover hay, wheat and skimmed milk. Fat and heat we get from carbonaceous provenders, among which corn and buckwheat lead, closely followed by oats, wheat, rye, clover hay, linseed-meal and unskimmed milk.
Mineral matter--lime, soda, potash, magnesia and sulphur--is principally formed by the action of digestion reducing the matter containing these ingredients to ash. The usual troubles assailing poultry on most farms come from the feeding of only one of these elements. Poor Biddy has all flesh and no warmth, or all fat and no flesh.
Kill a bird that has been fed on corn only, and it will be heavy with layers of internal fat, but showing a very poor depth of breast-meat. Balancing rations, trying to equalise flesh, fat (warmth) and mineral, is not a very hard proposition when the values of even a few grains and plants are realised.
Having read so far, you will now realise that clover hay, linseed-meal, bran, wheat, oats, beef scraps and unskimmed milk contain practically all the equivalents of summer foods; the addition, therefore, of corn, buckwheat or rye in cold weather is safe and simple if given only as warmth-makers. Never allow the proportion to exceed what is needed for that purpose, or fat will be made and stored, neutralising all your care. In other words, the hen fed on corn only, in order to accumulate the ten parts of flesh and twenty parts of fat needed for the egg, will be compelled to acquire fifty parts more fat than she requires.
Green bone and water now alone remain for consideration. The former is beyond doubt the best of egg foods, qualifying as it does in nearly all the needed elements. Many farmers scoff at the idea of having to pay for a mill to cut up bone for chickens, yet the same men will not grudge a hay-cutter for the horse and cow. Green bone means fresh bone from the butcher, which can be bought for about two cents a pound. The mill to grind it ranges from eight to fifteen dollars.
Green bone contains the natural meat, juices, blood, gristle, oil and mineral matter in soluble condition, which renders it easy of digestion, especially for birds--almost all the components for eggs (white, yolk and shell), in the most concentrated form possible. So, if eggs are to become profitable, the bone-mill must be kept going. When it is impossible to obtain the green or fresh bone, the ground bone sold especially for poultry can be used, though it is not half so satisfactory, because the drying process it has to submit to before grinding leaves little but the phosphate of lime and earthy matter, which clover and bran furnish in better form. At least half the egg is composed of water, surely a sufficient reason for impressing the importance of a generous supply accessible at all times, in clean dishes, of a proper temperature, cool in summer and the chill off in winter.
A FLOCK OF TURKEYS
There are six varieties of turkeys: Bronze, White Holland, Bourbon Reds, black, buff, slate and Narragansett. But the three first are the ones most worth raising specially for market, as they are large birds and the most popular varieties. So it is easy to get good stock, to start with, which is of paramount importance.
A trio of any one of the three varieties will cost from fifteen to twenty dollars, and if only twenty birds are reared the first year for market, they will bring at least sixty dollars. That is placing the average weight at twelve pounds and price twenty-five cents a pound. This is, however, absurd, when you consider that young toms weigh twenty pounds and pullets fifteen, feed could not possibly cost more than ten dollars, which would leave thirty dollars’ profit the first year.
A successful turkey-raiser told me he had kept his birds in yards for twelve years, so I felt safe in adopting the plan. I suppose I ought to have said inclosures, for they covered about half an acre each. The land was shaly, with a rocky background, but there were plenty of clumps of scrub brush and ferns, from the rocks to the top of the two acres they used. The ground sloped to the south; a spot of no earthly good for any other purpose, but perfectly ideal for turkeys.
However, as our farm had no such place, I utilised a strip of poor brush land which had good natural drainage and made three inclosures, each one hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long. An open-front shed twelve feet long and ten feet wide was built in each. They were just rough shelters built out of slabs and the only fittings were perches made out of sassafras poles, none of them less than nine inches in circumference. This is one of the important items in fixing a place for turkeys. Being heavy, large-footed birds, they are uncomfortable and positively suffer if condemned to balance themselves on slight perches such as chickens use.
It took four loads of slabs to make the three sheds, and they cost seventy-five cents a load at the sawmill. Wire netting cost forty-eight dollars, perches and posts were cut in our own woods, and the home help did the work.
I got ten female birds from the Massachusetts farm for fifty dollars and two toms from Long Island for twenty dollars. We sent for the birds early in December so that they should have time to get thoroughly at home in their new quarters before the laying season. Before they arrived, the front of the sheds was covered with wire netting, so that we could keep them shut up at first, but after two or three weeks it was removed and they were allowed the range of the yards. The wire around the inclosure was only four feet high and one wing of each bird was cut to prevent them flying over it.
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.
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.
Dry-goods boxes, costing ten cents at any village store, can be made comfortable for a small flock. The main point is to keep them dry, which depends almost more on the care given to the covering of the floor than the wall of the house. Good, dry bedding, changed at least twice a week, will keep them warm and happy through the coldest weather.
Ducks’ eggs bring good prices during February and March. You can easily get them to laying by then, as it depends principally on feeding. Ducks, like geese or cattle, must have a good percentage of bulk material and green stuff, as well as concentrated grain feed. Clover hay, or even mixed hay, chopped and steamed, about half a pailful with a pint of coarsely ground corn-meal and the same of bran mixed through it, is about right. If hay is short, chop corn stalks small, and steam. Chopped vegetables of all kinds are good, but pumpkins, potatoes and beets are fattening; so, unless the weather is very cold, omit the corn when they are fed, using more bran or screenings in its place.
In the summer have the children gather plantain, dock, groundsel or any other non-poisonous weeds. Have sugar barrels ready, and pack in the weeds while fresh. Get a heavy, solid board rounded off to fit inside the barrel, put on top of the green stuff, and weight down with heavy stones. Pad up tight with paper, sawdust, straw or any loose material, and replace the head of the barrel. When snow covers the ground, such food will increase the eggs from both ducks and chickens.