ALBERT R. MANN
LIBRARY

NEw YORK STATE COLLEGES
OF
AGRICULTURE AND Home ECONomICcs

AT

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

 

THE GIFT OF
PAUL POMEROY IVES 2D
IN MEMORY OF
PAUL POMEROY IVES

 

 

 

 
harles Hubbard,

  
  
    
     

C

~ Dies in Cos Cob

Well-known Poultry Fancier.
Found Dead in Yard, Victim
of Cerebral Hemorrhage.

 

 

Charles Henry Hubbard, inter-

Chicken Breeder, |

 

  
 
 
  
 

|Mationally known as!a_ chicken
[breeder and fancier, was fount
Midead last night in his chickei
[yard near his home on Glendal
-, Im Cos Cob. Dr. John A
Jarke, Greenwich medical exam

 

He was a member of

jtnme teamen in Limerock. NY)
Surviving him are his widow, |¥<j
| Margaret A. Hubbard; two daugh-

ters, Mrs. Smith of Stamford and
Mrs, Robert McGould of Cos Cob;
four grandchildren, A
Charles, jr., died in 1921. Two
brothers, George R, Hubbard of

Meriden and Watson Hubbard of he
Stamford and two sisters, Mrs, |My

Jaseph Thomas of Meriden and

Mrs. Charles Strit of Bridgeport, e.

also survive.

Funeral service will be held |®#
from’ the late home, Monday yi
morning, at 8:30, followed by 1 |¥

requiem Mass at St. Catherine’s |ia

Church at 9. Burial will be in

 

Falls Village, Conn.

 

Date Due

 

   

er, declared that death was du

a Fer 12500

 

LO a cerebral hemorrhage eigh
}to 10 hours before.

  

 

 

=| Mr. Hubbard, who worked as
lobby man in the Citizens Sav
jjings Bank in Stamford, was th

 
 

 

   
 

iginator of two breeds of do

 

mestic poultry, the Foxhurst Rain
bov and the Connecticut Peerless

  

 

He worked for 35 years to devs:
we Rainbow and haq won many
ophies in this country anu

 
  

 

joroad. The Peeriess, a more re!
ce t development, has been shown

 

 

 
 

for the last several years
_ Found in Snow. '

 

 
  

en he failed to come home
dinner last night, Mrs. Hub-

 

bard called her daughter, Mrs
arry T. Smith, at her home on

 

Whitaker St, Stamford. Mr.
mith found him at about 9:30,

 

  

in the snow in the chicken
| about 300 feet from his

 

 

, native of. Glastonbury, the

 

son of the late Annie Chapma
and the late Henry Hubbard, Mr.

 

Hubbard passed his youth in
Glastonbury and Limestone. Al-

 

 

dy well-known for his work
chickens, he came to Co

 

 

Cob 22 years ago to work for A.
C. Robertson.

 

Worked in Bank.
__On Mr. Robertson’s death, he
started to work with Clayton S.

 

 

 

Purdy, president of the Citizens
Savings Bank, on Mr. Purdy’s
ack Orpingtons, Through him,
became associated with the

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
  
  

ntinued

on Page Two)

 

Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137

where he. worked until yes- ||‘)

 

son, |® \;

 

 
Hubbard’s Poultry Secrets

On Mating, Feeding~
and Conditioning Fancy Poultry for the Show Room.

 

 

T gives me great pleasure to announce that I have
prepared a Book of Poultry Secrets in which |
have disclosed to the public every secret I used

in placing Foxhurst Farm from a pen of birds for
pleasure to the Undisputed Champion of the World.
This system has not stood defeat at Madison Square
Garden for 12 years.

My reason for writing this book is to assist the ama-
teur and help to place him on an equal footing with
the professional and I trust that my efforts in this di-
rection will prove to be successful in promoting inter-
est and success in the Fancy Poultry Business,

(This system applies to all Standard Bred Poultry.)
| PRICE, $2.50

 

CHARLES HENRY HUBBARD.
=

 

 

ADDRESS :
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS,

LIME, ROCK, CONN.
EW
COPYRIGHT BY
CHARLES HENRY HUBBARD,
Live Rock, Conn.

1915.
Page
(Introduction: .n:cscwst eves Sere ee ee 5
OTE WOT! Ss hak Crepe eh eae SAS ad lc Toe 6
One Man Plant .............. rok Rae Peer nents 7
Sitting Hens sce neha nd atone yea er 16
Brood Coops for Hens and Chicks ............... 18
How I Discovered the Right and Wrong Ways of
Feeding Baby Chicks ..................0 0.0000. 20
My Method of Feeding Baby Chicks ............. 30
Feeding Growing Chicks ...................044. 33
Tonic and Feather Grower .................0004 36
Worms on Growing Chicks ...................0.. 38
Tees Rang er se tony aeies S oe pores see ore ca eee 40
Norwich Automatic Ee erekes and Feeder ......... 41
The Best Breeding Age of a Female ............. 43
Mating cs 65 5 isccieen a Src acre ots 2 Ses ac ene 46
Breeding Houses and Yards for Old Powis nee 58
Exhibiting Powls ..24..s024-40i¢4ac64e.n kee pialoees 60
‘Training Ouatters?.2tssondoasgus tay sae terncaine nae 64
Conditioning: ooncres Vase ees ee eee ee 64
Conditioning Birds for Breeding after their Return
from the Showroom .....................0005- 68
House and Yards for Male Birds ................ 73
Lice and How to Rid Them .................... 76
Poultry Diseases ns acyateseecceseuetateeemens FO
Scaly: Legs. wis aiesan weenie oe Sy eae s os 85
How the Amateur is Beaten in the Show Room by the
Paki: 2.24. EL CURR Lai seineraeast 85
Faking White Birds for the Show Room .......... 92
Washing White Birds ............. 0.00. c eee eeee 93

Finis ee eee Bae Le oe Sahn eae ate atone Oe 95
tmtroduction.

After many years of success in the breeding, feeding and
conditioning of Fancy Poultry for the showroom, and in an-
swer to the steady flow of letters from all parts of the world,
seeking advice and information on questions arising in the ex-
perience of every poultryman; I deem it my duty to the poul-
try fraternity to place this system (disclosing all of the secrets
which have been instrumental in placing the Black Orpingtons
of Foxhurst Farm in the undisputed leadership of their class
throughout the world) at your disposal.

I want to impress upon the mind of every reader that thor-
oughness and persistency are essential to your success, and
that any system is worthless without good nursing and close
attention to detail.

I adopted this system twelve years ago, and since then birds
reared under it have never experienced defeat, and it is my
belief that it will place the amateur on an equal footing with
’ the professional, in the rearing of fancy poultry for the show-
room, as I am giving the student of this system secrets that
have never before been seen in print.

In this book, you will find a few illustrations of the many
Blue Ribbon Winners which this system has produced and
which have made the Foxhurst Farm strain famous.

CHARLES HENRY HUBBARD,

Lime Rock, Conn.
¥ oreword.

This system applies to All Standard Breeds of Poultry pro-
duced by Single Mating.

In all the different breeds or varieties of Standard Bred
Poultry in the world, there can really be but two classes; the
long or loose feathered variety and the hard or close feathered
variety. We find, with the exception of the Bantams, the
larger breeds are mostly loose feathered, while the close feath-
ered varieties are mostly in the smaller breeds. The reason
for putting all the different varieties into but two classes, is
to make this system the leader in simplicity, by placing only
one change in the requirements of the two varieties, namely,
a change in the mash feed.

For loose feathered varieties, the best results are obtained
by feeding wet mash twice daily, while the close feathered va-
rieties should be fed hard dry grains only, for best results.
You will find the tonic and feather-grower of great help in
producing quality in the feathers of both varieties, while the
trench-sprouted oats will give results in producing bone and
muscle. The tincture of iron used produces a healthy appe-
tite in growing stock and matured fowl.
From Shell to Showroom.

ONE MAN PLANT.

There is a great difference in opinion as to which is the best
paying plant: A One-man plant, making a specialty of one
breed ; or, a large plant, carrying a number of different breeds
and a number of men to care for them.

I am greatly in favor of the One-man plant.

Ten large plants fail to each one of the One-man variety.

I have often been asked, by people who wished to start in
the Fancy Poultry Business, how many acres of land they
should have; how many men to hire; and how much it would
cost for stock and equipment.

Men with money, as well as men of moderate means and
workmen, have asked the same questions.

Men of means wish to know if the money invested will bring
good dividends ; whereas, the workmen ask if it is possible to
make a living and leave the factory or office.

My answer to both is alike.

My belief is that there is no other business that will pay div-
idends equal to the Fancy Poultry business, providing it is
rightly managed. Like any other business, to be successful,
there must be a system.
8 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

The One-man plant is the best paying plant in the country to-
day. If I were to stay with Mr. Barnum, as manager of Fox-
hurst Farm, for the next twenty years, I would never allow
it to grow beyond a One-man Plant, or just the work I can
handle alone. As yet I have never had a helper in the Fancy
Poultry Business. :

There are many reasons why the One-man Plant is the most
successful.

First, specialty breeders, devoting all of their time to one
breed, have an advantage over the large plants, when it comes
to producing birds of the highest quality for the show-room.

Second, a One-man plant can give better value for the
money paid for stock and eggs, than the large plant, because of
small operating expense.

The more expense a plant is under, the more they must
charge for their stock, so here is another advantage for the
One-man plant, in the fact, that it can afford to give better
value for the money, and the small plant can gain a reputation
and soon work up a trade to the extent that the demand is
greater than the supply.

Another advantage for the One-man plant is, that a little
advertising in Poultry Journals, will dispose of all the stock
and eggs it has to sell, while the large plant must advertise ex-
tensively and continually in order to dispose of the large num-
ber of birds and eggs they have to sell, and which they must
sell in order to pay running expenses.

When a One-man plant has disposed of its spare stock and
eggs, advertising is cut down to just enough to keep the name
before the public, whereas the large plant never gets to this
point, but always has stock and eggs to sell.

I have visited large plants and have always found a number
of good birds, which they must have, where they raise so
many. On small plants, however, I have always found much
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 9

more quality in proportion with numbers, of whatever breed
they made a specialty.

I will now try to explain why a One-man plant has more
quality right through the flock. They are most always spe-
cialty breeders who give their whole time and study to the
breed they are handling. It stands to reason that a man can
get better quality by devoting all of his time to one breed.
The average poultry-man works about fourteen hours a dav,
if he is only handling one breed, that gives him a chance to
study this breed well. Now if he is breeding several different
breeds, that only gives him a few hours each day to study and
care for each variety. There is not a poultry-man in the bus-
iness to-day that handles five to seven different breeds thai
can win in the Show Room against the specialty breeder, who
devotes all his time to one breed. :

I will now tell you what I consider a good One-man plant.
One must have about five acres of land, about one-third of the
land will be taken up with the dwelling house, barn, breeding
ccops and yards, and training quarters. This will leave you
two-thirds of your land for growing chickens on free range.
A One-man plant should consist of about twenty breeding
houses and yards, and should also have twenty brood coops
for hens and chickens. These brood coops should be scattered
over the land used for free range, and should be placed at least
fifty feet apart. By placing the coops fifty feet apart, the hens
that are out on range with their brood all day will return to
the right coop each night.

I have given a great deal of thought and study as to why
there are so many men with money, who go into the Fancy
Poultry business, put their whole heart and mind on it, and in
two or three years quit in disgust.

Looking back only a few years I can count twenty different
moneyed men who gave up the breeding of Fancy Poultry on
10 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

account of losing so much money, and while in it, these men
were all good fanciers and liked the game, and would have
stayed, if their managers had put their plants on a paying
basis.

I will tell of one poultryman I have in mind, who had the
management of five good poultry plants. This manager made
a failure of them all, and the owners lost thousands of dollars.
This manager could not breed winners, therefore, he had to
buy them.

No manager can put a plant on a paying basis if he cannot
breed winners. A poultry-man who does not understand mat-
ing and growing, is bound to make a failure of the Fancy
Poultry business. Men of this class, as managers, are doing
much damage to the Fancy as moneyed men lose interest in it,
when dividends are not forthcoming.

A man who has money and wants to have a little pleasure in
breeding fancy poultry and still make it a paying investment,
should go about it in the following way: The first thing to
be done is to look for a Poultry Manager, one who has a good
reputation of breeding winners. The next thing is to agree
upon a salary. You cannot expect to get a poultry manager,
who has a good reputation, for less than $1,200 to $1,500 a
year. You can get a poultry manager to manage a One-man
plant cheaper. One of the best propositions to make a poultry
manager and have him work for your interest and his own,
too, is to let him know that you are willing to give him a good
salary, providing he can put your plant on a good paying basis.
Offer him a proposition like this: that you will give him $65.00
a month and a ten per cent. commission on all cash business.
Now if the man thoroughly understands his business, he will
take you up on the ten per cent. basis, for he could soon put
your plant where his salary would be from $1,200 to $1,500 a
year. I think that if all poultry managers were on a ten per
HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS. 11

cent basis there would be more better paying plants. This
is a sure way to find a high class poultry manager, for he is
bound to take more interest in his work, so he can increase his
salary, for the harder he works the more he is making, and
the owner of the plant, also.

Men with money make one great mistake by allowing a new
manager to spend too much money on houses and stock before
they know whether they have a manager who really knows his
business. A manager should lay his foundation in the follow-
ing way:

First, he should visit a poultry plant which has a good rep-
utation and has won at the big shows with the variety that he
intends to breed and buy a trio. He should be very careful in
making the selection as this trio should be the real foundation
of his success. Of course, if he were to pick out one of the
best trios that a breeder had, he should expect to pay a good
price, for high class birds are worth it. From this trio he
should start line breeding as described on another page in this
book. From the same breeder that he bought the trio, he
should order eggs from his best mating to hatch two hundred
chickens, the eggs to be shipped on an average of three set-
tings a week until he had hatched two hundred. My favorite
time to start would be the first of January. With only the
trio.to care for, that would give plenty of time to build brood
coops and yards which would be needed in the spring for the
hens and their chicks. After having the brood coops built,
which would be about twenty in number, he should start build-
ing the breeding houses and yards which would be needed for
the growing chickens in the winter.

By starting with a trio, it gives one plenty of time, outside
of caring for growing chickens, to build all coops and yards
needed for the first year. From the first of January to the
first of September would be the hardest months, for all the
12 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

money would be going out and nothing would be coming in.
The first of September he should insert a small advertisement
in three of the leading poultry papers, in order to dispose of
what stock has been hatched from the eggs bought in the
spring. After the ad. has been placed, inquiries will begin to
come at once. Any new Poultry Plant must offer more in-
ducements and better value than the well established plants, if
it wants to dispose of the stock.

Upon receiving an inquiry, he should study the buyer’s
wants carefully and describe the breed of birds the buyer
wants according to his description, making sure when he ships
the order that it fulfills the description given in the letter. He
should offer to fill the order without any money in advance and
express prepaid. This would give the buyer a chance to ex-
amine the stock free of charge, and, if he sends stock just as
described, the buyer will have double the value the breeder
asks. For example, if the buyer can’t afford to pay over five
dollars, make sure you send a ten dollar specimen; or, if the
buyer is willing to pay $15.00 or $20.00, make sure you ship
a specimen that is worth $30.00 or $40.00. Now, by follow-
ing this method, he would land nine out of every ten inquiries
that he received, and he would soon dispose of what stock he
had for sale. Giving double value for the money received from
customers would be the best advertisement a plant could have.
The money received from these sales will partly, if not wholly,
cover the expenses of the plant for the first year. This would
make the owner of the plant feel much better towards his man-
ager than if he had bought one hundred breeders, among
which were many ribbon winners, and built many houses and
yards, thereby having a deficit of many thousand dollars.

I would not sell the chickens I raised from the trio, as they
would be the real foundation on which I would hope to put
the plant on a paying basis. The best pullets raised from the
INNER! (ADIBONSOUARE GARDEN, NEW YeRK,1908- 08
RED Al OWNED 6 FOXHUROT FARM, LIME ROCK, CONN USA

 
 

 

 

  

   

  

 

 

 

 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 13

trio should be mated with the best cockerels for spring egg
trade. Select the best pullets from hen A and hen B to mate
to cock C, which is explained in the chart of the line breeding,
shown on page 50.

Show two or three of your best cockerels and pullets, and
if you are lucky enough to win a blue ribbon at one of the large
shows, that will help you to make your advertisement stronger,
and increase your egg trade. Now by following this plan
carefully for three years, the plant could be put on a good
paying basis. It is a very easy matter in the Fancy Poultry
business for the manager to work up a business of $5,000 to
$6,000 a year, if he goes at it right. The foundation laid at
the start means either failure or success, so he should lay his
foundation well.

The working man who wants to start in the poultry busi-
ness, should start differently than the moneyed man. It may
be necessary for him to keep his job at least a year or two,
and attend to his poultry before and after working hours, but
he must start just as carefully as the man with money. A man
who has to work cannot afford to buy eggs enough from a
breeder’s best stock to hatch 200 chickens, after buying a trio,
so I would advise him not to buy the eggs, but to put all the
money he can into the trio. Many working men make a fail-
ure of the Fancy Poultry business because they try to start by
buying eggs at $3.00 a setting, or they start with a $10.00 trio
or $25.00 pen. This is just a waste of time and money and
makes a lot of hard work, for competition is too keen for any
man to have a ghost of a chance of winning at any of the
large shows. With a start of this kind, one must win in the
show room if he ever expects to make a living in the Fancy
Poultry business.

Any breeder can afford to sell a high class breeding trio for
$100.00, $25.00 each for the ens and $50.00 for the male. If he
14 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

could afford it, it would be well to pay a little more than the
above mentioned price for his females. Of course, this sounds
like a lot of money for a working man to put into three birds,
but my advice is that if any one can’t afford to put $25.00 to
$50.00 in them this year, it is better to wait another year and
try to save up $50.00 more so as to make his start right. He
will save time by doing so.

From the trio, even with a little hard luck, he should be able
to raise at least 75 chickens. Around the first of August, he
should go through the whole flock and take out all culls and
sell them for market. The money received from them should
be used for advertising in one of the best poultry journals.
The ad. should start in the September issue. I should also ad-
vise him to show some of his earliest cockerels and pullets at
some of the September fairs. If he could make a good win
at the early fall fairs it would be a good advertisement and
help him to dispose of a number of cockerels that he did not
want to carry over. Three or four of the best are all he
would want to carry over for breeders. The rest should be
sold at a fair price, making sure when he sells them that he
gives double value for money received, and every bird sold
would mean a satisfied customer. A satisfied customer is the
best advertisement a Poultry Farm can have and helps to dis-
pose of the stock the next year.

As for selling pullets, I would not advise selling many of
them in the fall. They should be kept for the egg trade in
the spring. The eggs he sells will help buy grain for the stock
he has raised for the second year which should not be less than
200 in. number. The spring and summer of the second year
would mean lots of hard work as he would still have to hold
his job and at the same time give his chickens good care. This
would mean that he would have to care for the chickens’ wants
early in the morning and late at night. If he were married and
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 15

could get his wife interested in the chickens, it would help him
still more as she could assist in feeding them while he was at
work, providing he fixed the feed for her before he left in the
morning.

By giving the growing birds good care through the spring
and summer, with his wife sparing time to help him out where
she could, it would greatly assist in getting a uniform growth.
The birds should be moved from the brood coops to their win-
ter quarters not later than the first of October. With 200
chickens properly grown and the best of his last year’s stock,
which is kept for breeding, he is in a position to do business
with the public. I would now advise him to give up his work
and devote all of his time to his chickens. He should begin to
advertise in at least three of the best poultry papers. A small
ad. in each one will do, making mention of his winnings of
the year before. This will bring many inquiries for stock.
He should answer all inquiries as soon as he receives them
and offer to pay express charges both ways if the stock is not
satisfactory. He should make sure the stock he ships is worth
double value and he will receive nine orders out of every ten
inquiries. He will find this a good way for a new plant to
gets its stock before a prospective buyer’s eyes. | When the
buyer sees he has double value he will immediately accept the
bird or birds, and send the pay for same at once. On the
other hand, if you demand the money before you ship the
stock, you may never hear from him again and the breeder
that has the reputation will get the order. By offering
to ship without any money in advance and express charges
prepaid, the buyer receives the impression that you are offer-
ing more than value or you would not ship before receiving
money for same. You should also figure to exhibit in at least
two of the best shows, one of them being Madison Square
Garden. If possible, you should not show less than three in
16 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

each class. That would give you five chances to get a blue
and three chances in every class for getting the ribbons, for
there are five classes in all breeds; cocks, hens, cockerels, pul-
lets, and pens. Whatever your winning may be at any of the
large shows, it will give you something to talk about and any
breeder that can win will have no trouble in selling what stock
and eggs he can spare from a One Man Plant.

I have now explained what I consider the safest way for
the man with money and the working man to take up the
breeding of Fancy Poultry, and make a success of it. You
would be surprised to see how quickly you can work up a bus-
iness of from four to six thousand dollars a year by following
the methods given in this book,

SITTING HENS.

There is nothing in the chicken business that tries a man’s
patience more than sitting hens, but he must have patience and
use good judgment in the handling of them. As each hen has
a different disposition, it is very necessary that each one be
carefully handled. I have seen and read a great many meth-
ods of caring for sitting hens, but the one I will now describe
has given me better results than any I have ever tried.

The sitting room should be well ventilated but free from
draughts. It should be so arranged that it can be kept a little
dark in the day time, and it should also be the quietest place
on the farm. The room I use to set my hens in is over the
conditioning room, but when I have sitting hens in there, I
never allow anyone in it but myself. That is the only place
on the farm that is kept shut off. All my chickens are hatched
by hens as I have never yet found an incubator that could
hatch chickens equal to the hen. Raising chickens with an in-
cubator and brooder is like raising potatoes in the shade. They
 
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 17

grow up on legs too much, and they do not feather out equal
to the chickens which are hatched by a hen. The incubator
is all right and the brooder is all right for the poultry man
that wants to raise a large number of chickens, but if you are
breeding fancy poultry, my advice is to let the other fellow
use the incubator and brooder, and you stand by nature and
nature will stand by you. We should always remember one
thing and that is, that we can assist nature but we can’t beat it.

I can set twenty hens at one time. Each hen has a sepa-
rate pen, each pen is 4 feet long and 18 inches wide. I use
wire for partition with the exception of the end where I use
a board 10 inches high and 18 inches from the back of each
pen. I nail one slat on each board. It is necessary to have a
separate board 10 inches high and one which is the length of
each yard to hold them in place. For the bottom of each nest,
I use about 4 to 5 inches of sawdust which is wet down with
tobacco water. This liquid is made one pound of tobacco
dust to one gallon of boiling water. Over the wet sawdust,
put enough fine hay to fill the nest box even with the top of
the 10-inch board, and pack down solid. Form a nest with your
hand. When this is done, take a handful of dry tobacco dust
and sprinkle it over the top. Pat the hay with your hand so
that the tobacco dust will sift down through the hay. You
now have a nest in which a sitting hen can take comfort, one
that contains plenty of moisture, and one that will be free from
lice and mites, which ruin so many hatches. With a nest 18
inches square, you still have a floor space 18x30. There should
be a pail of road dust in each pen so the hens can dust them-
selves in it. Their feed and water should not be put in the
yards. Cut a four-inch square opening in the end board of
the pen and place a pan of water and feed in front of the
opening. This is very convenient to feed and water sitting
hens.
18 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

Put a handful of grit and oyster shells in the corner of each
pen. Old whole corn is the best feed for a sitting hen, as it
keeps up the heat of the body and the hens will not get diar-
rhea from it. The drinking water should be changed once
each day. Sitting hens handled in this way will make very
little trouble. The method excels any incubator that I have
ever yet tried. A chicken well hatched from healthy stock is
half grown.

BROOD COOPS FOR HEN AND CHICKS.

There are a great many kinds of brood coops on the market
for the hen and her brood, but I have never found any the
equal of the one I will now describe.

A cut of this coop and yard will be found on another page.
This coop should be made of good matched lumber, well
painted. The roof should be covered with a good grade of
tar paper. This coop will last a life time if it is painted once
a year. I have been using twelve of these coops for seven
years and they are as good to-day as they were the day they
were built.

The coop is four feet long, thirty inches wide, eighteen
inches high in back, thirty inches high in front, with a window
sash, 24 x 12 inches, for a door. There is a small slide door
for use when the large one is closed. This small door is 8x12
inches. There is a slat partition that goes inside the coop.
The slats are nailed four inches apart. This partition is fas-
tened to the roof with hinges and is hooked to the floor so the
hen cannot push it out of place when she is reaching for food.
The partition in the back of the coop is eighteen inches from
the back end. This leaves a space for the hen of 18x30 inches
and a floor space for the chickens of 30x30 inches.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 19

When the chickens are big enough for the hen to run with
them, which should not be before they are a month old, the
slat partition should be pulled forward from the floor, and
hooked to the roof. This leaves the whole floor space clear
for the hen and chicks.

The coop should be placed on runners by nailing 2x4s to
the bottom; thus it is much more easily moved around. If
you live in a section of the country where hawks, skunks, and
cats take your chickens, you will find that a yard arranged as
shown in the cut will protect your chickens from the enemies
mentioned above. The yard is made in the following way:

Any length may be used, but the ones I have are sixteen
feet long and just the width of the coop. The bottom boards
are a foot wide, the two long boards are nailed to the 2x4s on
the bottom of the ‘coop. This raises the coop a foot
from the ground. The coop should be placed in the cen-
ter of the yard. The top board of the yard should be six
inches wide and nailed to the side of the coop, leaving a ten-
inch space between the top and bottom board. You should put
a narrow board upright in each corner of the yards and nail it
fast. This will make your yards secure. When you have
the two ends nailed on, run a foot wire around the whole
yard to cover the ten-inch opening and wire the top, and you
have a house and yard that will protect your chickens from
rats, cats, hawks, dogs or skunks.

In a coop and yard of this kind, your chickens can be out in
all kinds of weather. I have failed to find a coop that excels
this type, for the comfort and protection of the chicks. I find
that chickens start better if they are kept in these yards until
they are six weeks old. They should be moved the width of
the yard twice a week. Two men, one at each end, can move
a coop and yard of this size very easily.
20 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

HOW I DISCOVERED THE RIGHT AND WRONG
WAYS TO FEED BABY CHICKS.

After many years of hard work and study, I find that wheat,
corn, and oats are the three principal grains which should be
used for the best results. In fact, they are the only three
grains I have used in making the reputation for Foxhurst
Farm Black Orpingtons. This farm is the only farm in the
world that ever won all of the five blues in one season, ft
Madison Square Garden, which is the hardest poultry show
in the world to win a blue in. This farm showed thirty birds,
and twenty-two of the thirty birds shown won ribbons. These
winnings were as follows:

First and third cocks.

First and fourth hens.

First, third, fourth and fifth cockerels.
First, second, third, fifth pullets.
First and fourth pens.

What does a record of this kind mean when all the best
birds that England, Canada, and the United States could pro-
duce, were in competition at the show? It means that I am
offering to the poultry world the greatest system of Mating,
Feeding, and Conditioning of Fancy Poultry for the show
room that was ever offered. Earlier in this article I said that
wheat, corn, and oats were the only grains I used in making
the reputation for Foxhurst Farm. They are, with the excep-
tion of a little rice I use in feeding baby chicks, and a little
barley I use for hens which are overfat. I will tell about
barley later on.

From the corn we get whole corn, cracked corn and corn
meal. From the wheat we get whole wheat, wheat bran, and
wheat middlings. From the oats we get whole oats, ground
oats, flaked oats, sprouted oats, and pin head oatmeal. You
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 21

see what a nice variety of feed you can obtain from the three
grains mentioned above. Thus we have whole grains, cracked
grains, ground grains, and sprouted grains. By properly
mixing this variety of feed, we get better results than can be
obtained by feeding any other variety of grains.

Now, my dear readers, I want to impress on your minds
that it is not what a chicken eats, but what it digests, that
counts. If we keep digestion good, we can get very rapid
growth, but if we over-tax the digestive organs we will throw
the whole system out of order and the chick’s growth will be
checked. The liver will become effected, the crops will be
filled with a watery, slimy substance, and later the bowels will
be loose. If these conditions exist the chickens will have what
is called white diarrhea, for which there has never yet been
found a successful remedy.

I don’t think there is a poultryman that has given more
study to the cause of the dreaded white diarrhea than I have,
and I have proven to my own satisfaction that seventy-five per
cent. of all white diarrhea is caused by the man or woman
that carries the feed pail. The majority of methods advise
feeding baby chicks from six to eight times a day on this or
that brand of prepared chick feed, which they claim is made
up of a variety of six or eight different kinds of cracked grains
and seeds properly balanced. For best results, I find that this
method of feeding baby chicks is very unsatisfactory, as I do
not think it is following nature closely enough. I do not think
that nature ever intended that a baby chick should be fed on
hard, dried grains, any more than a newly born baby was in-
tended to be fed on beef steak.

Why, then, do I not use the method described above, which
is used by so many poultrymen? I will try to answer that
question and explain my system, in such a way, that I think
you will see it as I do.
22 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

In the first place, every poultryman does, or should read,
one or more poultry papers. By reading them we find that
fifty per cent. of all chickens hatched die of white diarrhea
before they reach the age of six weeks. With such a loss, it
certainly looks bad for the prepared chick feeds that are now
on the market.

I have tried nearly every brand of chick feed that was ever
put on the market, but I have given up feeding it, because it
was too hard for the baby chicks to digest, and for the first
six weeks they did not grow as they should. If we expect to
win the blues in one of the big shows where there is hot com-
petition, we must start our chicks from the shell. I claim the
first six weeks of feeding has more to do with making a show
specimen than at any other time of feeding. Chicks can stand
heavy feeding after six weeks of age and still make good spec-
imens, provided they have been properly fed up to the age of
six weeks, and provided that digestion has not been overtaxed.
If we overtax the digestive organs in these six weeks of feed-
ing, we never can mature that bird into as good a specimen as
nature intended him to be, no matter how we feed or what
good care we give him.

I do not want you to think that I am trying to run down
other people’s methods of feeding, for I am not. I will tell
you how I proved that nature never intended that a baby chick
should be fed on hard, dried grains.

About fifteen years ago, I noticed a robin that built its nest
in an apple tree, this nest was built very close to the ground.
About a week after she had hatched her young, she was caught
by a cat. The male bird made such a fuss that it drew my
attention to the nest. I looked into the nest and there were two
baby robins about a week old. Along towards dusk I went
to see if the male bird was going to care for the young robins.
I found he was around and wilder than ever, and would not
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 23

come near the tree, so I saw it was up to me to care for the
young robins. I found a can that would fit nicely on the in-
side of the nest. I punched some holes in the side of the can
for air, and left the top on to keep off the rain. I filled the
can with cotton batting, just so it touched their backs, placed
a piece of cheese cloth over the cotton so they would not get
it in their mouths, then placed the can over them, and left
them for the night. The next morning the first thing I did
was to go and see if the robins were dead or alive. I lifted
the can off the nest and found they were two of the hungriest
and brightest little robins I had ever seen. Every time I
touched the nest they would raise their heads and open their
mouths for something to eat. I began to wonder what I could
give them. The first thing I did was to dig some worms, feed
them, and then placed the can over them again. Their first
feed was at six o’clock; at 9 o’clock I fed each one a little
chick food composed of hard dried grains. At 12 o’clock, I fed
them two worms each, at 3 o’clock I fed them chick feed, at
6, I again fed them two worms each and covered them up for
the night. The next morning they were bright and hungry
as ever. I fed them as I did the day before and kept up that
method of feeding for ten days. For eight days, everything
was all right and the birds grew like weeds, but the ninth day
I noticed that there was something wrong. On the tenth day
white diarrhea set in, and on the twelfth day one died and
on the fourteenth day the other died.

I never had anything bother me so much in my life as to
think that I lost that pair of robins after I had taken so much
pains in feeding them. I was really lonesome for them. My
desire now was to find out whether I had killed them by feed-
ing them the worms or by feeding them the chick feed. There
was only one way for me to find out and that was to find an-
other nest of young robins. After hunting around I found
24 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

another nest in the same orchard. This nest contained eggs
that were not yet hatched, so I continued my hunt and in the
next orchard I found a nest of newly hatched robins. This
gave me a chance to find out which food caused the white
diarrhea. I decided to test the chick feed first. The only
way to make the test was to feed one robin chick feed, and
not feed the other at all. I knew the mother would feed them
both. Therefore, I marked one with red ink so I would
know it. Three times a day I fed that robin a half a thimble
full of chick feed, and on the seventh day of feeding, the young
robin became sick with white diarrhea, and on the eleventh
day he died. To continue my test, I went back to the other
orchard and found the first nest. By this time the eggs were
hatched and the robins were about four days old. This gave
me a chance to test the worms. I fed them three times a day.
In this test I found no white diarrhea. I continued feeding
them until they were all feathered and ready to leave the
nest. This proved to me that it was the chick feed that
caused the white diarrhea and killed my first pair of robins.
It also proved to me that nature never intended that a young
robin should be fed on hard dry grains.

It also proved that if you want to be successful you must
study nature and follow along natural lines. I then said to -
myself, “It isn’t any wonder that fifty per cent. of all chick-
ens hatched in this country die before they reach the age of
six weeks.” The reason is that we are not following along na-
ture’s lines as nature intended we should.

I set a hen and when she had hatched the chicks I decided
not to feed them at all, but to watch her with her flock and
study her habits and method of feeding. For the test, I
choose a pit game hen as I knew she would have a wilder na-
ture than a common hen, and care for her flock as nature
taught her when fowls were in the wild state. I choose a
RST PRIZE COCKEREL mia me EIRST. PRIZE BU
HHERS MADISON SQUARE eee NEW YORK 19)
BRED **o OWNED BY ORG FARM, LIME otk. CONN.

 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 25

place a quarter of a mile from the house, and set her under a
heap of brush. About one hundred feet from where she set,
there was a brook so I didn’t have to bother with water. I
made the nest and placed six common eggs in it, and then put
the hen on her nest and covered her up for two days. At the
end of the second day, I uncovered her to give her a chance to
come out, and to make sure that she would go back herself.
The next morning she came off. I took the six common eggs
out of the nest and placed eleven very choice Buff Orpington
Eggs in their stead. I set her on the 12th of June, left her a
pan of whole corn and didn’t go near her again until her twen-
ty-one days were up. That evening, I took a lantern and went
to see how many chickens she had. I found from the eleven
eggs she had hatched nine chickens. I took out the shells of
the two eggs that didn’t hatch. I then put a few drops of oil
of sassafrass in the bottom of the nest to rid the chicks of lice,
and keep ants and mites from bothering them. I then left her
alone. The next day she didn’t leave the nest at all. The
following day the farthest she got from the nest was to the
edge of the brush heap where the sun could hit the chicks.
She never offered to feed them at all that day. I was really
surprised at that. The next morning when I went to see her,
I found she was about one hundred feet from her nest in a
shallow ditch scratching and calling her flock for the worms
and grubs she was scratching up, and they were piling over
one another to get them. I had never seen chicks so strong
and so large for their age. They really looked as though they
were a week old. The old hen had already shown me where I
had been making a great mistake, and that was by feeding the
chicks too soon after they were hatched. I had been making
a practice of feeding the chicks when they were 24 hours old,
thinking it was right, as they seemed to be very hungry then.

Now, instead of feeding her chicks at the age of 24 hours,
26 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

the hen kept them very quiet and let them rest, not offering to
feed them anything until they were 60 hours old. By doing
this, she got much stronger and larger chicks than I did by
my method. I found that by following her method of letting
the chicks rest, and not feeding them until they were sixty
hours old, I got just as strong and large chicks as she did, and
I have followed her method ever since. I think this is one of
the greatest secrets of starting baby chicks right.

For the next six weeks I was kept very busy watching her
and studying her method of feeding. The first three days, she
fed the chicks very little. The food they got was composed
of worms, bugs, seeds from weeds, timothy seeds, and tender
grass just sprouting up. I noticed they were very fond of
this. In fact, I should judge that twenty-five per cent. of the
food they ate was green stuff.

The first thing in the morning, I would find the hen in the
shallow ditch scratching for worms. Then she would work
up land into the grass and weeds. She would reach up and
pull down the timothy hay stalks, and strip the seeds from it
and call her flock. They semed to be very fond of this. She
would also feed them seeds from the different weeds. Then
she would go over into a meadow that had been mowed and
catch grasshoppers and bugs. It was a sight worth seeing,
those bright little chicks following their mother who was run-
ning down a grasshopper. They were right on the job every
minute. Now I had found that their food consisted of worms,
bugs, seeds of different kinds, of weeds and grass. Another
thing I learned, that she fed her chicks only three times a day.
She would feed them in the morning and then take a long rest.
After the noon feed, she would take another rest, and about
four o’clock start feeding them again. This feed would con-
tinue until bed time. I noticed the last feed was the heaviest
of the day. I also adopted her method of feeding the first
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 27

two feeds light, and the last time giving them all they wanted.
It stands to reason that the last feed should be the heaviest to
carry them over the night.

I found this method of feeding would keep them hungry
every minute, and as it did not overtax the digestion, made
them grow like weeds. In fact, I have never seen a check in
growth where this method is followed; but I have seen many
a flock of baby chicks ruined by the feeding of hard dried
grains five or six times a day.

Now, before making this test, I had been raising chickens
for eight years and thought I knew a great deal about feeding
baby chicks, as I had always read the different methods of
feeding, written by men who were doing most of the winning
in the show room with their breeds.

I adopted one man’s system which seemed to be the best, as
he always won wherever he showed. I raised some wonderful
birds by following his system, but had a heavy loss from white
diarrhea during the first six weeks.

Now, after I had followed the hen for six weeks, and
watched and studied her method of caring for and feeding her
young, I found that I had been using a method that was just
opposite from nature’s system. During those six weeks, I
learned more about feeding baby chicks, than I did in all the
other eight years of my experience.

In feeding, there was one thing about her method that I
could not understand, and that was, for the first two weeks,
she never once took her brood of chicks to the brook to drink,
though the brook was within one hundred feet of where she
had hatched her brood. It was very difficult for me to under-
stand how little chicks could get along without water for two
weeks in hot July weather. It took me some time to find out
why they did not crave for water like all other broods of
chickens.
28 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

I found after making a thorough examination of the food
they ate, that it contained a great deal of moisture. The worms
and bugs they ate were very soft and juicy, and did not need
any water to swell them like hard, dry grain. I also found
that the seeds that they were eating contained moisture, as
they were not yet quite ripe. In fact, I found that everything
they ate contained a great deal of moisture. It was then very
plain to see why they did not go to the brook for water. They
did not need it, as they had been fed on the food which nature
intended them to have, and which contained water enough for
them up to that age. I also found that birds of different kinds
never gave their young ones water to drink, but furnished
them with food that was soft and easy to digest, and contained
all the moisture they needed up to the time they were able to
care for themselves. Then they drank water as often as na-
ture called for it.

This test taught me that nature never intended a baby chick
to be fed on hard dried grains, but on food that contained
moisture and was easy to digest. So twelve years ago I gave
up feeding hard dried grains to baby chicks, until after they
were six weeks old. I then adopted a system of feeding moist
food, and since that time my system of feeding has never stood
defeat. I have bred and raised more winning Black Orping-
tons than any other poultryman in the United States, or any
other country where Orpingtons are raised. My winnings for
Foxhurst Farm at Madison Square Garden for the past three
years (see cuts showing the ribbons) prove that my system
stands alone, for my birds defeated all the best birds that Eng-
land, Canada, Australia, and the United States could produce.

In competition at Madison Square Garden Show two years
ago, 1912-1913, there was a black hen, for which the owner
had paid $500, and pullets costing $200 each shipped from
Australia and guaranteed to win the blue, which my system de-
 

 

  
  

 

 

F RST PRIZE HENMADISON SQUARE GARDEN NEW YORK J9124513
BRED 4% OWNED BY FoXHURST EARMLIMEROCK , CONN,

 

 

 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 29

feated. There were a cock, hen and two pullets shipped from
Canada which had never been defeated in that country. The
owner paid $700 for them, and guaranteed they would win;
my system defeated them. There was another man who gave
his manager $10,000 to buy the best birds that England could
produce; my system defeated him. There was also another
man who bought up the best birds he could find in the West.
One of the birds cost $200, my system defeated it.

Of course, I felt very proud of being the first poultryman in
the world who ever won all the five blues at Madison Square
Garden in one season, and defeated all the best birds that
money could buy. It was not the winning of the five blues
that pleased me the most, but the record I made in the cock-
erel and pullet class. When you stop to think of winning 1,
3, 4, 5, on cockerels, and 1, 2, 3, 5, on pullets in the best show
in the United States, it surely is a thing of which to be proud.

I have been asked by a good many poultry editors if I ex-
pected to win again at New York Madison Square Garden
Show next winter, and my answer was, “Yes, I do expect to
win again at the Garden this winter.” If I did not expect
to win, I should not be writing about this system to-day. If
I do not win, it will prove that my system is no good, and I
would not try to put before the public a system that stood
defeat.

Now, my dear readers, don’t think I expect to win the whole
five blues again this winter, for I do not. I do expect to win
something in all the classes, for you know it is considered that
any man who wins a blue at Madison Square Garden in any
class, during one season, has done a good year’s work.

Now, I have been a winner at the Garden with birds that
I have bred for twelve years, but not once in the twelve years
have I ever allowed myself to get a swelled head over any of
the records I have made. I was asked by Mr. Frank W.
30 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

Platt, Editor of the Reliable Poultry Journal, two years
ago, at the New York Show, if I would write and send
to him my system of mating, feeding, and conditioning for
Foxhurst Farm Black Orpingtons, telling how I get such size
and color. He thought it would assist the amateur as he be-
lieved it was the amateur that was keeping the fancy poultry
business where it is to-day, and we should do all in our power
to help him to the road of success. I agreed with him, and
promised to write and send him the system I used in making
Foxhurst Farm Black Orpingtons what they are to-day, re-
gardless of giving away all of the secrets I had learned in the
twenty years of hard work and study of breeding poultry.
This gentleman told me that it was the duty of every poultry-
man to assist the amateur. That word “assist” has been ring-
ing in my ear ever since, so instead of writing an article as I
had promised, I decided to wait and write a book and explain
it in a way that it was never told before. By so doing, I knew
I would assist the amateurs and place them on an equal foot-
ing with the professional in the Mating, Feeding, and Condi-
tioning of Fancy Foultry for the Show Room.

MY METHOD OF FEEDING BABY CHICKS.

My method of feeding the chicks from the shell to the show
room is as follows: After the chickens are hatched, I give
them a rest for from 48 to 60 hours, before feeding them. For
the next six weeks, they are fed three times a day on the fol-
lowing mixture of grains:

Three parts wheat bran,

Two parts wheat middlings,

One part rice flour,

Twelve parts of flaked or rolled oatmeal,
Twenty-four parts of hominy.
HUBBARD’ POULTRY SECRETS. 31

Never feed any meat or beef scraps of any kind for the first
six weeks of feeding. For animal food, I use new milk, not
skimmed, that has just come toa boil. The first week, use just
enough hot milk to make the mash moist and crumbly. After
the first week, use more milk, to make the feed a little more
moist. Give them all they will eat in five minutes, taking away
any that is left. If this system of feeding is followed very
carefully for six weeks, the chickens will grow very rapidly.
Their digestion will not be overtaxed and they will be able to
stand a little heavier feed without poor results. For green
food cut a piece of sod and put it in their coop. They will en-
joy scratching it to pieces to get the grass and roots.

For the next six weeks I feed them five times a day. Use
the same mixture as before, only this time add to it a few
mashed potatoes. These potatoes should be cooked in water
which contains a little salt. ‘You will find that by adding the
boiled potatoes to the mash, it will be much relished by the
chicks and it will make them grow much faster, which will
pay you for the extra trouble of boiling them. Use this mash
in the morning and evening.

For the other three feeds use a scratch food, which is com-
posed of wheat, cracked corn, and sprouted oats, which should
be fed separately, not mixed together. As stated above, the
first feed early in the morning should consist of mash, not all
they will eat, but what is called a half-feed. Their next feed
should be at nine o’clock, and should consist of wheat thrown
in the litter, which will make them work to get it. This
should also be a short feed. At noon, they should be fed
oats, which have been sprouted in the following manner:

Soak two quarts of oats in a pail of water for 24 hours.

Add 4o drops of tincture of iron to each pail.

Plant the oats in a warm sunny spot in a trench and cover
with about three inches of dirt.
32 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

You will find that in from three to five days you will have
the best chick feed that it is possible to get and one that is
much relished by the chicks.

You not only get full value of the meat of the oats, but you
get a great many tender roots and sprouts also. For their
noon feed you should dig up some of the sprouted oats, dirt
and all, and give them just as much as they will clean up.
They will scratch and dig the sod to pieces and pick out every
oat and root in it. You will find that the dirt which sticks to
the roots of the oats is very good for the chicks, in fact, it
keeps all the digestive organs in perfect working order. This
way of sprouting oats is far ahead of any other method.

If sprouting them in a box, which is the old method, you
must be very careful that the box is clean and sweet, or the
oats will sour and get slimy and will cause trouble by feeding.

Their next feed should be at three o’clock. It should con-
sist of cracked corn thrown in the litter, and should never be
more than they will clean up. At six o’clock they should be
given mash the same as used in the morning, but instead of
half a feed they should be fed all they can eat. Be sure to
make their last feed the heaviest feed of the day, so that it
will carry them through the night.
 

 

   

FIRST PRIZE PEN S-C- BLACK ORPING TONS
i MADISON ee oe ae no 1908-9 BASIO.

 

 

 
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 33

FEEDING GROWING CHICKS.

I have now told my method of feeding up to twelve weeks
of age.

If you have followed this method very carefully you should
have a flock of chickens that any man would be proud of, and
a flock that has not been forced and whose digestive organs
have never been overtaxed in any way. They should have
made frame very fast and be uniform in size and a flock that
is free from runts.

After they are three months old I feed them a dry mash
which consists of:

Wheat bran three parts.

Best grade beef scraps, one part.
Wheat middlings, two parts.
Hominy, twelve parts.

Flaked oatmeal, twenty-four parts.

I find that it is impossible to over-feed a growing chick for
the next three months, so we must get all the growth we can
while the system will stand it. It took some time to find out
how long a growing chicken would stand forcing without do-
ing it harm as a breeder, and at what age it would stand forc-
ing best.

This dry mash is kept before the growing chickens in hop-
pers, so that they can help themselves at any time. Be sure
to place your hoppers where rain and sunshine cannot strike
them. I use the Norwich Automatic Hoppers for my scratch
feed, which consists of: Wheat, corn and eats, equal parts, one
part wheat, one part cracked corn, one-half part best grade
34 HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS.

clipped oats, one-half part flaked or rolled oats, mixed thor-
oughly. These hoppers are placed in front of each brood coop.
You will find that the chicks learn to work the hoppers in less
than five minutes.

Now take a heart shaped hoe and make a trench ten to
twelve feet long and from three to five inches deep in front
of each brood coop. This I fill about half full with soaked
oats and cover up with dirt, mixing the dirt with the oats.
After this is done lay a board over them so the chickens can’t
dig them out before they start to sprout. At the end of four
days take the board off, and dig up one end of the trench so
that some oats will show. After the chickens see the oats,
they will start to eat them and will dig out every oat in the
trench. They will leave almost any other feed for the oats.
This is one of the best secrets I have in getting large frame
on the birds I grow. There is no other method of feeding
known that will give a growing chick more exercise than to
dig the oats from these trenches, and it is exercise that they
enjoy. We feed sprouted oats in this manner almost the year
around, even in our cold climate here in the east where the
seasons are short. There is no feed known that quite equals
oats as a frame builder, and to keep a flock of chickens in good
condition.

By feeding the ground grains and scratch feeds in hoppers
and the oats in trenches the labor of caring for a flock of grow-
ing chicks is reduced to a minimum. The only hand feeding
we do is to feed two mash feeds a day, one in the middle of
the forenoon, the other in the middle of the afternoon. For
this wet mash use the same mixture of grains used for the dry
mash only omit the beef scraps. Give bone meal in its place.
You can now cut out the milk used in mixing the mash for the
first twelve weeks, and substitute fresh ground liver and water
in its place, which you will find much cheaper and better. To
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 35

prepare this mixture take one quart of finely ground beef liver
and mix with seven quarts of cold water, stir water and liver
until you have it thoroughly mixed. Use this liquid to mix
your mash.

After you begin to feed this mash you can almost see them
grow, and they will take on a plumage that is hard to beat in
the show room. This is a secret worth knowing, as liver is
far superior to milk for producing plumage on show birds of
the highest quality. This mash should be fed quite wet, as
they will eat more of it if fed this way.

Growing chickens will eat less during the hot months of
July and August than at any other time in the year, and if you
are not careful their growth is apt to be checked during these
months, as they will drink more than they eat and will not
make frame as they should. We all know that if a growing
chick gets a set back of any kind in the growing period, no
matter from what cause, whether lice, worms, crowded quar-
ters, filth or any other cause it never can win the blue in any
large shows in hot competition. Therefore, I substitute the
following for these two months: Half a pail of flaked oat-
meal. Pour enough boiling water into this to fill the pail.
Put a cover on and leave it until it is cool. One quart of
water to two quarts of cooked oatmeal water is given them to
drink instead of clear water. You will also find this a good
substitute for milk for growing chicks. A common milk pan
makes the best thing I ever tried for the oatmeal water. They
are cheap and easily kept clean, and as they are shallow can be
put under almost anything to keep them out of the sun.
Never leave the drinking pans in the sun, for oatmeal water
will soon sour and be rank poison to growing chicks. By using
oatmeal water in this way we don’t have to worry if they don’t
eat as much as they should, as they are sure to drink more than
usual during this hot spell, and the oatmeal in the water gives
36 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

us an even growth during these two months. By not eating
so much in these months the digestive organs seem rested
when the nights and days get cooler and for the next six weeks
they will eat twice as much as at any other time during the
growing period, and this is where we should force them in any
way we can. Be sure to have plenty of sprouted oats in the
trenches, for the more we make them exercise the more food
they will digest, and if their two mash feeds are quite moist
they will eat much more than if it is crumbly. Put plenty of
charcoal in this mash and you will never have any trouble from
feeding it moist. Only five parts water to one part liver
should now be used, as this will produce feather growth and
put on a finish for the show room. Keep up this method of
feeding them until ten days before the show. My method of
conditioning for the show room you will find on another page.
Now, my dear readers, I have given you my secrets of grow-
ing a bird from the shell to the show room in six months, and
have given you a system that has not stood a defeat in twelve
years, and I have also given you a system that has defeated
the best known in England, Canada, Australia, and the. United
States, and here is my proof, the winnings of the last three
shows in Madison Square Garden. (See cuts of ribbons.)

TONIC AND FEATHER GROWER.

We all know that a chicken changes its feathers three times,
from the shell to maturity. It is one continual growth of
feathers from seven to eight months. That is why you have
to feed so heavily to keep up this steady growth, and still make
frame and bone, and have the birds in good condition at the
same time.

Now, to do this, I find that grain alone is not enough to keep
up the steady growth of feathers, bone and meat. Common
 

 

WINNERS OF ALL FOUR FIRST PRIZES IN SINGLE CLASSES:.COCK HEN COCKERELM PULLET
AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, DEC. 26-31,19)3. BREDAND OWNED BY RN. BARNUM,LIME ROCK CONN,
Lee | FOXHURST FARM SE

 
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 37

sense has taught me that nature needs assistance in the form
of a tonic that will keep the whole system in perfect working
order. I find when this tonic is used, that nature will do its
work from six to eight weeks quicker in maturing a growing
chicken from the shell to the show room.

I will now give you one of the best secrets I have. You will
find this one of the best tonics and feather growers known. It
is made in the following manner:

Take five pounds of French Poultry Mustard and three
pounds of sulphur. Mix thoroughly together by hand. Now
take one tablespoonful of sulphate of iron, and dissolve it in a
little water. When dissolved add it to one gallon of molasses
and mix well together. Then pour the gallon of molasses over
the sulphur and mustard, and mix all thoroughly with your
hands to a thick paste. When this is done put into an earthen
jar that has a cover. Keep the cover on at all times to keep the
dust out. The above amount will last a breeder a long time as
it will not spoil.

The tonic should be fed in a mash to growing chickens after
they are three months old. It does not make any difference
what you use to wet your mash, whether it is water and liver,
or clear water or milk. Dissolve one tablespoonful of the
tonic in three quarts of the liquid you use to wet your mash.
This should be fed in their mash for three days and then skip
three days, until you have fed it nine days in each month. Start
to feed it the first of each month, and after you have fed it in
their mash nine days, as described above, for the rest of each
month use in their wet mash one heaping tablespoonful of
flax seed (not the meal), to every twelve growing chickens.
There is nothing known that will beat this secret for growing
length of feather, and putting on the high sheen which is
wanted so much in the show room. Use the same method for
moulting out your old stock. They will put on their new
38 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

feathers in a much shorter time and their plumage will be in
the best possible condition. I have never seen anything to
equal it for keeping young and old stock in prime condition.

WORMS ON GROWING CHICKS.

I consider worms one of the worst things that a poultry-
man has to contend with in the growing of chickens, as they
ruin more flocks of growing chickens than any other one
thing. You see so much in the poultry papers about lice, but,
you hardly see anything about worms, and I know that worms
cause ten failures in the chicken business, where lice cause but
one. I will admit that growing chicks should be kept as free
from lice as possible for best results, but you can have some
lice on your birds and still grow into husky, big birds. But
if they have worms I don’t care how much you know about
feeding or what your method of feeding is, there is no method
known that will grow them into show birds, if something isn’t
done to rid them of the worms. I rid my growing chickens of
worms once each month all through their growing period, and
I think that is one of the reasons that I have had such good
success in the show room.

The first treatment for worms should be at the age of two
months. You will find the symptoms of worms as follows:
The chickens seem to be hungry all the time, eat a lot, but do
not feather out as they should. The feathers that do grow
stand up or out, and won’t lay down and follow the body as
they should. Their backs remain bare a long time and a little
later they seem to look thin between the eyes, their beaks seem
to be longer than they ought to be, and still later they will not
have much meat on their breast bones. These are all sure
symptoms of worms, but the worms should be gotten rid of
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 39

before the last symptoms appear, as your birds have had a bad
setback when their beaks look long and they haven’t much
meat on their breast bones. Of the different things I have
used to rid the chickens of worms, I find that garlic ground fine
in a meat grinder and mixed in their feed once a day every
other week, is the best. I have used the garlic
method and had good success for a number of years, but for
the last five years I have used turpentine and find it as good
a method as I have ever tried. It will do the trick if it is
used right. The amount of turpentine to be used all depends
on the size of your flock.

We will say your flock will eat six quarts of mash to a feed.
First take three quarts of hominy and put it in a water pail.
Then take about % gills of turpentine and pour over the
hominy, and mix it all thoroughly together by hand, rubbing
it between the hands to get it evenly mixed. Then take a
quart of ground liver and add one quart of water. Use this
liquid to mix up the hominy and turpentine. Use this mixture
quite wet so all the hominy will stick to the liver. The day
you feed this worm mixture you should take away all other
grains. Feed them all they will eat in the morning and at
noon. At night give them all they will eat of the same mix-
ture with a little salts added. The reason I use the salts in
the last mash is to physic them, so as to carry off the worms.
By using this method once a month you will keep your grow-
ing chickens free from worms, and their feathers will grow
the right way, and by fall you will have very few undersized
chickens.

This year I tried Spratt’s worm powder, which is put up for
horses and cattle, and found it worked well. It is put up in
small boxes, one dose in a box for a horse. I use one of these
boxes for every twenty growing chickens. I give it in their
regular mash twice a day for three days in succession each
40 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

month and the last feed on the third day, I add salts to physic
them and carry off the worms. It is useless to doctor for
worms without using a physic after giving the worm
medicine.

Any one of these three methods will do the work. Do not
neglect to treat them once a month for worms, as worms cause
more runts, small bone and poor color chickens than all other
things combined. One often reads of chickens growing light
and tubercular, but I wager that in nine cases out of every ten
it is nothing but a bad case of worms.

FREE RANGE.

There are a great many breeders that. differ in regard to
which is the best method for raising show birds. Some claim
free range is best, others claim the yarding system is best, and
still others claim that a coop 3x6 makes a coop large enough
for a dozen breeders, and ample room to grow twenty-five
chicks.

I have studied and watched nearly every system known for
raising show birds, and I have visited a great many poultry
plants where the different systems are used, just to study the
general health and vigor of the birds under the different sys-
tems. I have found that nature’s system of free range is the
best for producing show birds of the highest quality. I don’t
mean to say that there haven’t been some good chickens raised
under some of the systems mentioned above, but I have found
them to be my very easiest competitors to defeat in the show
room, as their stock lacks stamina and the best qualities of
feather.

When I say free range is the best, I don’t mean that the
chickens must have free range from the day they are hatched
 

‘ELEANOR BEETLE” |

 

 

v FURST PRIZE BLAGH ORPINGTON HEN
LIADISON SPUAPE GARDEN SHO NEW YORH FEB IVT
BRED AND OWNED BY FOXHUAST FARM LIME 9H CONN:

 

 

 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 41

until they reach maturity ; but they should have at least four
months of free range over fresh ground each year, if possi-
ble, as they will make better breeders and better show birds.
There is a certain amount of goodness that they get from the
earth for which man has never discovered an equal. It, there-
fore, can readily be seen that chickens which are raised on
fresh ground each year grow much better than those raised
on the same piece of ground each year. Of course, we can’t
all have fresh ground on which to raise our growing chickens
each year, but for best results, we must turn it over at least
once a year.

The best time to give growing chickens free range is at the
age of two months. By that time, they will be strong and
well feathered out, provided they have been fed, cooped, and
yarded by the method described in this book.

For instance, chickens that are hatched the first of April,
should be kept in their coops and runs until the first of June;
after that, give them free range until the first of October. At
that time, cockerels and pullets should be separated and put
into their winter breeding pens and yards. By mating, feed-
ing and conditioning as explained in the following chapters,
there should be some chance in the show room for the owner
of the chickens.

NORWICH AUTOMATIC EXERCISER AND FEEDER.

Above you will find a cut of the Norwich Automatic Ex-
erciser and Feeder which I consider one of the greatest labor
saving devices that was ever put. on the market. In fact, it
would be impossible for me to do all the work on Foxhurst
Farm alone if it were not equipped with these Feeders. They
are not only a labor saving device, but when properly regulated
42 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

keep a breeding pen in the best possible condition, for they are
so arranged that you can set them to meet the different re-
quirements of each pen. For instance, if you have a pen of
breeders that are over-fat, and you want to thin them down,
all you have to do is to just close the slide so they have to work
hard all day for what they get to eat. By following this meth-

 

Norwich AUTOMATIC EXERCISER AND FEEDER.

od you will find in a week or ten days that you will have your
over-fat pen down in weight and in good breeding condition.
In fact, you can regulate each feeder according to the condi-
tion of your breeding pen, whether it be over-fat or under
weight. I consider these feeders just as valuable for growing
chickens on free range, as I do for the breeding stock.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 43

Of course, it is like any other machine ; you have to use good
judgment and set it according to whatever result you wish to
get. If your hens get overfat it is your fault, if they get too
thin it is your fault. With good common sense you can set
them to meet all the requirements of the different pens, from
young to old, whether on free range or yarded, and they pay
for themselves many times over in a year by the saving of feed.
You can use them indoors or outdoors, just as you see fit, and
they will last a lifetime.

I do not want the readers of this book to look at this write-
up of the Norwich Automatic Exerciser and Feeder, as an ad-
vertisement for the Feeder. I only speak of it for the benefit of
the readers of this system.

THE BEST BREEDING AGE OF A FEMALE.

There is a wide difference in opinion among different breed-
ers, as to whether hens or pullets will breed the strongest chick-
ens. Some claim hens are better, while others claim that pul-
lets, mated to a cock, are just as good. I have experimented a
great deal and watched results from both hens and pullets, as
breeders. Any man in the fancy poultry business must study,
and make tests, to find out when a hen or a pullet will breed her
strongest and best chickens.

Pullets that are only five or six months old make very poor
breeders, and I would not advise hatching chickens from them
at that age; but a pullet ten or eleven months old can be de-
pended upon to throw strong stock, whether mated to a cock or
to a well matured cockerel who is ten or eleven months old. By
using the following method, I have bred some of the very best
show specimens from pullets. A pullet, hatched the first of
May, if she is properly grown and cared for will begin to lay
in November and should lay well all winter. If she becomes
44 HUBBARD’ POULTRY SECRETS.

broody around the middle of February, set her at once. After
she has hatched her chicks, take them from her and put her
back into the breeding yard. She should begin to lay again in
two weeks and she will breed three grades of chicks before go-
ing broody again. The first five or six eggs she lays, after put-
ting her back in the breeding yard will run a little small in
size. Set them, and you will have only fair chickens from
them. As soon as her eggs run uniform in size save and set
every one of them up to the time she begins to cluck, or shows
broodiness again. These eggs will hatch the best chicks of
the season. If you set the eggs she lays from the time she
shows signs of becoming broody, until she takes to the nest,
the chickens hatched will be the poorest lot of the year. The
same thing applies to the hen as well as to the pullet. A hen
will breed her best chickens after she has been allowed to set
three weeks, then break her up and put her back into the
breeding pen.

I only raise two hundred chickens a year, but they defeat the
best birds from England, Canada, Australia, and the United
States, at the Madison Square Garden show. The reason for
this is that I have found out when a hen and pullet will breed
her best chickens. I was a long time finding out this secret, but
I consider it one of the best secrets I have written in this book.
It is worth thousands of dollars to any breeder of Fancy Poul-
try who is in the business for a living, for it gives him a chance
to sell at a big price all the eggs that his best hens and pullets |
will lay up to the time they become broody. The customer who
buys the eggs from the breeder’s best hens and pullets is get-
ting more than value for his money as he is getting stock from
the breeder’s best hens and pullets and so is bound to get some
wonderful results. The customer will have a good chance in
the show room, and that is the best advertisement a breeder
can have.
 

OL aR oe
PHOTOGRAPH
Vb a Te La a

 
 

 

ap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 45

This year our egg trade started early in February, and to
date, which is the 7th of April, I have shipped nearly every egg
that our best hens and pullets have laid. Many customers
make a mistake in ordering their eggs too early. If they would
order their eggs in April and May they would get much bet-
ter stock.

Nearly every breeder shows his best stock and it takes at
least a month to get the birds back into good breeding condi-
tion, especially if he makes more than one show, for by the time
he gets them into breeding condition the zero weather comes
on. Even if his birds are laying good through the zero weath-
er, the fertility will run low and the chickens hatched will not
have the life in them that they would have when the weather
is warmer and the breeding birds can run out of doors. I have
never won with a cockerel or pullet at Madison Square Gar-
den, in the number of years that I have been breeding Fancy
Poultry, that was hatched before the first of May. Three
years ago our winning cockerel was hatched the 17th of June.
Two years ago our winning cockerel was hatched the 12th of
June. This year the winning cockerel was hatched the 18th of
May. My favorite time for hatching pullets is from the mid-
dle of May to the middle of June, as that gives plenty of time
for finishing them for the show. As cockerels need about a
month longer to finish, a hatch about the first of May is neces-
sary in order to have them in good condition for the Garden
Show, which is usually held the latter part of December.

The reason I have been so successful with late hatched chick-
ens is because I breed them as above described. Then, feed-
ing as I have described will put them in prime condition. They
will start to take on new flesh, and you will be saving their eggs
for hatching when they are gaining in weight.

A sitting hen eats very little and the heat of the body dries
up all of the surplus fat, so when she is putting on new flesh
46 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

she is gaining in strength, and the eggs she lays after the first
few days, up to the time she becomes broody again, will pro-
duce the best stock she has bred that year.

By this method of selecting eggs, any breeder can raise more
blue ribbon winners from two hundred chicks than he could
from six hundred by taking the eggs as they come.

MATING.

The following system of mating is entirely different from
any other. It is known to no one but myself.

Most other systems use one male and one female, but in
starting this system I use one male and two females. The
three birds, of course, should be good individuals. No matter
how much you pay for stock or how good it is, if you do not
mate it right, you are throwing money away. Fair birds, prop-
erly mated, will produce better stock than the best birds im-
properly mated. I will try to explain to you how this is.

I have never yet seen a perfect bird, therefore, you must be
sure not to breed from a male and female that have the same
weakness. For instance: If the male’s tail pinches too much,
and he carries it just a little too high, you must select a female
that has a well spread tail and a low carriage; or, if the male
bird is a little flat in the breast and has a short back, you must
select a female that has a very full breast and a long back, etc.
You will be surprised to find how quickly you can patch up the
weak parts by mating two strong parts to one weak part. If
you follow this system of mating, you will find that you will
never have a reason to be disappointed so far as mating goes.

After using this system of mating for a few years, the weak
sections will all disappear and ninety-five per cent. of all the
birds raised can go into the show room, and win as far as type
is concerned.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 47

In regard to mating for color* be sure that the three birds
you are going to line breed from are purchased from a breeder
who has bred and raised his own winners. Don’t buy them of
a breeder who buys his winners and then advertises that he has
raised them. There are a great many breeders to-day who are
buying their winners and not breeding them.

The best way to find out whether a breeder is buying his
winners or line-breeding them, is to go to the show room your-
self. Study the breeder’s birds that win the most prizes. If
they are line-bred, they will look like one family ; they will re-
semble each other. If there is no resemblance, you may be sure
that they were bought here and there, and not line bred.

We will take it for granted that the birds you have selected
are line bred. Supposing one hen comes from England, from
a winning strain, one hen from Canada, and the male bird from
this country. Now, by studying the chart of line breeding,
which is on another page in this book, you will see how, in six
years, you can combine all of the good qualities of the three
birds. They will have the equal blood of the three birds in
their veins, and with the good qualities of the three birds com-
bined, you will have a family or strain of birds that you can
challenge the world with and win. My last three years of win-
nings for Foxhurst Farm have proven that this system stands
alone.

On the chart for line breeding, we will call the bird from
England, Hen A; the bird from Canada, Hen B, and the bird
from this country, Male C. By naming the birds A, B and C,
it will be easier to follow the chart. We will put hen A to the
left, hen B to the right, and male C in the center. The first
year’s mating will be as follows:

The chickens hatched from hen A, we will call group No. 1,
which is one-half the blood of hen A, and one-half the blood of
male C. The chickens hatched from hen B will be group No.

 

* Refer to page 51.
48 HUBBARDS POULTRY SECRETS.

2, which is one-half the blood of hen B, and one-half the blood
of male C.

The second year, take the best cockerel from group No. 1 and
mate back to his mother which is hen A. This will be group
No. 3, which will be three-quarters of the blood of hen A and
one-quarter of the blood of male C. Then take the best cock-
erel from group No. 2 and mate back to his mother, which is
hen B. This will produce group No. 4, which is three-quarters
of the blood of hen B, and one-quarter of the blood of male C.
Now take the best pullet from group No. 1, and mate her, back
to her father which is male C. This will be group No. 5, which
will be three-quarters of the male C and one-quarter of the
blood of hen A. Then take the best pullet from group No. 2,
and mate her back to her father, which will be male C. This
will produce group No. 6, which will be three-quarters of the
blood of male C and one-quarter of the blood of hen B. This
will end the second year’s breeding.

The third year take the best cock from pen No. 2 and mate
him to the best pullet of group No. 3. This will produce group
No. 7 which is three-quarters of the blood of male C and three-
quarters of the blood of hen A and one-half of the blood of
hen B. Then take the best cock from group No. 1 and mate
him to group No. 4. This will produce group No. 8, which is
three-quarters of the blood of male C, three-quarters of the
blood of hen B and one-half of the blood of hen A. This ends
the third year’s breeding.

We now take the best cock from group No. 6 and mate him
to the best female in group No. 7. This will produce group No.
g which is one and one-half parts of the blood of male C and
three-quarters of the blood of hen A, and three-quarters of the
blood of hen B. We now take the best cock from group No.
5 and mate him to group No. 8. This will produce group No.
10, which will be one and one-half parts of the blood of male
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 49

C and three-quarters of the blood of hen A, and three-quarters
of the blood of hen B. This will end our fourth year’s
breeding.

We now take the best male from group No. 4 and mate him
to the best female from group No. 7, which will produce group
No. 11. One part of the blood of male C and one and one-
fourth parts of the blood of hen B and three-quarters of the
blood of hen A. We now take the best male from group No.
3 and mate him to the best female of group No. 8. This will
produce group No. 12, which is one part of the blood of male
C and one and one-quarter parts of the blood of hen A and
three-quarters of the blood of hen B. This will end the fifth
year’s breeding.

Now we will take the best male from group No. 11 and mate
him to the best female in group No. 12. This will produce
group No. 13 which is the two equal parts of the blood of male
C and the two equal parts of the blood of hen A and the two
equal parts of the blood of hen B. We now take the best male
from group No. 12 and mate him to the best female of group
No. 11. This will produce group No. 14, which is the two
equal parts of the blood of male C and the two equal parts of
the blood of hen A and the two equal parts of the blood of
hen B. This ends the sixth year’s breeding.

I have now shown you how you can buy three birds from dif-
ferent parts of the world and mate them for six years to pro-
duce a flock of birds that has an equal amount of the blood of
each of the original three birds.

By using this method of mating, the chickens will gain in size
and bone each year. This system can be used for a lifetime
without ever introducing new blood. There are a dozen dif-
ferent ways one can follow the chart and get almost as good
results, but the one I have just described will produce stock
which will defeat the best birds that the world can produce.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. Si

This I consider my greatest secret.
MATING THE BLACKS.

I will now give you my method of mating Blacks, Buffs, and
Whites for color. We will take the Blacks first. I find from
the letters that come to Foxhurst Farm that there is a very wide
difference of opinion among poultrymen in regard to mating
Blacks to get the beetle green sheen free from purple barring.
A good many letters read something like this, “I have a male
bird that has a very high sheen but has purple barring. What
will you charge me for a female that has no sheen and is just
a dull black in color with no purple barring.” Others will say
their male has not much sheen and is free from barring, and
would like to buy a female that has a very high sheen. Others
want the price on a trio or a pen; females of dull black color
with male with very high sheen, saying their reasons for want-
ing them mated in this way are to avoid purple barring and the
red in hackle of the cockerels raised from that mating.

I do not like the above method of mating to produce the beau-
tiful green plumage free from purple barring and to avoid red
in the hackle of the cockerels, for if it is followed, it will force
one to double mate to get the beautiful green plumage on both
cockerels and pullets. For instance, if a high sheen male is
mated to very dull black females, either the cockerels or pul-
lets will be off color. If the cockerels get good color from
this mating it will be necessary to mate the reverse, to get good
colored pullets.

The purple barring comes more from improper care and
feeding than from the mating. I have yet to find any red in
hackle from any pure Foxhurst Farm bird that I have ever
raised, and there is not a strain of Black Orpingtons in exist-
ence that has any higher green sheen than Foxhurst Farm
Black Orpingtons. They are noted for this, both in male and
52 HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS.

female, but still I can mate the two high sheens together and
be free from any red in hackle.

About five years ago Mr. Barnum, owner of Foxhurst Farm,
paid a big price for a bird that won high honors at New York.
I did not want to use the bird as a breeder as he was a stranger
to me. However, I mated this bird with five good females.
From this mating we produced red in the hackles ; consequently
in the fall I killed off every young bird I raised from the mat-
ing, and I never again placed that bird in the breeding yard.

The method I use in mating Black Orpingtons to get the
beautiful green plumage in both cockerels and pullets is to mate
a male and female that have the same shade of green, or as
nearly as possible to match them. This will produce cockerels
and pullets of the beautiful green sheen from a single mating.

I learned to mate Black Orpingtons by killing a pair of crows ;
a male and a female. I noticed that the plumage of the two
birds was exactly the same shade of green. You could not pick
the male from the female in regard to color. This proved to
me that nature never intended that a high green sheen male
should be mated to a dull black female, but that the plumage
of the male and female should be of the same shade. I have
never yet found purple barring on crows’ feathers. This also
proves that the purple barring does not come from mating a
high sheen male to a high sheen female. If it did, I would
have found barring in the plumage of the crows.

I then went to work and experimented on the different
methods of caring and feeding and I proved to my own sat-
isfaction that seventy-five per cent. of the purple barring in
black plumage is caused by improper care and feeding, which
causes a stunt of feather growth.

I will now give you some of the causes for stunted feather
growth: The first, over-feeding the chickens when they are
too young which often causes indigestion, therefore, throw-
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 53

ing the whole system out of order. Second, the feeding of
grains that do not contain the proper material for a quick
feather growth. Third, crowded quarters on warm night:
which cause the birds to sweat and become overheated. Fourth,
head and body lice; also filthy quarters. Fifth, worms ruin
more flocks of growing chickens and cause more off color than
“any other one thing. There is not one poultryman in twenty
that ever rids his growing chicks of worms and still they are
one of the worst enemies to growing chickens, and take more
dollars out of a poultryman’s pockets than any other one
thing. Through the growing period you should rid the chick-
ens of worms each month. On another page you will find
my method of ridding chicks of worms.

Mate your Blacks as described, watch the little things that
cause feather stunt, and follow the method of feeding, as
given in this book, and you will grow Blacks with the beau-
tiful green plumage, and eighty-five per cent. free from
barring.

MATING THE BUFFS.

I will now take up the method of mating Buffs. Nearly
every poultryman you meet will tell you that the Buff color is
the hardest color to mate, and that you will have to raise a
great many to get a few good ones. Now I don’t agree with
them, for I think that the Buff color is one of the best colors
to control if you go at it right. Most of the winning birds
are produced by the double mating system. One pen mated to
produce cockerels and the other pen mated to produce pullets.
From the cockerel mating you will get no good pullets. From
the pullet mated pen you will not get good cockerels. I do
not like this method of mating Buffs as you have to raise too
many birds that you can sell to market only, and your per-
54 HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS.

centage of good birds will be rather small. It is also too hard
for the amateur to follow. My ambition is to try and explain
a method of mating Buffs so that the amateur will have an
equal chance with the professional in producing Buffs for the
show room.

One of the greatest faults I find that most Buff breeders
have, is the mating of cockerels and pullets together. Such a
mating is very unsatisfactory, and does not produce very many
high class show birds. The reason for this is that one cannot
tell the breeding value of a Buff bird until it is two years old,
or until it has shed out as a cock or a hen.

I will try to explain why cockerel and pullet mating results
in so many poor Buff birds. We will say you breed from
twenty pullets. Of course, they look good to you as pullets
or you would not breed from them. When they take to molt-
ing and shedding out as hens you will find some of them with
dark hackles and light bodies. Some will be mealy in color,
some will come with white in the wings, and tail, and some will
lose the under color which they had when they were pullets.
You are lucky if you have five good hens out of the twenty
pullets which you used for breeding. The other fifteen should
never have been bred from, as they could not breed birds that
would win in a pumpkin show. The lucky five that held their
color are a gold mine as breeders. The same thing also ap-
plies to cockerels. There is no one who can tell the breeding
value of Buffs until they have shed out as cocks or hens.

You can raise more high class show birds from a trio, two
hens and a cock, than from ten pullets and a cockerel. There
is a very wide difference in opinion between breeders of Buffs
as to the proper shade of golden Buff color, that is desired.

I was asked by a certain Buff breeder to look at a Buff cock-
erel that he was thinking of buying, to see if he would make
a good cockerel breeder. Mr. Buff Breeder said he had a
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 55

cock at home that shed out too light for a show bird, but would
make a fine pullet breeder. I told him I did not believe in
double mating to produce Buff color, and also that the cock
erel in question was too high in color to suit me, as he was
more of a red than a Buff color. Mr. Buff Breeder then said
that I might be all right in mating Blacks, but he could see
that I did not understand mating Buffs. I did not tell him
that my favorite color was Buff and that I had bred more win-
ners in that color than I ever did in Black, and that I did it
by single mating.

Now in order to breed and hold the golden buff color, you
should mate the male and female with the same shade of even
golden buff, with under color to the skin. Be sure to train
your eye for the golden buff color, not the light cin-
namon buff nor the high colored red buff. From this
mating the majority of the chicks will be golden buff in
color. There will also be a few of the light cinnamon buff,
and a few of the high colored red buff. If you keep on mat-
ing the male and female that have the same golden buff color,
in about three years, you will find that you are breeding win-
ning cockerels and pullets from a single mating, and you won’t
have to raise two hundred birds, more or less, to get a few
good ones. Aiter you have mated this way for a few years,
with due regard to type, you will find that seventy-five per
cent. of all the Buff birds you raise can go into the show room.

MATING THE WHITES.

We will now take up the mating of Whites. The amateur
might think that white chicks are the easiest to produce, but
it is quite the reverse. A pure white strain of chickens is one
of the hardest things to produce; especially, in the male bird,
although there are quite a number of strains where the males
56 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

are as white as the females. But as the White Orpingtons
are not yet classed with the Rocks, Wyandottes and Leghorns
as a white strain of fowls, there are but very few white male
birds to be found in this country or in any other country. The
practice of bleaching the White Orpingtons and selling them
for white birds has killed the White Orpington business at
present, but there is a great future for them, in spite of this.
I think it will take from five to seven years, but by that time
they will be one of the whitest strains of fowls that can be
produced. Just as soon as we get them where they will stay
white the year around, we will see one of the biggest booms
on them that was ever on any strain of chickens, and it will
stay, for they are one of the best all-around-chickens that I
have ever seen, but we must breed them right and not fake
them.

My advice to every White Orpington breeder is to keep at
them and produce a stay-white strain, and if they have the
Orpington type in them, you will have a gold mine. A great
many of the White Orpington breeders cross in White Rock
blood to get white males. I will admit they help the strain
in regard to white male birds, but when they ship eggs out,
they advertise pure white strain, and about one-third of the
chickens hatched from these eggs come with yellow legs and
beaks. They don’t make the buyer feel very good after
paying a big price for the eggs. Another man goes to the
show room and buys a blue ribbon winner and pays a big
price for him. After he gets him home and he runs out in
all kinds of weather for about six weeks, instead of being the
white bird bought at the show, he has become a yellow bird.
This kind of faking has put the White Orpingtons to the
wall.

A stay-white all the year around White Orpington male
would be a hard thing for any breeder to buy as there have not
 
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 57

been many bred up to the present time, and any breeder who
has one, would not sell him under any consideration.

I will now give you an easy and safe method for producing
a stay white strain of White Orpingtons, and one by which the
males will stand the weather the year around, after a few
years of careful breeding. Select a White Orpington hen, one
that has been tested as a breeder, and that you know has bred
some of your best stay-white stock. Now, mate her with one
of the best Black Orpington cock birds that can be obtained for
type, making sure that he is a tested breeder. After mating
this pair, set all the eggs she lays after they run uniform in
size. After the chickens are matured from this mating, pick
out the cockerel that shows the best all around Orpington type
and best bone, and also pick out the best pullet with regard to
Orpington type and good bone. Now the cockerel and pullet
will be own brother and sister. After they are fully matured,
from eleven to twelve months old, they should be mated, and
you should set all the eggs you can from this mating. You
will find they will breed you three colors of chickens; a pure
black, a pure white, and a mixed color. About one out of
every three to five eggs hatched will come pure white, and they
will always breed and stay white. From this mating one
should raise six to eight whites. The best white cockerel you
raise from this mating should be mated back to his mother
and from this mating you will produce a number of cockerels
that are free from brass in their plumage. These white cock-
erels are badly in-bred by being bred from brothers and sis-
ters, and then back to their mother. Now you must have new
blood which should be secured by getting two more white hens
that are tested breeders of the same strain as the first hen, if
possible, select the best cockerel that shows the best type, bone
and color and start line breeding as described in the chart on
another page, and you will produce a strain of White Orping-
58 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

tons that any breeder will be proud to own. You will find
that the little dash of Black blood will help out on improving
type as well as color.

I have experimented on the crossing of Black cocks on
White hens, then breeding from brother and sister, and from
this mating I have produced white males that never have
shown brass in their plumage and I kept one until he was three
years old.

BREEDING HOUSES AND YARDS FOR OLD FOWLS.

I suppose there are not two men who agree in regard to
what makes the best all-year-round breeding house. Some
will tell you that the long house is the better, while some will
maintain that the double-decker where the fowls have to climb
a ladder to go to roost is superior; but both have their good
and bad points. A chicken house fit for chickens to live in
must have these three essentials:

First, it must be free from dampness; second, it must be
free from draughts; third, it must be ventilated so that in zero
weather the breath of the fowls will not cause the side of the
coop to frost.

The following is a description of a house which has given
me good results; it possesses the three essentials that I have
just mentioned:

The house is 14 feet long and 12 feet deep, with a partition
in the middle which makes two breeding pens, each 7x12;
(the partition may be of wire but a board partition is better.)
The floor is of cement. In order to be damp proof, a cement
floor should be laid in the following manner: Consider sills
as being four inches deep. First, put in two inches of gravel ;
over that an inch of cement. Let it harden for a day. Then
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 59

lay a good grade of tar paper over the cement, and over that
another inch of cement, which will bring the floor to the top
of the sill. When this is thoroughly dried, you will have a
perfectly dry floor the year around, a floor that is easily kept
clean and one that is rat proof. The coop should be 71% feet
high in front, and 5 feet in back. Use good matched lumber
for side walls, and shingles for the roof. Have one door in
one end. In place of glass for windows, use muslin. (There
is no glass in any chicken house on Foxhurst Farm.)

The windows should be thirty inches wide by 4 feet high.
The frame that the muslin is tacked on should be hung with
hinges. These windows should be closed only during show-
ers in the summer. In cold weather, they should be shut
every night, opened every morning, and left open all day, even
when the weather is 20 below zero. The windows should not
be less than 2 feet from the floor.

The roost should be at the back of the coop and as far as pos-
sible from the windows. It should be about 2%4 feet from
the floor, and one foot from the wall so that the male bird’s
tail will not get ruined. As I breed only five females to a male,
one roost is all that is needed for that number of birds. I do
not use dropping boards, but two feet from the back of the
coop I put a board six inches high so as to keep the chickens
from scratching the droppings in the litter. I use a Nor-
wich Hopper and Exerciser in each breeding pen.

There should be three good roomy nests in each breeding
pen. These should be placed so that they won’t interfere with
the floor space, and so that the chickens cannot roost on them.

I have used this style of house now for seven years, and
find it gives perfect satisfaction in every way; if I were to
build twenty-five breeding houses to-morrow, I would use this
one kind. My chickens have never had any swollen eyes,
colds, or rattles since I have adopted this style of breeding
houses.
60 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

On another page, you will find a picture of one of these
houses and yards. It will give you a better idea of how they
are built.

The yards, 20 feet wide and 50 feet long, are plenty big
enough for a pen of breeders. The wire fence around these
yards is nailed to the back of the house, running out 13 feet
from each end of it. The gate is hung between the corner
post and the end of the house, so that you can get into the yard
and house. You should board up your partition fence in the
middle 2 feet high to keep the male birds from fighting. You
can use your own judgment in regard to how many gates you
will need.

EXHIBITING FOWLS.

In this article I wish to touch on the different elements
which are essential in exhibiting fowls. If you are in the
fancy poultry business you should exhibit in at least one show.
You must get your birds before the public. The purchasers
look to the breeder who carries home the ribbons from the
poultry show, and like any other business or profession, one
must advertise. It has proven time and again that where one
does not advertise he cannot get returns in the fancy poultry
business. One of the best ways to advertise is by showing
your stock. In this way a breeder comes directly before those
who are interested in his particular breed, and becomes ac-
quainted with many a prospective buyer. Your name, your
stock and your winnings are associated, and the amount of
publicity thus derived is remarkable.

A start has been made, and now you should place a well pre-
pared advertisement in one or more of the leading poultry
papers. In many instances, breeders confine their exhibits
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 61

entirely to the smaller shows, which is an error. Let me not be
misunderstood in saying that home or neighboring shows should
not be patronized, as it is a duty that every fancier owes to
his home association to do all in his power to make his home
show a success, and if this is done his home show will grad-
ually grow to be one of the bigger shows. The point I wish
to bring out is that a winning at one of the larger shows, such
as New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Pittsburg is worth more than a hundred winnings at one of
the smaller shows. The bigger the show is the larger the at-
tendance will be, and the greater number of prospective buy-
ers will view your birds. Those are the people you are to
do business with, and unless you show your birds, you are out
of the running, and your competitor will do the business.

Everypresder should make up his mind to show his stock
to the public as soon as it is convenient. True, not every bird
you show will win a place, but do not be discouraged if this
should be your first experience. If your birds do not win, as
you wish they would, look up the judge, approach him in a
nice manner, and tell him that you are an amateur and ask
him if he will show you why your birds did not get any of
the ribbons. Many times a small defect has put a bird out of
the winnings. As I said before, a blue ribbon may not come
the first, second, or third year, but by keeping at it and apply-
ing brains and putting your whole heart and soul into the bus-
iness, the day will come when you will sweep the deck.

The foundation is now laid; but after this, real ambition,
common sense and business methods must be used. Follow
your birds to the show room and be on the job as much as pos-
sible. This is beneficial in two ways: First, you will be there
to talk to those who view your birds and in this way you may
make some sales. Second, you can attend to your own birds
better than the over-worked attendants, and in this way you
62 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

are assured that they will respond when called upon to
stand up.

To make sales on the floor, two elements are necessary ;
first, to be able to interest prospective buyers in the good qual-
ity your birds possess; second, never find fault in the show
room. Every bird has its good and bad points. Speak good
of your competitor. It will not hurt your birds or your bus-
iness. Everybody avoids a “kicker” and once a man has con-
fidence in your business methods, he will remember you when
he is in the market for the kind of birds you handle.

If your water and feed cups happen to be empty, don’t go
to the secretary’s office and enter a complaint that your birds
are not getting proper care; but go and find a watering can
and feed pail and attend to your own birds, if they are in need
of water and feed.

I feel that it is just as much my duty to look after the wants
of my birds in the show room as it is to look after their wants
at home. Some breeders seem to be looking for something
to complain about. Be sure you are not one of that kind. Be
a gentleman in the show room and avoid complaining without
having a good cause and you will make friends very quickly.
One can never have too many friends in the show room.

If the judge does not place the rewards just as you think he
should on your own string of birds, don’t go around the show
room telling everybody that the judge did not place your birds
right. Remember you have watched and studied your birds
from the day they were hatched to the day you put them into
the show room. You have also studied the good and bad
qualities of the team of birds you are exhibiting. Then the
judge comes along to judge your birds, and that judge is go-
ing to do his very best to try and pick out what he considers
the nearest to the standard of perfection, and what his con-
science tells him is the best bird. A great many times it hap-
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 63

pens that your favorite bird does not show his best just at the
time that the judge is to pass his opinion on him. He might
get excited over something, or he might not be feeling just
right at the time the judge is placing the awards. There are
one hundred and one things that could happen that would
cause your best bird to tighten up his feathers and not show
his best at the time he is to be judged. The judge has all
these things to contend with. How easy it is for him to make
a mistake under these conditions. Remember the judge has
not had the chance to study your birds as you have, so if the
ribbons do not go to your birds just as you think they should,
don’t complain and say that the judge is crooked, or you won-
der how much the other fellow had to pay him to place his
birds over yours. Get that idea out of your head about
judges being bought. Remember they have their reputation
at stake, and they are going to protect it the best they. know
how, and place the ribbons on the birds that look the nearest
to the standard at the time they are being judged. Some
birds improve every day they are in the show room and others
go back. Always remember that a bird which is gaining in
weight will make a good appearance in a show coop, provided
he has been properly trained before he is sent to the show
room; and a bird makes a poor showing if he is losing in
weight, as he is fast going out of condition. So train and
handle your birds at home and arrange your feeding so that
they will be gaining in weight the day they are to be judged.
This will give the judge a chance to pass on your birds when
they are at their best.

I have followed the show room for twelve years and not
once in the twelve years have I ever suspected a judge of be-
ing crooked. There were years that I did not think that I got
just what I thought belonged to me,’and there have been other
years where it has been a close thing for the judge to decide,
64 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

but I have been lucky enough to get the benefit of the doubt, so,
when 1 look back over the twelve years and put the good luck
against the bad luck I find that I have received what belongs
to me.

TRAINING QUARTERS.

Your training quarters should be the pleasantest and the
best ventilated room on the farm. The room should be free
from draughts and so arranged that it can be kept at an even
temperature of 65 degrees, which is about right for the best
results. It is impossible to get prime condition in training
quarters where the temperature runs as high as 80 to 85 de-
grees in the day time, while the sun is shining in the windows,
and drops as low as 30 to 35 degrees on a cold night.

In order to get the birds in prime condition, you must heat
the blood. This hastens the heart action and opens the pores;
but as a bird in this condition takes cold very easily you must
be sure that its training quarters are free from draughts. At
the same time you must keep good ventilation, as birds grow
stale very quickly in a room that is not well ventilated.

These training coops should be 30x24 inches in size, and
should be so high that the male’s comb will not touch the top
of the coop when he stands. The back, tops, and sides of the
coop should be tight, with just the front open. The three
slats or rods nearest the end of the coop should be close to-
gether so that the males cannot get their heads out and fight
those in the adjoining coops. The slats or rods in the middle
of the coops should be farther apart so that the caretaker can
get a clear view of the birds in their coops.

CONDITIONING.

No matter how much pains you have taken in growing and
feeding your birds, if they are not properly trained and con-
 

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ditioned your chances of winning are very poor, for a fair bird
in good condition will defeat a good bird in poor condition. If
you handle your male birds as I do, in houses and yards as de-
scribed for housing male birds, a week in the training coop
will be all they need to put them into prime condition. This
is more of a job than one would think.

How often we hear said, “I have my birds in fine condi-
tion—they are all two pounds over-weight.” One or two
pounds over-weight is no indication that a bird is in prime
condition, and I find, that it is almost impossible to get a bird
into prime condition that is over-fat. Figure to have your
birds at their best the day that they are to be judged. A bird
will stay in prime condition from three to five days. See to
it that your birds are not in prime condition five days before,
or five days after they are to be judged, but have them on time.
It takes from six to ten days to get a bird prime.

My method of training and conditioning for the show room
is as follows: Before putting the birds in their training
coops, all coops should be thoroughly cleaned, dusted, and
sprayed with kerosene. Use fine hay or straw for litter. A
handful of grit, shells and charcoal (about equal parts) should
be in the corner of each training coop. Litter should be
changed every other day to keep the birds looking fresh and
clean. Birds gaining in weight are rapidly coming into con-
dition and will remain in this state from three to five days,
after which they will begin to lose. Things that indicate good
condition are: Bright eyes, deep blood red color in comb and
wattles, comb standing firm and straight, plumage should be
bright and that of a male bird should have a high sheen. The
male should be lively and fond of calling the hens when given
food.

We get the above symptoms of condition by the following
method of feeding and handling:
66 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

The first day we give them nothing to eat or drink.

The second day force two small pieces of garlic bulb from
which the outer skin has been removed, down the throat of
each bird, morning, noon and night. Give each bird a table-
spoonful of olive oil. This will physic the system and carry
off worms.

For the next seven days, the morning feed should consist of
a mash made of ground milk crackers, three parts; flaked oat-
meal, six parts; hominy, twelve parts; and cooked ground
meat, one part. (Meat should be prepared in the following
way: Boil a lean piece of round steak fifteen minutes, add a
little salt to the water, grind fine.) Mix these ingredients
thoroughly with the hands and add two tablespoonfuls of flax-
seed (not meal) for each bird, add just a little red pepper to
the hot milk before moistening the mash. Feed what they
will clean up in ten minutes.

In the middle of the forenoon each bird should have a light
feed of sprouted oats.

At noon, each bird should be fed the following mash: Run a
little raw meat through the grinder, pour a little port wine
over it, add a little dash of nutmeg, now add enough ground
milk crackers to take up all the moisture. Give the birds all
they will eat of this.

In the middle of the afternoon give a light feed of sprouted
oats.

For the night feed give the birds all they will clean up in
half an hour of whole wheat and cracked corn.

After feeding this method for three days you will notice a
brighter color of eyes, comb and wattles and in about seven
days they will have a deep red color. Their combs will stand
firm and straight, their eyes will be bright and clear, and the
feathers will lay close to the body and have a very high sheen.
These symptoms indicate good condition.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 67

For drink there is nothing better than spring water, to which
has been added a drop of tincture of iron to each cup. Change
the water at noon, but omit the tincture of iron. Be careful
to clean watering cups thoroughly every night.

Bathe the face, comb and wattles with clear alcohol each
day. This will check the heavy growth of their combs.

Use for a head dressing the day they are to be judged, five
parts of turpentine to one of cocoanut oil. First bathe the face,
comb, and wattles with vinegar and warm water, equal parts,
dry, and then apply the turpentine and oil. This will put on a
finish that is hard to beat. Shanks should be gone over with
the same application.

Every bird should be handled twice a day. Remove bird
from coop in the following way: Turn the bird’s face to-
ward you, with your right hand take a firm hold of the wing
close to the body and pull the bird forward. Place your left
hand under the keel with the hocks between the thumb and
forefinger. This will give you a firm hold of the bird. Bring
the bird toward you, leaving the whole weight in your left
hand, with breast resting on your forearm. Open the bird’s
wing with your right hand, then change the bird to your right
hand and with your left hand open the other wing. You have
now handled the bird just as the judge will and he should not
be man shy when taken out of the coop in this way. I have
seen birds that were used to being taken from the coop with
both hands, as amateurs sometimes do, and when a judge takes
these birds by one wing and pulls them toward him, these
birds would squack and become frightened because they were
not used to being handled in this way. A bird frightened by
strange handling will tighten the feathers and will not show
real type. Many a good bird has lost a blue by not being
handled properly in training quarters.

Have a barrel in your training quarters to stand your birds
68 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

on, and before putting them back in their coops rub the plum-
age well with a piece of silk. Study the position your birds
look best in, and when replacing them in their coops teach them
to pose in this position each time. No two birds should be
taught to pose in the same position, as each should be taught
to pose in the position that covers the faults best. For instance:
if a bird is weak in breast, teach it to pose tipped a little for-
ward; if you have one that holds his neck and head too far
back, so the hackle covers the back too much, and shortens the
appearance of the back, it should be taught to hold his head
and neck a little forward. Whatever the fault is teach him to
pose to cover it as much as possible. I have now given you
my method of feeding, handling and conditioning for the show
room, which has never stood defeat.

CONDITIONING BIRDS FOR BREEDING AFTER
THEIR RETURN FROM THE SHOW ROOM.

I consider it just as much a trick to fit a bird for the breed-
ing pen as I do to fit it for the Show Room. In the Show
Room, a bird usually gets over-fed, and takes on too much
weight. Birds that are over-fat are not fit to breed from, as
they will not breed strong chickens. . The best way to tell
when birds are in the best possible condition to breed from is
to lift them. If the comb is a good red and the bird feels light
and corkey, and still seems to have plenty of flesh, it is in the
best possible condition for breeding, and will breed strong
chickens that will not give you much trouble to raise, and will
grow like weeds.

If, when you pick them up they feel leady or a dead weight,
and they have too much fat below the vent, even if their comb
and face are red, they are not in breeding condition, and the
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 69

chickens hatched from such stock will be small and will give
you lots of trouble to raise them.

I will now tell you the best method I know of for putting a
flock of chickens into breeding condition after being returned
from the Show Room, where they have been fed too much,
and have taken on too much fat. All birds should be dusted
with lice powder after their return from the Show Room. Use
second crop clover hay for litter in your breeding coop. You
will be surprised to see how much they will eat of it, and it
helps a great deal to balance their grain rations, as breeding
birds should be fed on a light, bulky ration, rather than on a
solid, grain ration. The heavy solid grain ration will put
too much fat on the intestines, which is not wanted in a breed-
er. The light, bulky food will not cause the intestines to tale
on too much fat, and will keep them in a better breeding
condition.

After you have dusted your birds, and have your coops well
littered, you are ready to mate them. If you are breeding Or-
pingtons, never breed over five females to one male. For the
first three days they should not be fed on anything but crack-
ers. In the morning and evening, take five milk crackers,
break them up in your hand, and throw them in the litter, so
they will have to scratch and work to find them. Follow this
method of feeding for three days, and you will not have a lazy
bird in the bunch. Good judgment must be used to give them
just enough to eat to satisfy their wants, but be sure to keep
them lively. This can be done by feeding three times a day.
The morning and noon feeds should be a little light, and their
night feed should be the heaviest. Do not let them go to roost
hungry. Handle your breeders in this way, and the chickens
you hatch will not give you any trouble to raise, and they will
grow like weeds.

After they have been fed on crackers for three days, they
70 HUBBARD S POULTRY SECRETS.

should be fed on wheat, corn and oats. The wheat and oats
should be sprouted, which is done in the following way: Take
two parts oats and one part wheat, mix thoroughly by hand
and put in a wash boiler (which I think makes the best thing
to soak them in), then pour enough water in the boiler to
cover them well. Let them soak for 36 hours, then add to
each pail of water you soak them in, 30 or 40 drops of tincture
of iron (this pertains to a pail that holds 12 quarts of water),
the oats and wheat should then be put in shallow boxes, which
should be 18 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 4 inches high.
Put about 2% inches of the soaked grains in each box, and
place one box on top of the other. There should be a small
crack in the bottom of each box to let the water drain off. The
second day they are in the box they should be stirred up by
hand. The morning of the third day they should be wet down
with cold water, and stirred up by hand again. Each time
after they are stirred up, the boxes should be placed one on top
of the other. Don’t place anything between the boxes to give
a circulation of air as is advised by some, as this causes the top
of the grains to dry out much faster than the middle, and they
won’t all start to sprout at the same time. By placing one on
top of the other, it stops the currents of air from drying out
the top and the grains hold the moisture better. The fourth
morning you will find they have all started to sprout, provided
they have been kept in a room where the temperature is from
70 to 75°. Then put all the grain into a big box which is 2%4
feet square, and Io inches high. Stir them up well, wet them
well with cold water, and put a cover over the box. Have a few
cracks in the cover, but the cover must not be raised off the box.
The grains should be kept in the dark, but they should also be
moist. After they have been in this box for two days, they
are ready to be fed to the birds. The time when sprouted
grains are best for fowls is when they have made a good length
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 71

of root and the tops have just started to sprout; for now you
have the full value of the meats of the grains with lots of roots
to help make the bulk that is wanted so much in keeping the
breeders in’ good laying condition.

The difference in weight between sprouted and unsprouted
grains is about as follows: A pail of grains, as you get it
from the mill, weighs about 25 pounds, and a pail of the same
size of sprouted grain will weigh about 12 pounds; therefore,
a pail of sprouted grain will feed the same number of birds as
a pail of grain which is not sprouted. You can now readily
see the difference between a bulk ration and a solid ration. By
feeding the birds a pail of sprouted grain, their crops will be
just as full and they will have less than one-half the weight in
their crops than if you feed them solid grain. Feeding them
solid grain will cause them to get over-fat, which will ruin
them as breeders.

After feeding them crackers three days, their morning feed
should be sprouted grain thrown in the litter. At noon they
should have another feed of sprouted grain, and at night they
should be fed cracked corn, thrown in the litter. The even-
ing feed should be given one hour and a half before they go
to roost, so they will have to work hard in the litter to fill their
crops before bedtime. Twice a week your birds should have
green ground bone, just enough to satisfy them. Once or
twice a week substitute dry crackers in the place of sprouted
grain for the noon meal. They relish this change very much.
Each pen should be supplied with grit, shells, and charcoal.
Don’t keep any dry mash or beef scraps before your breed-
ers. Keep your breeders lively and handle them as explained
above, and your chickens will look a week old when they are
hatched. Twice a week your male birds should be taken away
from the females and fed all they will eat of a good strength-
ening food with a liberal amount of lean meat in it. This will
72 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

keep up their strength, as a good breeding male is very apt
to see that his females get their share first, and when he comes
to look for his share, there isn’t much left.

You will find the above method a good one to follow after
you break up your breeding pens and take the male birds away
from the females. After you are through hatching, the male
birds should go in separate yards and be fed the same as they
were in the breeding pen, except that they should be fed wheat
instead of corn, for their evening feed. Withhold corn
through the hot months. The proper way to give your best
hens comfort through the hot months is to go over your whole
flock of hens and pick out the ones that you want to breed
from next year, and also the ones you want to use in the show
room, and arrange the roosts so they can sleep in the open air.
If you have a meadow on your farm that you mow, you have
an ideal place for your best hens. All you have to do is to ar-
range a place for them to roost. It can be done in the fol-
lowing way, and it won’t cost much: Use four posts, two by
four will do. The size of your roosting quarters all depends
on how many hens you have. A roosting place 12 feet square
makes good sized roosting quarters, and will accommodate a
number of hens. A roof which can be made of any cheap
lumber and covered with tar paper so it will not leak, should
be placed over the roosting quarters. By arranging four
roosts and running poultry wire around the outside, with a
gate on one side, you have roosting quarters that can’t be beat
for the comfort of your hens through the hot summer. By
shutting the gate at night, you can protect them against foxes,
skunks and dogs. You can readily see that a meadow or pas-
ture makes an ideal place for one of these roosting sheds, and
your birds can enjoy free range. After you have your birds
in their new quarters, you should feed so as to stop egg
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careful that they don’t get over-fat. If your best hens be-
come broody, let them set, as they will make better molt by do-
ing so, and when the new feathers start, they will gain in
weight and their feathers will grow much faster. The faster
they put on these new feathers, the better color they will have.
While they are on free range they should be made to pick the
most of their living by catching bugs, grasshoppers and crick-
ets. They should only be fed once a day, and that should be at
night just before bed-time. This should be thrown in the lit-
ter to make them work to get it. It would be a good plan to
put a few heaps of horse manure in different places around
their roosting quarters, then you can throw their night feed
in this, and they would enjoy scratching it out, and the exer-
cise they got from it would keep them in good health. If
you handle your show birds and breeders in this way, they
will not disappoint you, and they will be birds of rare quality,
provided when they begin to shed, that you feed them by the
method which I have given on another page in this book, on
feeding through the molt. You should also keep plenty of
shells, grit and charcoal before them. Don’t neglect going
over them for lice once each month, and grease their shanks
to keep them in good shape.

HOUSE AND YARDS FOR MALE BIRDS.

It is almost impossible for a breeder of Fancy Poultry to
get along without having a separate house for his male birds
when the breeding season is over and when the cockerels will
no longer run together without fighting. There are many
Blue Ribbon cockerels ruined by being allowed to run with
other cockerels. When a cockerel is once “cowed down,” it
is impossible to get him to finish his feathers as he should ; his
74 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

saddle feathers are the most effected. As an Orpington cock-
erel does not look finished if his saddle feathers are not of
the proper length, his actions must be carefully watched. As
soon as a cockerel gets “boss,” and runs the others, he should
be taken away and put into one of the male houses and yards

Every poultryman who has seen the houses and yards used
on Foxhurst Farm says that it has the best system of caring
. for male birds that he has ever seen. “You will find on an-
other page a picture of one of the houses and yards; this will
give you a more adequate idea of them.

The house we have built for shedding our male birds is 72
feet long and six feet wide with a partition, which runs the
whole length of the house. Then every six feet is a side par-
tition. This gives us twenty-four pens, twelve on each side
of the house. Each pen is 3x6 feet and each one of the twen-
ty-four pens has a yard six feet wide and twenty-five feet long,
with a gate at each end. Each yard is boarded up 2% feet
high to keep the birds from fighting, and also to act as a good
wind break. Even on cold windy days in December the birds
stay out in these yards all day, for the wind cannot get to
them. Cold winds are bad for chickens; there are many days
during the winter that I would have had to keep the chickens
in the coop all day if the yards had not been boarded up in
this way.

In these houses I train and condition each team of birds
which I show at Madison Square Garden. I give them about
ten days in their training quarters to put on the finishing
touches, and to teach them the tricks of the show room. Fox-
hurst Farm is known the world over for having its birds in
prime condition in the show room. The method I have just
described for housing and yarding male birds has more to do
with the prime condition than anything else, as the birds enjoy
the open air up to a week or ten days before they are judged.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 75

My winnings of the past three years are as follows:

At Madison Square Garden, New York, December 29, 1912
to January 1, 1913.

First and third cock.

First and fifth hen.

First, third, fourth and fifth cockerel.
First, second, third and fifth pullet.
First and fourth pen.

At Madison Square Garden, New York, December 26 to
31, 1913.
First, second and fourth cock.
First, second and third hen.
First, third, fourth and fifth cockerel.
First, second, fourth and fifth pullet.
Second pen.

At Madison Square Garden, New York, February 12 to
18, 1914.
Second, third and fourth cock.
First, second and fourth hen.
First, second, fourth and fifth cockerel.
First, third, fourth and fifth pullet.
First pen.

Competition at the three shows mentioned above was very
great. Among those participating were William Cook and
Sons, or the originators of the Orpingtons, with a team of
birds selected from the best that could be found in England,
including many winners at the Crystal Palace Show; the
strongest team that could be found from Canada to Australia;
and the best raised in America. In spite of this, Foxhurst
Farm won nearly every place in each of the open classes and
lost only two blues in the three years. This proves without a
76 HUBBARD S POULTRY SECRETS.

doubt that I am offering to the public the best system ever of-
fered on the Mating, Feeding and Conditioning of Fancy
Poultry.

LICE AND HOW TO RID THEM.

There is nothing that causes a poultryman more work than
lice. A man has to fight them twelve months in the year, and
is lucky then if he is rid of them. I have tried nearly all lice
powders and lice paint, but the following method has proven
to be best. For lice paint, for roost, nests and all inside work,
I find that there is nothing that quite equals kerosene and creo-
sote. To every gallon of oil add one pint of creosote. This
is much cheaper and does better work for keeping down lice
and mites than anything I have ever tried. It can be made
for twenty-five cents a gallon. It should be put on with a
spray pump. You should spray the inside of the poultry
houses at least four times a year, and the roosts and nest
boxes once a week. This will keep your poultry houses free
from lice and red mites.

For a lice powder I find that there is nothing that can beat
Persian Insect Powder, and fine ground tobacco dust. To
make it, mix two parts of fine tobacco dust to one part of
Persian Insect Powder, and you will have one of the best lice
powders you have ever tried, and as it is harmless to the chick-
ens, you can use it freely.

Half dusting your chickens is throwing your labor away.
They should be gone over thoroughly from the beak to the tail
in order to get all the lice. The best and quickest way is to
buy or rig up a tumbling barrel that will hold from six to
eight chickens. Close the opening, turn them over and over
a few times, shake them out as quickly as possible, and you
will find they are dusted in all sections clear to the skin.
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HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 77

The best time to do this work is at night, when they are
roosting. You can catch them easily and in one evening can
go over a large flock of chickens. Leave them on the floor
after you have dusted them and the lice will fall off into the
litter. In the morning, clean all the litter out of your house,
and set fire to it. Spray your houses all over well with the lice
liquid, then put in clean litter, and your chickens will be free
from lice for some time. Do this at least four times a year,
though once a month would be better, especially during the
summer.

One-quarter of a poultryman’s time should be used in fight-
ing lice. My method of keeping lice and mites off from grow-
ing chicks is as follows:

You should not call yourself a chicken man if you allow
your hens to hatch a brood of chicks that are covered with
lice. Some writers claim that a chicken is born with head
lice, whether hatched by hen or incubator. I can’t say whether
this is true or not, but I, myself, have never found any head
lice on a chicken that was hatched in a clean incubator. I
have noticed that almost all chickens hatched by a hen have
head lice. When the chicks are strong enough to leave the
nest and go to the brood coop, the first thing I always do is
to take the hen in one hand and with the other hand I grease
her feathers and skin using pure olive oil. When the chicks
crawl under the hen, they moisten their down with the oil, and
if there are any lice on her, or them, they will leave, for lice
do not like grease of any kind. It not only rids the little
chicks of lice, but seems to strengthen them. You must be
careful not to put on too much of the oil for by using just a
small quantity, the chicks will look bright and clean when they
come from under the hen. Moisten her feathers with olive
oil once a week for four weeks. After that add to the olive oil
a few drops of oil of sassafrass. Keep up this method of
78 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

moistening her feathers and skin until she weans her chickens.

When using this method you don’t have to worry about lice
on your young chickens. After you take the hen from them,
they should be dusted in a tumbling barrel once a month with
the same powder you use on the old fowls. When the chicks
are full grown and have their new plumage, it would be a little
risky to put them in the tumbling barrel, as they might break
a wing feather and this would hurt them for show purposes.
So during this time it would be safer to dust your show spec-
imens by hand.

For head and throat lice, put a few drops of oil of sassa-
frass on a small sponge and moisten the feathers well on top
of the head and under the throat, and you will rid your chick-
ens of lice in these parts.

At least ten days before your chickens are hatched, you
should thoroughly clean your brood coops and spray them all
over with the same liquid lice paint that you use in your large
hen houses. After you have sprayed these coops, shut them
up tight to hold the fumes in the coop and let it penetrate
through the wood. The day before you put the hens and
chicks in the coop, open the door so it can get aired out well.

I use peat moss for litter as you never get any bad odor
from the droppings when this is used. It should be saved, es-
pecially if you have a garden, for it makes the best fertilizer
for all kinds of crops.

Your brood coops should be cleaned thoroughly once a
week, and once a month the litter should be changed and the
coops sprayed all over inside. You won’t be bothered very
much with lice and mites if you follow this method.

POULTRY DISEASES.

It is not my purpose to explain in detail the various diseases
of poultry, but I will give you my method of treating a few
HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS. 79

of the most dreaded diseases that a poultry breeder has to con-
tend with. Namely: Roup, cholera or diarrhea, chicken pox
and canker.

Roup is one of the most dreaded diseases that a poultryman
has to contend with. Many writers claim that the only sure
cure for roup is the axe. I will admit that a cheap or just a
fair breeder would not be worth bothering with and the axe
would be the best cure. It is quite an undertaking to cure a
bad case of roup after it has once gotten a good hold, but I
have never seen a case of roup that I could not cure with the
following treatment:

In treating roup, the first thing to do is to clean the system
thoroughly. At night give the bird a dose of salts or castor
oil. The next morning, wash comb and wattles with warm
water, using cuticura soap, and wipe dry. If the eyes foam
or are swollen, moisten a sponge with kerosene oil and apply
it to the face and wattles. Don’t be afraid of getting it into
the eyes as it will do no harm, but be very careful not to get
it on the skin under the feathers. If you do, it will blister
and make a bad job of it. Put three drops of aconite in a
teaspoonful of water, and give it in the morning. At noon,
give one teaspoonful of olive oil with three drops of spirits of
camphor in it. At night give the bird two tablespoonfuls of
equal parts of rum and hot water in which has been dissolved
two grain capsules of quinine and sweeten it with a little
molasses.

You will find the best way to get medicine down a sick
bird’s throat is with a glass syringe.

Open the bird’s mouth, put the end of the syringe a little
ways down the bird’s throat, and empty the syringe. In this
way they get it all and none of it is wasted. If, on opening the
mouth you find any cankers, paint them with tincture of iron.
If the throat is patched, make a paper tube, and blow sulphur
80 HUBBARDS POULTRY SECRETS.

and pulverized sugar down the bird’s throat. For drinking
use pure water sweetened with a little sugar. See that the
birds get two feeds a day while sick. One feed should consist
of stale bread moistened with milk, and the other feed should
consist of two parts of stale bread and one part of raw meat
put through a meat grinder. Give them all they will eat at
each meal. Keep your birds in a warm dry place, free from
draughts and treat them as explained above and in about ten
days they will be ready to go back to the breeding pen.

CHICKEN POX.

Chicken pox is a Southern disease and it is very seldom we
have it in the North.

My first experience with it was five years ago. We showed
a string of birds at one of the southern shows and on their re-
turn home I placed them in their different yards on the farm
and in about ten days most of the whole flock broke out with
chicken pox. It was a week before I found out what was the
matter with them, for I had never seen a case of it before. By
that time it had gotten a good hold. I tried most everything
I could think of for the sores on face, head and comb, and
nothing I tried seemed to be able to check it. I then began
to doctor the blood and I soon wiped it out. I used the fol-
lowing treatment:

I first cleaned the system good by giving them a dose of
salts. I then gave them sulphur in their mash for three days,
skipped three days, gave them another dose of salts and con-
tinued this treatment for nine days. I greased the sores with
vaseline in which I added a liberal amount of camphor gum.

After I began giving this treatment, I could see an im-
provement every day, until the whole flock was cured, and I
have never had a case of it until right now. This bird was
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 81

shipped to a show in Tennessee three weeks ago, and on his
return home he had a case of chicken pox. I have been giv-
ing him the same treatment for a week, the sores have all dis-
appeared, and the bird is in fine condition.

CANKER.

Canker is another troublesome disease with poultry, and
throws a bird out of condition very quickly. In fact, it is im-
possible to get a bird in prime condition if he has canker. This
is overlooked by a good many poultrymen. Any time you
see a bird going out of condition if the bird hasn’t a cold or
diarrhea, nine times out of ten canker will be the cause. A
good many times the canker will be so low down in the throat
that it cannot be seen, or it might be in the ear. A canker in
the ear is a bad thing and should be attended to at once. In
the treating of canker whether in the mouth, throat, intestines,
or ear, the first thing to do is to clear the system by giving the
bird one tablespoonful of caster oil. All whole grain should
be taken away from the bird for a few days, and the feed
should consist of two mashes a day.

The morning feed should consist of a mash moistened with
milk to which has been added one-quarter of a teaspoonful of
flax-seed. For the evening mash, leave out the flax-seed and
use powdered charcoal in its place.

For all cankers you can see in the mouth and throat, take
a small brush and paint them with tincture of iron. Never
scrape a canker to make it bleed, as advised by some.

For canker in the ear, dissolve a small piece of cuticura soap
in a small quantity of water. Take a medicine dropper and
work this well down in the ear. Do this two or three times
and it will soften the canker. Then take the spoon end of a
pair of tweezers and take out all the canker you can without
&2 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

making it bleed. Work in all the cuticura ointment you can
and leave it in the ear for a few days; then you will find that
the canker is softened up so you can take the rest of it out.
Clean the ear very thoroughly, paint the canker with the tinc-
ture of iron and the bird will need no further treatment.
Never neglect canker for a bird is not fit to breed from that
has canker any more than a bird is fit to breed from that has
roup.

CHOLERA OR DIARRHEA.

I will not try to give you a cure for genuine chicken cholera
as I do not think there is any cure for it, although a great
many advertisers claim they have a cure for it. I have tried
a great many of the so-called cholera cures on birds that had
diarrhea and I have not found one of them that would even
cure that to say nothing about curing cholera.

I have been breeding poultry a good many years but have
never seen a genuine case of chicken cholera but once. The
disease works very quickly ; I saw a bird in perfect health at
nine o’clock in the morning, and at five o’clock in the afternoon
of the same day the bird was dead. The following method of
treating diarrhea has saved many a valuable bird for me.

In treating diarrhea, the first thing to do is to give the bird
a dose of physic at once, so as to carry off the cause. The bird
should be put in warm, dry quarters and food of every kind
should be kept away from the bird, as there is many a case of
diarrhea lost by not giving the stomach a rest when it is in
that weak condition.

They should not be fed for at least three days. Their
nourishment should be given to them in the form of drink
prepared in the following way:

Mix one cup of barley and one cup of whole rice with one
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 83

quart of water and let it boil for twenty minutes. Then add
one quart of new milk, and let it again come toa boil. Strain
this liquid through a cloth or a fine strainer. When cool
give this to the birds to drink, and nothing but this for three
days. Then feed a mash of corn meal with just a pinch of
venetian red mixed in it. Moisten with milk that has just
come to a boil.

RATTLES.

In case of rattles of the throat, give a dose of salts. Keep
the bird in a dry, warm place. Rub the outside of the throat
well under the beak and well down the neck with croup specific
which can be bought at any drug store. Heat it as hot as your
hand can stand it before applying. Mix equal parts of the
croup specific and glycerine, heat it well, and pour a small ta-
blespoonful of it down the bird’s throat. Continue this treat-
ment from three to five days and you will find it will cure the
most stubborn case.

There is a cold or distemper that gets in many flocks of
growing chickens in the fall, around the first of October.
Growing chickens seem to take cold much easier in the fall
than at any other time of the year. They will foam at the
eyes, run at the nose, and cough a great deal. ‘You might
think the bird had a case of roup, but it is the fall distemper
and if not attended to at once it will run into roup, so always
be on the lookout for these fall distempers.

You will find that if one or two of your flock gets this dis-
ease, your whole flock will be affected in a few days. A good
many times it comes with looseness of the bowels. It is much
harder to handle in this form. A good many advise shutting
the birds up, treating them in the same way you would for
roup; but you would have to catch each bird and give him his
84 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

dose which would mean a great deal of work. The best way
to treat a flock that has the fall cold or distemper is to keep
them out in the air all you can on clear days.

On rainy days keep them in. They should be treated in the
following manner: For drinking water use clear water to
which has been added a tablespoonful of spirits of camphor (to
two gallons.) Give them no other water to drink. They should
be fed twice a day. These feeds should consist of mash which
has been wet up with water and into which there has been
mixed a large quantity of raw meat or liver; also put in three
drops of aconite to each bird. Mix up what mash they will
eat up at once. Burn a cresolene lamp at night in their sleep-
ing quarters. Follow this treatment for a week or ten days
and your trouble will be all over. If the birds show a loose-
ness of the bowels use a little venetian red in the mash.

LIVER TROUBLE.

When a bird is affected with a bad case of liver trouble, the
best thing to do is to kill it, but a light case can be helped by
cleaning the system with a dose of salts. Then they should
be put on a very light diet one that is easily digested. Boiled
rice makes a very good food for a few days. Make one of
their feeds sprouted oats, and a little later some whole wheat
thrown in the litter to make them exercise. They should also
be given some liver pills. A bird treated in this way will
sometimes get over a bad attack of liver trouble.

Nine times out of ten a man can trace diseases to filthy
quarters, crowded quarters, draughts, or improper feeding.
See that you don’t have any of the above faults and your
chickens will be free from disease.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 85

SCALY LEGS.

There is nothing that looks so bad as to see a flock of birds
with scaly legs, and once it gets into your flock it takes a lot
of work to get it out. Even if the breeding stock is free from
scaly legs, one has to be careful when he buys sitting hens
from the farmers, that they are free from them.

The best way I have ever seen to keep down this trouble
and keep the shanks of your young and old stock in good con-
dition is to take a shallow pan that is just two-thirds of the
height of the bird’s shanks, fill it almost full of water, and
then pour just enough kerosene in the water to cover the top
surface of the water. Then place the pan in front of the
opening of the coop where your chickens come out so they
will have to step both feet into the oil and water. Do this once
a month and your birds will always be free from scaly legs.
One pan is all that it is necessary to use for treating the whole
flock. It might be well to leave the pan empty the first day
and fill it with water and oil the next morning. By treating
them in this way their shanks will always be in the best of
condition.

Equal parts of lard and sulphur moistened with a little ker-
osene is another good treatment. This will do the work well,
but as it necessitates the handling of each bird separately,
where there is a large flock to go over, the work becomes very
tedious.

HOW THE AMATEUR IS BEATEN IN THE SHOW
ROOM BY THE FAKIR.

We always have had, and always will have, I am sorry to
say, fakirs to contend with in the Show Room. As a rule,
fakirs are not all-around high class chicken men. One of
86 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

the strongest points they have is that they show their birds in
the pink of condition; that is that they are good fitters. Most
of their time is devoted to the study of faking and condition-
ing, and they give little thought and study to mating and
growing, on which points they are very weak. With these
two strong points in their favor (faking and conditioning, )
they are hard men for the amateur to defeat. Amateurs gen-
erally start showing at the early and late fall fairs, thinking
that their chances of winning would be better than they would
be at the large mid-winter shows. Here is where a great many
times the amateur gets defeated by the fakirs.

I have known fakirs to follow the fall fairs with a string
of birds that they themselves did not breed, and clear a thou-
sand dollars on cash prizes. Two years ago I had a letter
from a poultryman of this type asking if I had three cockerels
and three pullets that were good type and size that I would
sell cheap and that I had culled out in the Black Orpingtons.
He said he didn’t care if they had side sprigs, stubs, poor color
or high tails, so long as they had the size and type, as he wanted
them to show at the fall fairs. He was getting a team of over
a hundred birds of different breeds and expected to clean up
$1,200 on cash prizes. This man offered me $3.00 each for
six culls, but he insisted on having good type and size. I
never took the time to answer his letter, as I have always dis-
liked poultrymen who are trying to make reputations on birds
that they never breed. This man wanted to buy culls of me
and fake them to win. Poultrymen of this type are hurting
the Fancy Poultry business more than anything else. My
heart really aches for the amateurs that have to stand de-
feat by the hucksters and fakirs at the early fairs.

Mate, feed and care for your birds as described in this book,
and you can defeat any huckster or fakir in the business.
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HUBBARD'S POULTRY SECRETS. 87

Following you will find a good many tricks used by the
fakir in the Show Room:

SIDE SPRIG.

A good many times your best show cockerel or pullet has
a side sprig. The amateur leaves him home, or sells him to
the fakir. One method is to press it hard against the teeth,
and bite it off close to the surface of the comb. Another is
to lay the comb flat on a board and with a sharp razor to cut
the sprig off. The method used most is to take a sharp pair
of shears, and with the thumb on the opposite side, press hard
against the blade of the shears and cut the sprig off as closely
as possible.

STUBS.

If there are but one or two stubs on each shank, they will
not take them out until just before they ship them to the
show. It is done by taking your thumb nail, pressing down
hard at the root, then pressing forward; the stub will then
shoot out. If they want to kill the stub, they take a small
darning needle and hold it over a flame. When the point is
red hot, be quick and shove it up under the scale where the
stub comes out. When the hot point of the needle touches
the root of the stub, it kills it. When one uses the hot needle,
it should be done at least two months before the birds are
shown. The shank should be bandaged quite tight for three
or four days. Grease the shank well with vaseline before put-
ting on the bandage. The down between the toes is pulled
out with the fingers or a pair of tweezers.

CARRYING THE TAIL TOO HIGH.

Where a bird carries the tail too high, the fakir lowers it in
the following way:
88 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

They begin at the lower tail feathers first, and with their
thumb and forefinger they put a kink in the feather close to
the skin. They break down one side at a time. Every feath-
er should be broken on the same angle. With a little practice
one can get any angle to the tail he wants. A wry tail is
caused by roosting in a corner or against the side of the build-
ing. It is straightened the same way as you lower a tail. If
they carry the tail to the left, put a kink in tail feathers to
the right. By doing so the tail will look straight. If the bird
has a crooked back, this method will not help. That is one
thing they can’t fake.

COLOR FAKING.

There is no color faked so much as the white color. To
get rid of the brass and creaminess in the male birds, the
things used to bleach white are bluing, peroxide, oxalic acid,
chloride of lime and ammonia. You will find how the dif-
ferent bleaches are used on another page where it gives the
method of washing a white bird.

FAKING BLACK COLOR.

Every breeder of Black color has purple barring to contend
with and a good many times your best bird has the most purple
barring. The amateur sends him to the show room and he
does not get in the money on account of too much purple bar-
ring. The same bird would wear the blue in the fakir’s hands
for he would put him in the show room without any barr on
him. It is done in the following way:

Melt a piece of beef suet about the size of a small apple,
and at the same time melt an equivalent quantity of lard. Pour
them together, and while hot stir in a teaspoonful of sulphur
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 89

and let it cool. Work a small quantity of this mixture into
the palm of your hand, wiping off any surplus. Spread out
the bird’s wing, rubbing the wing bone with this mixture. Al-
ways rub the right way of the feathers, never against them.

If your hen or pullet is barred a little on the back and sad-
dle, it is best to rub the whole length of the back and saddle
instead of trying to do separately the feathers that are barred.
With a little practice, one can easily see how the fakir can
fool the best judge in the business. I have had fakirs tell
me they have won with birds that have been barred from the
head to the tail by using this method.

FAKING WHITE WING FEATHERS ON A BLACK BIRD.

I obtained the following information by overhearing a con-
versation between two men which, if you desire to use, will
produce good results:

From the drug store get the following prescription: Silver
nitrate, one-half ounce; concentrated ammonia, two ounces;
gum arabic, one-half ounce; water, one-half pint. In another
bottle the following prescription should be put up: Gallic acid,
one-quarter ounce; alcohol, one-half pint; water, one pint. The
two prescriptions are used in the following way: First,
the feathers to be faked should be dampened with soft warm
water, making sure when moistening the feathers to rub the
right way of the feather. When you have taken most all of
the moisture out of the feathers, take prescription No. 2 and
wet the feathers well. Let it stand a few minutes to soak in
and then apply prescription No. 1, wetting the feath-
ers well. Let the feathers dry, after which take a
sponge that is just a little damp with water, and rub just
enough to take off the roughness. Usually the first applica-
tion is sufficient.
90 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

FAKING WHITE EAR LOBE.

White ear lobes are faked in the following way: Take a
stick of caustic and moisten the end. Then go over the whcle
surface of the ear lobe that shows white. Do this twice a day
for three or four days, and it will cause a blister, which wil!
form a scab. When the scab comes off the white comes with
it. When it heals up you have a red ear lobe. Never pull
the scab off or touch it in any way. If you do, it will spoil the
whole job.

I have known others to use Venetian red and red India ink,
and get by with it. This is very risky, however, and one is
apt to get caught at it. For that reason it is not used much.
At any rate, the fakirs seem to be very lucky.

FAKING BUFF COLOR.

A good many times your best type Buff hens or pullets show
different shades of feathers all through their plumage. The
amateur puts them in the show room just as they are, and
does not get a place. The fakir would pull out all of the off-
colored feathers from the plumage, and would make an even
surface, winning with the same bird that the amateur failed
to get a place with.

For birds that show to loose and too long length of feath-
er, which gives them a Cochin appearance when it is not want-
ed, the fakir will make a strong solution of alum water, and
wet the feathers with it, which will help make the feathers
lay much closer to the body, and will take away that look of
Cochin feathers. If they want Cochin feathering, and their
bird does not show enough of it, they wet the feathers with
water sweetened with sugar. By dampening the feathers un-
der the surface, one can easily get the Cochin effect, as this
will cause them to lift up.
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 91

For a loose feathered bird that stands too low on account of
too much length of feather they pull out feathers enough un-
til the birds show better length of shank, or appear to stand
higher from the floor.

I will not take up any more space in this book on faking
in the Show Room, but I thought it my duty to tell the ama-
teur a few of the many ways he is beaten in the Show Room
by the fakir. Never, under any circumstances, should you
use any of the above methods of faking, as there is nothing
that has hurt the Fancy Poultry business like faking.

I was at one of the large shows last winter, and saw a Buff
Orpington hen in the pullet class, and the judge gave her first
pullet. The owner of the bird showed her to me before the
pullets were judged. He asked me what I thought of her.
I told him that I thought she looked like a hen. He then
told me she was a hen. I tried to have him take her out of
the class, but he said that he needed all the Blues he could
get. After the judge got through with the Pullet Class, the
owner of this hen came over to me and said, ‘Well, Hub-
bard, the judge gave that hen first pullet.”” Now, a poultry-
man of this type is not helping the Fancy Poultry business
one bit, but is doing it much damage. If she were a pullet, she
would have been cheap at $50.00 . for she would have been
good size for a pullet, and would have made a large hen; but
as it was, she was an undersized hen with small bone, and the
man that would buy her would be disappointed when she
didn’t grow larger, and when she shed out the next year. He
would also be more disappointed with the chickens she bred,
as they would all be undersized; for a hen that is undersize,
with small bone, is useless as a breeder, and should go in the
utility yard. This breeder did not hurt the judge by his pass-
ing her as a pullet, but he did wrong to the men he sold her to.
92 HUBBARD S POULTRY SECRETS.

FAKING WHITE BIRDS FOR THE SHOW ROOM THAT HAVE BRASS
AND CREAMINESS IN THEIR PLUMAGE.

A male bird that has creaminess and brass in liis plumage
should be washed three times. Once when his new plumage
is about half in, the next time just before his plumage is prime
and the next, three days before he is shown. When washing
each time, use the same method of soaping and rinsing as you
do in the other method of washing white birds, which is ex-
plained in the next chapter on “Washing White Birds,” with
the exception that you should put enough ammonia into the pail
of hot melted soap, so that it smells good and strong. With this
melted soap and ammonia, you should soap the bird in good
shape, working in all the soap the feathers will hold. Put
the bird in a warm room and leave him in there for a half hour.
Then take him out and put him into the rinsing tub, making
sure you get all the soap out of the feathers, then he should
go into the bluing tub. Use double the amount of bluing
you do in the other method of washing. From the bluing
tub put him into the drying room and when the bird is dry he
should be blue all over.

Now he should be put into the yard and allowed to run as
before he was washed. The reason for using so much blu-
ing is that when he is out in the sun, it will help bleach the
feathers, and they won't take on so much brass. Wash the
bird twice in this manner, let him run in the sun, and the next
washing will put him in the show room a white bird. Three
days before the show, wash the bird in the following way: Be-
fore you start to wash your bird the last time, you should get
some clean white sand and heat it to 115 degrees. You must
also have a box eighteen to twenty inches long about a foot
wide, and high enough so that when the bird is sitting down
his head will come to the top of the box. Now soap, rinse,
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 93

and blue as by the method given in the next chapter, being
careful not to use too much bluing this time. After taking the
bird from the bluing water, take all the moisture you can out
of the feathers with a Turkish towel. Heat a bottle of peroxide
as hot as your hands can bear it and pour the hot peroxide over
the whole plumage, commencing well up on the hackle and wet-
ting all the feathers well. Pour some ammonia on a damp
sponge and go over the top surface. Then take the bird into
the drying room. First put three inches of the hot sand in
the bottom of the box, then set the bird in the box and cover
him up with the sand heated to 115 degrees. Leave just his
head sticking out. After the feathers dry out, take him out
of the sand and you will find that you have a white bird. This
is what is known as the sand bleach.

In bad cases of brassiness, oxalic acid and chloride of lime
are sometimes used, but it will not be necessary when using
the sand bleach, as it certainly saps the creaminess and brassi-
ness from the plumage. You can now see how the fakir
bleaches a bird that has brass, and wins in the Show Room.
The man who buys the bird is disappointed when he lets
him run in all kinds of weather and he goes back to the same
color that he was before he was bleached.

WASHING WHITE BIRDS.

To wash a white bird that is free from brass one should
have three or four tubs at least half full of warm water. The
one you soak your bird in first should be the warmest. If
you are using ivory soap, use one bar to every bird you have
1o wash. Slice your soap thin, put it in a clean pail and jour
boiling hot water over it, and boil it until it is all dissolved.
Then with a good sponge, your tubs filled with warm soft wa-
94 HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS.

ter, a brush with which to scrub the shanks, and your drying
room heated to 100 degrees, you are ready to wash your birds.

Take about two quarts of your melted soap and put it into
the first tub. Take your bird and gradually put it into the
tub and hold it under the water, with just its head sticking
out ; work the bird up and down to get its feathers wet to the
skin. Now take your sponge and rub the feathers the right
way. Never go against them. Then take your bird out and
stand it on a table, or on a barrel, or on a barrel with a wire
sieve over the top. By using a barrel, the soap runs off the
bird through the sieve, and into the barrel, and does not get
the floor wet. Have a pail of clear melted soap handy, as hot
as your hands can bear it. Now turn the bird’s head towards
you, take your sponge, dip it in the hot melted soap and work
all you can of this into the feathers. Make sure to work the
soap in well with your fingers around the head and hackle and
at the root of the tail. If the hackle is not yet all out of the
quill, you should take a nail brush and comb the hackle out of
quill as much as possible. Never comb out any of the top
surface with a brush, for if you do, it will make a bad look-
ing job when the feathers dry out. Take your nail brush, and
with a little fine sand in it, rub the shanks well.

Put the bird back into the tub, and with the sponge, rub the
whole top surface hard, making sure to rub the feathers the
right way. Now you are through with your first tub.

Your next tub of water should be warm and have a little
borax in it. This helps to get the soap out of the feathers.
When taking your bird out of the tub that contains the soap,
stand him on the edge of the tub and with your hand com-
mence at the hackle and rub the right way of the feathers to
the end of the tail. This will get off a large quantity of the
soap suds. Now put your bird in the tub of rinsing water
which contains the borax. The rinsing must be done very
HUBBARD’S POULTRY SECRETS. 95

carefully so as to get out every bit of the soap that is in the
feathers. To be very sure of this rinse in the third tub of
water. In the fourth and last tub put a ‘itle bluing.

Now if you have followed this system of washing and have
gotten all the soap from the feathers ard just bluing enough
in the water, you will find that when your birds are dried that
you have done a good job and no one will consider washing a
bird in this way faking.

FINIS.

I have now gone over the whole field of the breeding of
fancy poultry from the shell to the showroom and have tried
to tell, in a way that will be easy for even the amateur to un-
derstand, how I have used these secrets in making Foxhurst
Farm Black Orpingtons the undisputed Champions of the
world.

The reader may think that I have had nothing but good luck
and plenty of money back of me to make my road to success
an easy one, but in this, he is mistaken; for I have had to take
each step, as any other amateur, and I don’t believe any poul-
tryman in the business to-day ever worked harder than I to
reach the goal of the true fancier: The Blue Ribbon and the
Championship of the World for Foxhurst Farm.

In conclusion, let it be known, that in disclosing my system,
I do not withdraw from the ranks of the fancier and exhibi-
tor, for I believe this system will not stand defeat.