v^ulture for /Profit By ■ RevTW Sturges M A [ MEMORIAL POULTRY LIBRARY Date Due Library Bureau Cat, No, 1137 Cornell University Librarv SF 487.S935P 1917 Poultry culture for profit :an illlustra 3 19S-1 000 561 ■so?" Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000561807 Poultry Culture FOR Profit AN illustrated GUIDE TO THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF POULTRY Including Selection, Housing, Hatching, Rearing, Feeding, Marketing, etc. With a Chapter on the Intensive System BY Rev. T. W. STURQES, M.A., V'lar of Bampton, Oxon. ; Past President of the Poultry Club, Leghorn Club, Black Minorca Club, Black Leghorn Club, Buff Orpington Club, &c.. Specialist Judge of Foultryy &c^ '^ t the International and other leading Shoivs, Sixth Edition Re-vhed London MACDONALD & EVANS 4 Adana Street, Adelphi, W.C. PREFAC E. >^J»^5«^KThis little book is written with the desire to interest and to help the beginner and the amateur in poultry culture. It is written from a utility point of view. Many of its injunctions are "as old as the hills," and though they may lack novelty, they are none the worse for that. A well-worn path is easier to tread. Other points in the book have not been so commonly insisted upon. I have found them useful and give them for what they are worth. I am greatly indebted to many who have gone before me, and more especially to the late Mr. Lewis Wright, who most kindly encouraged my earliest efforts in writing. I consider his great work, " The Book of Poultry," by far the best contribution to the poultry literature of our age. I have also acknowledged my indebtedness to the various writers and speakers at the National Poultry Con- ference held at Reading in July of this year. I should likewise express my thanks to the Proprietors of ' ' Feathered Life" for permission to use several of the illustrations which appear in the text. I hope that a companion volume may shortly follow, as an endeavour to assist the aspirant for honours in the exhibition poultry world. If in any homestead two eggs are laid where one was laid before, my efforts wdl be amply repaid. TIIOS. W. STURGES. Marston Vicarage, Northwich. Septembe?- iilh, IQOJ. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. Introduction ---.... i Chapter I. — The Egg Market - - - id Chapter II. — On Poultry Houses and Scratching Sheds - - 20 Chapter III. — On Poultry Runs, Fencing, AND General Management 31 Chapter IV. — On the Various Breeds of Poultry - - - '41 Chapter V. — On Feeding Poultry - - 77 Chapter VI. — How to get Eggs in Winter - 86 Chapter VII. — On Hatching, Rearing and Selling Chickens - - 90 Chapter VIII. — On Insect Pests - - - loi Chapter IX. — On the Diseases of Poultry - ^°5 Chapter X.— How to Select the Best Layers .... 115 Chapter XI. — The Intensive System - - 119 Index 139 INDISPENSABLE TO ALL POULTRY BREEDERS! "The 'Poullry Manual' of the Century."— /'w/^O'. THE POULTRY MANUAL BY THE Rev. T. W. STURGES, M.A. Demy 8vo. Over 600 pp. Illustrated by 9 Coloured and 40 Black-and-White Plales, including 5 Plates of Feathers. Price, 7s. 6d. net ; Post free, 8s. Read the following remarkable Opinions of Famous Breeders: Mr. William Ci^arkk, President Pordtry Club : — " It is a classical and useful work, and should find a place in the library of every fancier who intends to succeed. The section dealing with Leghorns will be most instructive." Mr. George Betts, Vice-President Faverolles Club: — " I consider it by far the best and most useful work yet written on the manage- ment of Poultry, both for Utility and Exhibition. It should be possessed by every fancier, novices especially, and I am sure they would not long remain novices." Mr. J. G. Shepherd, President Minorca Club : — " It is certainly the most lucid, exhaustive, and common-sense book of Poultry* yet issued, helpful to novices and professionals alike." Mr. Curtis Wilmot, Hon. Secretary Mi?torca Club: — " Your ' Poultry Manual ' is a mine of wealth." Rev. E. Lewis Jone^, Hon. Secretary Cafupine Club: — " The book is indispensable, packed with useful and reliable information, abreast of the times." Mr. Francis H. \.kwe, Hon. Sec7-etary Columbian Wyandotte Club : — " I must congratulate you on your splendid chapter on Columbian Wyandottes, the most useful and valuable on the subject I have read." Mr, Thomas Lambert: — " The ' Poultry Manual' will be read with delight and profit by all classes ol Poultry Students. It teems with practical hints and advice." Mr. L. C. Verrev, President Leghor?i, Plymouth and Andalusian Club : — " 1 most heartily congratulate you on your work, for you have omitted nothing, and explained every detail so ck-arly and precisely that the book cannot fail to be interesting to all lovers of Poultry'." See end of book for sh- ri extracts from the extraordiuarily favourable reviews in all the Poullry Papers. By the sa/'U AutJior: POULTRY CULTURE FOR PROFIT llUistrnted. Paper, \s. 3./. net. Cloth, 25. net. Peistage, 3,/, extra. MACUONALD & EVANS, 4 Adam Street, Adelphi, London, W.C. INTRODUCTION. The Benefits of Poultry Keeping — The Demand for Eggs Exceeds the Supply — The Cost of Produc- tion — The Cottager's and Farmer's Advantage — The Rent-payer — Eggs Consumed in the Home — • Poultry to be Treated with Respect — The Agri- cultural Class — The Poultry Farmer. Does poultry keeping pay ? An attempt is made in the following pages to answer the question, and to show from the writer's practical experience that it may be made a financial success. There are many other advantages connected with poultry keeping besides the mere £ s. d. aspect of the question. It is a most delightful and refreshing hobby, affording endless variety of occupation and of recreation to the busy toiler in town or country. It forms an additional attraction to thousands of homes to-day, and it ought to be a source of interest to tens of thousands more, and would be if all its delights and advantages were understood. To study, and watch, and care for our feathered friends has a humanising and softening effect upon the character; and the person who keeps poultry and learns to love them has gained a valuable asset in life quite apart from the pecuniary profit it adds to an ofttimes slender purse. In addition to the recreative 2 INTRODUCTrON. value indicated as so sweetly helpful to the labourer, the artisan, or the clerk, poultry are delightful from an artistic point of view. The varied hues of the rainbow may be reproduced in glowing colours upon their plumage, besides numerous shades and admixtures of colour to which the rainbow is a stranger. And even the sombre black breeds most frequently chosen by the dweller in' the town, or in the manufacturing district, are relieved by their scintillations of purple or green, and set off by the coral redness of comb and wattles. In the country, what looks prettier than a flock of pure White Leghorns, or Orpingtons, or more majestic than the light Brahma with its snow-white abundant plumage and its necklace of jet, or what more brilliant than the Brown Leghorn or its cousin the Duckwing Leghorn with their varied shades in red, blue, and gold symmetrically placed by the breeder's art in bow, or bar, or diamond, on the wing, or gracefully falling like a meteoric flash in the hackles which adorn the neck or shoulder? They are living pictures full of grace and beauty, and while their loveliness does not detract from their usefulness in any degree, it adds, on the other hand, very materially to their monetary value, when correct contour and colour meet as in a picture by a master artist's hand. But though recreative restfulness adds to the repose and strength of life, and care and watchfulness over living creatures broadens and mellows it, and the appre- ciation of beauty in colour and outline acts like a tonic to brace and cheer it, pecuniary profit is never to be des- pised, and adds a zest to life, broadening its happiness and usefulness. We live in a mercantile age. Money makes the mill go round. And so far as my experience goes there are few to be met with in any walk of life who think less of a hobby because it pays, or who value less a thing of beauty because it will fetch a good price, even though they have an abundance of this world's goods. I have, moreover, of set purpose, placed the love of poultry in its various aspects first, because it is one of the INTRODUCTION. 3 most fundamental sources of success. The man who loves his feathered friends will much more readily gather from them the golden store they have to offer him in return for his labour on their behalf, whilst he who looks upon them only as mere machines for making money will lose not only the pleasure but ofttimes the profit as well. Love willingly bestows care and attention to details. It does not spare itself in seeking the well-being of its object. It gives of its best, and it receives the most ample reward. In these pages, while I have not lost sight of the beauty and the artistic side of poultry culture, my chief aim has been to show its economic side. There is in England a very great and an ever increasing demand for new-laid eggs and for poultry for the table. The demand is very much greater than the supply. What proportion of these commodities is supplied by home growth there are no reliable figures to give an answer. Mr. E. Brown has estimated that the egg production of the United Kingdom for the year 1906 was about 2,500,000,000, and their value _f 9, 500,000. Enormous as the quantity seems it does not nearly supply our needs. Figures are given which are fairly reliable to show the rapid increase in the value of eggs annually imported into this country. Mr. V. Carter stated in a paper read at the National Poultry Conference held at Reading in July, 1907, "In 1864, the value of eggs imported was ^^835, 028 ; in 1903 the value had advanced to ^^6, 617, 619, thus showing an advance in 40 years of upwards of 700 per cent. ; from 1903 to 1906 the increase was rapid and reached the imposing figures in the last named year of ;£^7, 098,137 for eggs alone ! " It is to be borne in mind also that notwithstanding this great increase in the value of eggs imported the market value of eggs per dozen has also steadily risen. During the last three years the average value of eggs imported has risen from 6s. 8d. to 7s. 6d. per long hundred of 120, in which quantities they are usually quoted in the English wholesale markets. This "average" value includes the poorer qualities of eggs, many of which are used for manufacturing purposes. When we 4 INTRODUCTION. come to the higher qualities, the largest and freshest eggs, which are imported chiefly from France and Denmark, we find the average cost of the best French to be I2S. jd. per 120, and of the Danish us. 2d., that is about i^-d. each taking the year round. There is nothing for the English producer to fear, since the best English have realised 13s. 2d. Good English eggs are dearer to-day than they have ever been, and they are not likely to become cheaper since, with _ the increasing prosperity of our people, the demand will more than keep pace with the supply. Here, then, is an endless open field of work, and it is in this field that the real hope of poultry culture lies. It is the backbone of the business, and when the facts which I have indicated are realised, our home production of eggs v?ill be vastly increased. But the question will still be asked " Does egg pro- duction pay at the prices quoted?" and I answer without any hesitation "Yes." To put the matter in a nutshell, I may say that it is a very poor type of hen that will not lay 120 eggs in a year, while the cost of her maintenance should in no case exceed 5s. In other words eggs can, in certain circumstances, and by certain people, be pro- duced in normal times at a cost of 24 for a shilling, while they will readily sell at twice the amount. In reckoning the cost of producing eggs, the main items of expense placed in due order are food, labour, rent, cost of appliances and depreciation of the same, the outlay in purchasing stock and their loss in value after one year, and the interest upon capital expenditure. Now it will at once be evident that in the matter of the first three items, food, labour and rent, persons are very differently situated. Where poultry are kept in large numbers, and the whole of the food has to be pur- chased, the cost will be from- 4s. to 6s. for each bird per year, ranging according to the facilities for purchase and to the kind of fowl kept, a fair average at the present price of food stuffs being 5s. But when birds are kept in small numbers by the cottager in our agricultural districts, or by the small householder in the towns, there are always a certain amount of little scraps fiom the house INTRODUCTION. 5 and the garden which would otherwi'Se be wasted. It is possible, on the other hand, for the presence of poultry to be made the occasion for waste, which should never be the case. The economical housewife has not much waste material. Still, in . the most careful households there are scraps of waste meat, bread and vegetables, which form a fair proportion of the cost of feeding, and this is especially the case where there is- a garden attached to the cottage where the vegetables for the house are grown. The birds live rent free, with the exception of the cost of erecting and repairing their house and covered run, and there is no extra charge for labour, which is " a labour of love." In many of such cases, the fowls have the range of the garden after the removal of the crops, and are often able to run in the lanes and bask in the hedgerows. And where this latter privilege is allowed, the fowls are usually found more vigorous and healthy than where they are kept closely confined, mainly owing, I believe, to the fact that they are thus able to find an abundance of grit, which aids their digestion, whereas this is often denied them through the neglect or want of knowledge on the part of their owners. Fowls kept in this way and carefully housed and tended will readily pay a profit of 5s. or 6s. per head, and where kept in flocks of 20 to 30 they not uncommonly yield enough profit to pay for the rent of cottage and garden. And even the small householder in the town, with nothing but a small back-yard, may make his poultry pay equally well if he will take care to provide them with a supply of dry shelter in the form of covered runs, and with plenty of loose litter among which they may scratch for the food which is scattered among it. I have known many cases in which new laid eggs could be collected daily all through the winter, and that from fowl which are commonly supposed to be delicate, like the Black Minorca. These birds thrive in confinement and do best where they can be protected from cold winds, and so long as they have sufficient and suitable food and grit and means provided for exercise they will do well, and pay their town owners quite as well as those that are kept in b INTRODUCTION. the country. There is a ready market for eggs at the best prices close at liand. If it be, objected that in the town they would be a nuisance from the noise of the cock crowing, the answer is that hens will lay quite as many eggs without a male attendant as with one ; and if it is said that the smell of them is objectionable when close to the house, there is no need for any unpleasantness in this respect if the houses and runs are kept dry and clean. The fact is that whether in town or country districts, poultry will pay as no other living creatures will pay for the time and care and attention devoted to them. So far, I have considered the case only of the small cottager in town or country whose aim is to provide eggs for sale at a profit, and not for his own consumption, except in the spring and early summer when eggs are most plentiful. But there remains the large class of gentry, land- owners, and the wealthier class of suburban dwellers, who consume large quantities of eggs in their households. An average well-to-do household of five persons would consume 2,000 eggs in a year, which allows only a small margin beyond the solitary breakfast egg, while many households will consume more than double the quantity. With this numerous class the great desideratum is not so much the saving effected, as the being able to get their eggs absolutely fresh. The great mass of the English people to-day don't know the luxury of a new laid egg. There is all the difference in the world between the soft and luscious creaminess of an egg consumed the day it is laid and one only a few days old ; not to mention the foreign article which reaches us weeks and sometimes months after its production. And yet these people who can afford their daily new laid egg and who wish to get it don't get it. At least, they don't get it from August to February during the time eggs are scarce, as often as they would like to have it. And it is still quite a common complaint that the eggs they do get cost them twice as much as they could buy them at on the market. In fact, I have frequently heard it said " Every egg my hens lay costs me 6d." Such INTRODUCTION. 7 remarks, I need scarcely say, show the lamentable ignorance or carelessness of the owner of such fowl. If he took the same interest in his poultry yard as he does in his stables, or in the vinery, or even as he takes in the herbaceous flower border, or the common cabbage patch, he would have a different tale to tell. With land available for which he has no extra rent to pay, with servants hanging about with time on their hands, with food enough and to spare given to the swine when it does not find its way into the dust bin — still there are no eggs when " eggs are eggs." If the elementary principles which are taught in the following pages were put into practice, there might soon be a different tale, and even to the life of the luxurious one more luxury might be added. But the poultry must be treated with due respect They must have decent and dry housing in a sunny aspect, and not be shut up in any odd corner. They must have fresh air at night without draught, and be liberally supplied with fresh water and suitable food. They must have grit to aid digestion and something to scratch among for amusement ; and last, but not least, they must have their daily bath provided. Without it they cannot be self-respecting and therefore not respect- able. If every poultry house had its dust bath, and if the nest boxes were kept clean, we should not hear so often of the plague of fleas and vermin which always accompg.nies neglected poultry, and which has had not a little to do with the comparative disrespect into which they have fallen in the houses of the well-to-do. There is still a third class of egg producers to be considered, and that the most important of all if we are to retain in our own hands any great proportion of the seven million pounds annually paid to the foreigner for eggs alone, viz., the great agricultural class who are the backbone of our sturdy island home. Unfortunately, they are in this matter a very backward and conservative class, and they move as a body very slowly. What was good enough for their great-grandfathers is good enough for them. What is true, however, of the great body of 8 INTRODUCTION. them is not true of the whole, and many a farmer could tell, if he would, that his poultry pay him better than any- thing else on his farm, and yield him the best return for his outlay upon them. Some few indeed have found this branch so successful that they have become poultry farmers only, and, having undertaken the higher branches of this calling for the production of exhibition stock, have found out a more congenial method of making a livelihood than agricultural labour. But the average farmer looks upon his poultry as a minor sort of bye- product, a negligible quantity about which he need not bother his head, and so relegates the management of it to the wife or servant to look after it as best they can. To their credit be it said that the work is sometimes well done, but more frequently it is neglected or at most does not yield even a tenth of the return it might. And yet no one is so favourably situated as the farmer for obtain- ing the best results. If the thing were well managed the poultry could get the greater part of their living for eight months of the year by being spread about the fields around the homestead on the colony system, and that with benefit and not harm to the land. The last class I have in mind in writing this book is the Poultry Farmer, i.e., the man who aims at making a livelihood from the culture of poultry only, or if in com- bination with fruit growing or market gardening, still looks at his poultry as the chief source of income. There is one form of this calling which is named "poultry farming pure and simple," which is understood to imply the production solely of eggs for the market and dead poultry for the table. There are two widely divergent opinions held on the subject. Some books and pamphlets are written and crammed with arithmetical statements to prove that with a little capital a man may easily make ;^i,ooo a year profit or more, besides being a benefactor to his race. The other side as strongly asserts that poultry farming on such lines never has and never will pay, and points out what is undoubtedly true that many have tried and failed. Like the dog in the fable they have dropped the little INTRODUCTION. g substance they had in grasping at the shadow they desired. So far as I am able to judge, the truth, as so often happens, lies between these two extremes. That some persons have tried and failed proves nothing, otherwise there would be no successful calling in the world, since there is no calling in which some have not failed. I hope to show not only the common causes of failure, but also the qualities that are needed for success and the way to achieve it. And if on the one hand some golden dreams are dispelled, it were better so than to have a ruder awakening ; and if it be shown that poultry farming pure and simple may by strenuous toil be made to yield some small return for honest labour, it may also be seen that there are other methods which, if not quite so simple, are at least equally pure and capable of yielding a more substantial reward. If hens that lay only loo eggs a year do not repay the poultry farmer for the outlay and toil he bestows, it does not follow that a flock that will lay 150 or more will not do so. And if to the " simplicity " which sees profit only in eggs and dead birds, those other profits are added which come from the sale of pure bred birds for stock purposes at higher prices, and of eggs for hatching and of newly hatched chicks, the outlook will be brighter. CHAPTER I. THE EGG MARKET. Present Condition of Egg Market — Value of Im- ported Eggs — Estimated Number of Poultry : In Foreign Parts : At Home — London Market — Rates of Carriage — Co-operation — Success at Framlingham — Methods of our Competitors — Our Advantages — Importance of Winter Pro- duction — Fraudulent Methods. I have already indicated in the introductory pages of this little work my belief that the backbone of the poultry industry in Great Britain is to be found in the production of new laid eggs, for which there is an ever increasing demand at remunerative prices. It may be worth while, therefore, to point out briefly the present state of the egg market in England and to indicate some of the ways by which the producer may obtain full advantage of it. The value of eggs imported into this country during 1906 Avas over seven million pounds, and the estimated production at home, i.e., in the United Kingdom, was ;^9, 500,000. We therefore im- port almost as many eggs as we produce. THE EGG MARKET. II It is not possible to state the actual value of the home production, but an estimate is arrived at in the following way. The agricultural returns for Great Britain in the year 1885 showed that there were a little over 12 millions of fowls and about 3-^- millions of ducks, geese, and turkeys. Since that date no returns have been made, although the National Poultry Confer- ence of 1899 suggested to the Board of Agriculture that poultry should be included in the annual live stock returns. But as poultry keeping has advanced by leaps and bounds in England during the last 20 years, it is esti- mated that there are at least double the number kept at the present time. It is singular that, while no return was made for Great Britain, it was made for Ireland as recently as 1905, and shows that she has nearly 13 millions of fowls, besides geese and turkeys, a large number of the latter coming over to be fed for Michaelmas and to swell our markets at Christmas. The Table printed below is extracted from a paper read at the Reading Conference of 1907 by Mr. Edward Brown, by whose courteous consent extracts are made not only from his own but from other papers read at the various meetings. The entire official report of this Con- ference should be in the hands of all persons interested in poultry culture. It is published at 3s. 6d. by the National Poultry Organization Society. Number of Fowls in European Countries. - Year Fowls Ducks Geese Turkeys Totals Great Britain. 188s 12,401,533 2,201,901 885,310 473.583 15-963,533 Ireland iqos 12,876,80s 2,939,105 1,714,335 1,018,599 18,548,877 Denmark ... iqos ",555,332 889,4x3 187,929 58,245 12,690,919 Germany 1900 55,395,837 2,467,043 6,239,126 351,165 64,453,171 Hungary ... 1905 — ■ — — — 32,765,339 Netherlands.. iqo^ 4,934,942 432,858 34,498 11,321 5,413,619 Norway I90I 1,636,543 9,033 7,455 3,671 1,655,702 12 THE EGG MARKET. Estimated Production. Year Eggs Poultry Totals Quantities in Gt. hds. Value Quantities Value Eggs and Poultry United ) Kingdom 3 France Denmark ... Canada United States 1906 1899 1893 1905 1899 21,250,000 5,500,000 8,413,280 129,366,243 i. 9,500,000 11,900,000 2,143,089 30,000,000 No. 2,250,000 7.063,597 2,000,000 5,323.000 1,192.479 28,922,900 11,500,000 17,223,000 1,500,000 3,335,568 58,922,900 It seems to me, however, that much too low an estimate has been formed of the value of eggs produced in the United Kingdom, even if it is confined to fowls alone. If there are 36 millions of fowls in Great Britain and Ireland, the estimated value of ^^9, 500, 000 only works out at 5s. 3d. per head per fowl, whereas double that amount would be much nearer the value, i.e., los. 6d. per head where kept in circumstances at all favourable ; and even when an allowance is made for the very low rate at which eggs are sold in the country districts both in England and Ireland, and also a deduction for the number of male birds included in the agricultural returns, the amount should be nearer 15 millions than 9 million pounds. Mr. Brown estimates the number of eggs produced to be 21,250,000 long hundreds of 120, which means 2,571 millions. But this number only gives an average of 72 eggs for each fowl. If, however, it is estimated that one-third of the 36 million fowls is made up of young pullets that have not commenced to lay, together with the number of male birds, the average estimate for each hen is raised to 108 eggs, which is probably near the mark, since a very large number of the common barn- door fowls and mongrel breeds, which are still kept in great numbers, do not exceed if they reach this figure. But of these many millions of eggs produced in the British Isles, a very large number never reach the market, THE EGG MARKET. 1 3 since many millions are used for hatching, and many more still are used as food in the homes of the producers. Of the 2,571 millions of eggs produced, no correct estimate can be formed of the number consumed at home, or sold by the cottager to his neighbour, or given in exchange for groceries to some tradesman from an adjacent town. Where there is a surplusage beyond such local requirements, and the poultry keeper has enough to make it worth his while, he often takes them to the nearest market town and sells them there at the current rates, which vary from week to week according to the demand, or disposes of them to the " higgler," who does this business for him and charges as his commission one or two additional eggs for each shillingsworth he pur- chases. There are few poultry keepers who cater direct for the wholesale London market, and yet it is h^re that the best prices can be obtained. Indeed, there are few egg producers comparatively who are aware that there is a London market, and fewer still who bother their heads about it. There are splendid openings here for the enterprising producer, and also in our other large towns. The railway companies all round have made valuable concessions on the rates of carriage by passenger train of live and dead poultry for the market and for the carriage of eggs and other farm produce, though there is still more to be done. The ordinary rate for parcel traffic by passenger train is -^d. per lb. up to a distance of 30 miles, -Jd. up to 50 miles, fd. up to 100 miles, and id. per lb. for distances over ] 00 miles. These rates are reduced to a half for poultry and eggs, so that, e.g., a package of 24 lb. can be sent 200 miles or more for is. On some com- panies' lines the rates are still less, e.g., the Great Eastern Railway carry a parcel of 20 lb. for 4d. any distance over their lines, and the Great Northern carry 20 lb. for 6d. and 50 lb. for is. any distance. Li some districts where the traffic is considerable, still lower rates are to be found, e.g twenty dozen eggs (which, with the package, would 14 THE EGG MARKET. weigh about 40 lb.), can be sent from Framlingham, which is 87 miles from London, and delivered within the Company's area for iid. Egg producers should consult the railway companies' guides for the rates and make enquiries through their local station-master for the rates of carriage. In most cases the cost of carriage would be much more than repaid by the enhanced prices on the London market. To take even the highest rates now charged by any railway company for the longest distances, viz., -^d. per lb., a package of 240 eggs (20 dozens), can be sent for 2od., i.e., a cost of id. per dozen, whereas there are many districts in the country where eggs sell at i 2 for a shilling in the autumn and winter when they are selling for is, 6d. and 2S. pjr dozen in town ! The great want at the present time for the small farmer and the peasant poultry producer is a more extended system of co-operative effort by means of which their supply of eggs could be regularly collected at fre- quent intervals, and, after being graded and tested, sent whilst still quite fresh to the centres where the demand is greatest. Unfortunately, for the most part, the farming class fight shy of co-operation. They prefer solitary sharp-shooting to fighting in companies or battalions. It is a hopeful sign of the times, however, that they are awakening to see the folly of past methods. A most useful object lesson is afforded by the marked success of the Framlingham and District Agricultural Co-operative Society, Limited. What Suffolk has done other counties may do. The following figures taken from a paper read by Mr. E. G. Warren, the Secretary of the Society, and read at the Poultry Conference, will show what they have done. The writer states : — "Previous to our existence the grocers and those known as 'higglers' were the general recipients of the eggs of the district. The former, as a rule, do not pay cash, but the value of the eggs will be taken out in goods. The grocers wisely jjickled large quantities in the spring-time, because when bought at from twenty-two THE EGG MARKET. 15 to twenty-six a shilling, it was remunerative to do so, when they could probably realise id. each in the winter. "The following table of prices will show at a glance how well we have done for those who have confided in us. Local prices Society's Local Society's Society s Month per IS. prices, prices, prices. prices. 1902-3 1504 1905 1905 1906 January 12 10 and 12* II 10 and 12* 10 and 12* February 16 14 14 12 and 14 12 and 14 March 22 :6 and 18* 22 16 and 18'" i6-l8* April 22 — 26 18 22 18 and lyt iS and I7t May 22 — 20 18 and 17* 20 18 and 17I 17 and 16* June 20 16 and 15 l8 and 16 16 16 and I5t July 18 15 and 14 16 15 and 14 14 and 13 August 16 14 and 13 IS 14 and 13 13 September ... 16 13 and 12 14 13 and 12-1 13 and I2t October 14 12 and lot 14 12 and lof 10 November ... 12 and 10 8 10 8 8 December ... 10 and 12 8 12 8 8 I week. f 3 weeks. "To the most prejudiced minds the foregoing figures must carry weight in favour of what combination among farmers can do." It will be noticed at once by many poultry keepers, and especially by those living in the Midland and Northern Counties, that the prices of eggs in Suffolk are very low, and it is, naturally, in such counties that the best results are to be obtained from co-operation ; but even in the north there are many districts in which large and substantial benefits would result from a co-operative system. The actual benefits accruing to the Framlingham Society are shown by a second extract printed below : — "The following results since we commenced have far exceeded the expectation of even the most sanguine among us, but the more co-operation was understood, the more readily could we claim supporters. i6 THE EGG MARKET. - ..03 1904 1914 1915- No. of members No. of shares ... Vahie No. of eggs ProfiLs 5 months 114 1,600 /400 56,191 £29 7s- 4d- 117 3,023 /755 13s. 9d- 453,079 /137 i6s. 5-?,d. 751 6,303 ^1,575 IS"^- od. 5,840,146 ;^i,454 19s. od. 886 6,438 £\fio<) los. od. 6,696,012 ^1,620 16.S. 2d. The profits include those received from goods other than eggs, but it was pointed out in the 19 15 report that the total amount paid for eggs in 19 15 (9 months) was about ^15,000 (partly owing to the war) more than it would have been if the prices had been the same as they were when the Society started. From the foregoing table it will be gleaned that under possible circumstances the British farmer can put himself on the same footing as the foreign agriculturist, in respect alike to quality and condi- tioris of certain items of produce, and where Framlingham has succeeded why cannot others follow ? It will be seen that the gain to the members of the society has been that they have been able to sell all their eggs at three or four less for a shilling than if sold locally, which represents an enhanced price of about 25 per cent., and also that the small capital they have invested as shareholders has yielded them from 20 to 25 per cent, interest after the payment of all working expenses. These results have been obtained by co-operation and by an improved method of collecting, grading and despatching eggs, etc. The prices realised for them on the London market has been higher than that of the choicest eggs sent over by our foreign rivals, and the demand for them has far exceeded the supply. The reason for this is at once obvious, viz., that English eggs can be placed upon the market in a fresher con- dition. In order, however, that these and similar results may be maintained, it is necessary that we should study THE EGG MARKET. I7 the methods of our competitors, and especially of France and Denmark, whose eggs realise the highest prices. A glance at a case of the best foreign eggs, when contrasted with the average basket of eggs offered for sale in our local markets, will reveal the facts that the foreign eggs are neatly packed in a clean condition, and that they are uniform in size and often uniform in colour, viz., that one case contains only white eggs, and another only brown or tinted eggs of various shades. The wooden cases in which they come over contain four rows of eggs packed between layers of what is known as wood-wool. A full case contains twelve long hundreds of 120 eggs, i.e., 1440, a half case 720, and a quarter case 360. Thefullcase has a strong division in the centre, and each side contains 18 rows of 10 eggs on one layer. The half case is packed in the same way, while the quarter case contains four rows of 90 eggs. These are so securely and tightly packed between the layers of wood- wool which covers each layer, and the sides of the box between the case and the eggs, that they travel with wonderful safety. If English eggs were sent to the market in various sizes and colours all mixed together they would only sell for the price of the smallest and poorest sample among them. The foreigner grades his eggs according to their weight per 120, the largest weighing 18 lb. and the smallest 13 lb. These figures will be more easily borne in mind if we remember that an average sized English egg weighs 2 oz., and that these eggs are 15 lb. the long hundred ; and that large eggs, such as are commonly laid by the Black Minorca fowl, or the Andalusian, or some varieties of the Leghorn, average nearly 2\ oz. each, and so meet the higher grade of the 18 lb. egg or more. In fact, it would be easy for those who keep large numbers of these fowls to select and send up cases of eggs weighing 20 lb. to the long hundred, i.e., six eggs to a pound. For all practical purposes, however, it is not neces- sary for the British producer to send more than two grades, those weighing over 2 oz. being the best sample l8 THE EGG MARKET and those slightly under and averaging 14 lb. for the other. The very large eggs would sell well at home, and the very small ones could be used for home consumption. If we are to keep abreast of our foreign rivals we must not only send eggs up to a standard weight, evenly graded and perfectly clean, but we must see to it that the eggs are quite fresh. In the Framlingham district they are collected twice a week, and the same practice exists in Denmark. An egg a week old cannot correctly be termed a " new laid " one ; and yet the oldest of the eggs which are collected bi-weekly and sent to London must be nearly a week old before they find their place on the breakfast table. But our present English habit of marketing is worse than this. The "higgler" who collects eggs in the country only calls once a week, and frequently only once a fortnight, while this fortnightly collection is the more usual custom of the grocer from the country towns. Only fancy "new laid" eggs a fortnight old when bought! Many of these are three weeks or a month old before being sold. There is little wonder that the "public" can hardly tell the difference between the "fresh Irish" or Danish and French, and the English " new laid." Nor is this the worst that has to be told. It is well known that eggs begin to get dearer in July, and that in August and September the prices are appreciably higher. There is ample evidence to show that unscru- pulous dealers " hold over " their eggs from one month to another to reap enhanced profit. The person who can be absolutely depended upon to supply eggs quite fresh can always command a better price, and that deservedly so. I will mention one other point only, which the supplier of eggs must bear in mind, viz., that if he is to occupy and maintain tlie premier position he must be able to send a regular supply in autumn and winter as well as summer, because the merchants naturally prefer to give the summer trade to those who can also supply them in winter. It is therefore of the greatest importance that the THE EGG MARKET. I9 poultry keeper should solve this problem of the winter production of eggs. A hen that will lay a third of her annual output from October to the end of January will yield double the profit of one that commences when eggs begin to cheapen in March and ends when they begin to grow dearer in the autumn. A separate chapter on •' Egg Production in Winter " will be provided later on. Meanwhile, let us remember that the British egg, if honestly and skilfully marketed, has no serious rival ; and that while we deplore the unscrupulous methods by which some dealers, both wholesale and retail, impose upon the public by the substitution of the foreign for the English article, we must take care that our own " new laid " are what they pretend to be. For the small producer there is little hope of getting the best prices except by co- oneration. Those who require information as to methods and particulars of depots already at work, should apply to the Secretary, National Poultry Organisation Society, 12, Hanover Square, London, W. CHAPTER II. ON POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. Housing of First Importance — Conditions to be OBSERVED — Dryness of Roof and Floor — Venti- lation : How Best Secured — Accommodation — Perch Room : How to Estimate — Cleanliness — Value of Sunshine — Scratching Sheds as Im- portant AS THE House — Their Advantages — Whitewashing — Preservation. The poultry keeper's first consideration should be the proper housing of his birds. One of the easiest ways in which to begin to keep poultry is to buy a pen of fowls in the autumn, just before the pullets begin to lay. The purchaser becomes at once interested in his hobby, because of the early return, in the shape of eggs, for his outlay. But whether a start is made in this way, or by hatching or rearing a brood of chickens, care should be taken to have the house in readiness by the time it is required. Many disastrous beginnings have been made through neglect of this pre- caution. And what is true of beginning applies in the same degree to extending the business. There are thousands of chickens lost every autumn through over- crowding the small coops in which they have been reared. They were comfortably housed when the hen left them at six weeks old, but in the first place there were no cold brooders to receive them, and then no proper house was ready by the time they were half grown, and so they were POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING. SHEDS. 21 allowed to get overcrowded, and then they sickened and died ; or if they survived did so as undersized weaklings, that ill repaid the care afterwards bestowed upon them. The true method is to get the houses first and the birds afterwards. In building a house, its form, or beauty, or size will depend very much upon the taste or wealth of the owner. It may be made large or small, very ornamental or quite plain, but in any case there is no need for it to be ugly- looking. Its chief aim should be to provide a healthful habitation for its occupants, and in order to do this there are certain principles which must be observed. It must be weather-proof, so as to keep the birds quite dry at all seasons of the year. It must allow for the supply of an abundance oi fresh air without draughts, and it must be well lighted, and if possible occupy a sunny aspect. Its internal arrangements should be easy of access, and as simple in construction as possible. A very large proportion of the houses commonly found among poultry keepers of every class violate one or more of these principles, and as a consequence the birds suffer in health. To keep a house dry, it should be well and substantially built of grooved and tongued boards. I prefer the boards to be i-inch thick, and in no case less than f-inch. A great number of the very cheap ready-made houses are only -^-inch or -f-inch in thickness, and are very flimsy affairs. Where plain edged boards are used they should be covered with laths nailed over the joints. But these are not so neat looking nor so weather-proof, and are more difficult to keep sweet and free from insect pests. A most important matter is the roof, which should be quite sound, and come down well over the eaves some 2^-inches, so as to carry off the rain clear of the sides. It is better if provided with a spout to carry the rain away to a down spout connected with a surface -drain. A puddle of mud round a poultry house is a very unpleasant and unwholesome sight. The roof should be covered 23 POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. with felt, and well tarred once a year. And in nailing it on care should be taken that the nails are not too long, and that they enter the boards and not pass between the joints, otherwise they often act as conductors of the rain, and a house with damp walls or roof cannot be sweet. If the house is a lean-to, a very good roof is made of corrugated or sheet zinc. In this case there should be a lining of thin boards underneath, as zinc is a rapid conductor of heat, and makes a very hot roof in the summer and a very cold and damp one in the winter, on account of the water condensing underneath it and dripping down. The Floor -of the Poultry House, when not raised above the ground to form a shelter underneath \see Fig. i), should be kept scrupulously dry. If the sub-soil is clay, or at all heavy and damp, the house Fig I. A House raised 2 feet from the ground and the sheUer underneath partly boarded up. The door, on the left, is open and a sliding wire-covered door is used during the warm weather. The Scratching Shed is to the right. POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. 23 should be raised on a sill of bricks placed end to end on all sides. The foundation should be beaten until solid, and raised to the level of the brickwork. A little cement on the top of the bricks outside will throw off any rain. On the foundation thus formed a bedding of two or three inches of peat moss,i well broken up, will form a dry surface. Peat moss is a good deodoriser, but the droppings should be raked off at least once a week, and oftener if circumstances permit. I am not in favour of ■what are known as " dropping boards " placed underneath Fig. the perches to catch the manure. They are a clumsy device to save a little trouble, and are most difficult to keep sweet. They frequently soil the plumage of the fowls, who will sit on them, and they afford a perfect harbour for vermin. Where, however, space is very limited, and the floor of the poultry house is to be made use of as a "scratching" shed during the day, they may be used to advantage if the most perfect cleanliness is observed, and the board sprinkled with earth or peat moss and cleaned daily. » See p. 30. 24 POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. Ventilation. — Keeping the house quite dry and clean is a great help towards ensuring its sweetness, but this is not sufficient without ample ventilation. We are, as a nation, valuing fresh air in our houses, and par- ticularly in our bedrooms, more than we did in past generations, and we are undoubtedly feeling the benefit of it in an increased vitality. It is a welcome sign of the times that the modern makers of poultry houses are adopting this principle in their latest constructions. What is needed is some simple contrivance by which the amount of ventilation can be regulated according to the temperature and to the number of birds per square yard the house contains. A very good plan is to admit all the ventilation from the front of the house (see Fig. 2). In a house 6 feet high in front, of the lean-to pattern, the lower portion should be boarded up to the height of 3 feet 6 inches or 4 feet, and the top portion covered with fine mesh wire netting, fastened from the inside. Over this should be arranged a light sash framework, which may be fitted either entirely or in part with glass, and the remainder with f-inch grooved and tongued boards. This can either be lowered to the bottom of the wire-netted portion in hot weather, or raised to within a few inches of the top in frosty or inclement weather. This plan closely corresponds with our custom of sleeping with the bedroom window open and the door closed. The ventilation afforded by the open fire-place in a bedroom may be imitated in a house with a double pitched roof by affording an outlet in the gable ends in the shape of a window covered with perforated zinc, or by boring a few holes of |-inch diameter. In a lean-to house it is not needed, as the ventilation afforded by an open front which is never closed at its highest point is ample. Another method of securing the same end is by having a half of the entire front of the sleeping shed made to slide from right to left (see Fig. 3), in which the perches are arranged behind the covered portion. In this case, however, it is much more difficult to keep the floor of the house dry, owing to the rain beating in. In POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. 25 the old-fashioned houses, which usually have a small movable window about a foot square, and no other ventilation except at the apex, it is a decided improve- ment to have fine wire-netting instead of glass in the window frame, and to fix a sliding door, made of a light framework covered with wire-netting, inside, the poultry Fig 3, — A Cosy Cornek. The Sleeping House to the left has a sliding door which may be left open in warm weather. When closed in Winter, the slide at the top is opened. The Scratching Shed is on the right hand. Entrance from the end. house. The outer door can then be left open at night in all but the most inclement weather, and it should always be left open in the day time, to give the house a good airing. (See Fig. i), Accommodation. — The question is often asked : "How many fowl will a house of given dimensions, say 6 feet by 5 feet, hold?" The floor space of such a house is 30 square leet, and the reply usually given is that each fowl should be allowed a minimum area of 3 square 26 POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. feet. Such a house would accommodate ten birds. On the other hand, the makers of such houses frequently advertise them as affording room for thirty. The true answer lies midway. If the fowl are of a very large breed and full grown, and if they are to be shut up closely, ten or twelve are enough. If ample ventilation is afforded and the birds are of a medium-sized breed such as Leghorns, or are half-grown fowl of a larger breed, then perch room may be found in such a house for nearly thirty birds. Nearly all the houses in my own poultry runs are of this size. In the breeding season, from January to May, they hold from eight to twelve fowl, but when the pens are broken up after breeding and the early hatched stock are half grown they frequently contain from twenty to thirty of these, or two breeding pens are combined and occupy one house. Perch Room. — In a house of the dimensions given either two perches may be placed lengthwise, or three, if the door opens from the end, and the perches are arranged across the width of 5 ft. We thus get either 12 or 15 feet of perching, and the space occupied by a fowl varies from 6 inches to 9 inches, according to its size. A visit at night with a lantern will easily show whether the perching accommodation is sufficient, and an inspection in the early morning when they are let out will show whether ventilation has been ample. If it is hot and stuffy, let alone fetid, more ventilation is needed. It is always better to be on the safe side and to have too few rather than too many in a house. More harm is done by overcrowding in the house than by shortness of accom- modation either in the covered run or upon the open grass. Perches should be from 2 inches to 2^- inches in thickness according to their length and the weight they have to sustain. An ordinary 3 inch deal cut into lengths, and 2 inches in thickness, will, after trimming quite smoothly and having the sharp corners well rounded off on both sides, make a good perch for large adult fowl, POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. 27 They should be placed all on the same level to avoid a scramble for the highest point which would otherwise occur, and the best height is from 18 inches to 2 feet. They should be the full length (or width) of the house and fit loosely into slots prepared for them. They are thus easily removed when the house needs cleaning, or for their own periodical examination. If taken out on a fine day and washed over with a thin solution of creosote (one part creosote and two water) and allowed to dry in the open air before replacing it will effectually destroy the red mite pest which often harbours on the perches, and will also destroy the mite which causes Elephantiasis or Scaly Leg. Creosote is the finest insecticide known. The Value of Sunshine. — Wherever it is possible the poultry house should face the South, or South-West, or South-East, and never North or East. There is so little sunshine in England for eight months of the year, and sometimes the whole year round, that it is well to gain the benefit of what we do get. Open doors and windows and a direct stream of sunshine have a wonder- fully drying and sweetening effect. In the cold weather especially, see how poultry love it and delight to bask in it. And yet too often the house and the run in which they are confined are thrust away into the darkest, ■ dampest, and most dismal corner to be found. And the owner's fowl look like it. The Fancier's fowl may get too much sun, but there are ways and means of affording shade and shelter while nothing can make up for the lack of warmth and brightness. It costs nothing beyond a little forethought and contrivance. The benefits are great not only in the health and wellbeing of the stock but in the pecuniary results. Scratching Sheds. — The benefits I have spoken 01 are most marked where what is known as the "Scratch- ing Shed System " is employed. This is nothing more than the use of a house of shelter for the daytime as the sleeping compartment is for the night, and the best arrangement is when they are placed end to end (see 28 POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. Figs. I, 2 and 3). In these illustrations the scratching sheds are seen to the right of the picture. They are Oi the same width as the house, and may be of the same height, or a little lower will suffice. They should be as weatherproof as the house with a good roof. If boarded up in front to a height of 3 feet and the top portion filled with wire netting they afford protection against cold winds and ample shelter from rain. The door of entrance for the attendant is better placed at the end of the shed farthest from the house, and unless it faces a wet quarter, which should be avoided where possible, may be left open all day to admit all the sunshine possible. If a single perch runs lengthwise in the centre of the shed the birds will often be found resting upon it in the daytime to preen their plumage in the sun, or as a shelter from rain. There should be an entrance for the fowls from the house to the run, and this is better placed in the side of the house nearest to the front, so as to be out of the direct line of draught from the door. The shed, having one side less than the house and not necessarily built so high or of such stout material, is less costly. They are better made longer than the house where space and convenience allow it. Mine were mostly made at first of the same length as the house, viz., 6 ft., but I am so convinced of their great utility that I am about to extend them to 10 ft. I consider that one square yard of these covered runs is worth 10 square yards of the outside run upon the grass, and that there is no portion of the poultry keeper's expenditure which repays him so well as this. The advantages are : — (i) A dry shelter to which they may go as protection from rain and wind. (2) A dust bath always ready if the floor is kept covered with loose litter, or a portion of it set apart for the purpose. (3) A first class place for early morning exercise. Fowl are early risers, and when the connection between the house and shed is left open, as it should be, they will come out into the sweeter POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. 2g air of the shed, and seek for any remnants of the last night's supper which may have been scattered among the litter. (4) It is the most convenient place for putting the laying boxes, which should never be put in the sleeping house. (5) It is a very serviceable place in which to feed the birds in winter, or more especially when the ground is covered with snow or hardened by frost, for the litter does not freeze if kept dry. (6) It is an ideal place in which to bring on an early moult. If a pen of fowls (without the cockerel) is shut in such a shed, in July or August, and fed on half rations in hard corn, which should be buried in the litter, the warmth and exercise afforded quickly starts the growth of new feathers and so more rapidly brings them into condition for winter laying. I have written at length on the value of scratchmg sheds because of their great utility and because they are so seldom seen in the yards of the utility poultry keeper. As to the cost of such houses^ much depends upon the quality of the material of which they are made and upon the finish. They are best made in sections, each side forming one piece and the roof one or two pieces. These can be put together with nuts and bolts in half an hour and as readily taken to pieces should it be required to move them to a fresh plot of ground. The price of a house 6 ft. X 5 ft. and 6 ft. 6 ins. in height is anything between 25/- and 50/- if bought ready made. If made at home and nothing is charged for labour the cost is reduced, except for the cheapest class, to about half of this sum, especially if the building materials can be purchased close at hand. The dearest way of getting them is to purchase the materials locally and to engage a local joiner at trade union rates to build them. He spends as much time in thinking out the plan of construction as in 30 POULTRY HOUSES AND SCRATCHING SHEDS. putting the work together. The ready made houses are mostly put together by machinery and by men who do nothing else. It is therefore, as a rule, cheaper to buy than to get them made by hired local labour. To keep the house and shed sweet it should be whitewashed once a year at least. In order that the lime may keep fast and not rub off upon the clothes of the attendant or the plumage of the birds it should hQ freshly slaked before using, and to each half bushel of lime add one pound of salt, and either add a little skim milk or a little tallow. Nothing is more annoying than white- washing badly done. It should not be laid on thickly. To preserve the outside of the buildings they may either be painted, or, as I much prefer, be given a coat of creosote once or twice a year. This is a great preservative to new timber, gives it a most pleasing tan colour and keeps away insect pests. It cannot of course be used over painted surfaces, but is intended for newly erected and unpainted houses. The colour is intensified by a second coating. A little of it, about a gill to a two gallon bucket, gives the whitewash a wholesome odour without much discoloration and acts also as an insecticide. ATote. — As peat moss is rather expensive, a substitute may be found in collecting dry road sweepings or sand ; or, where obtainable in the autumn, the fallen leaves of the trees, collected on a dry day, may be stored for use in a covered shed. I have often kept these for 6 months or longer. They should be put in from 4 to 6 inches deep. The evening meal of corn may be scattered over them. The poultry scratch among them and soon reduce them to powder. When soiled and taken out nothing can be better as manure. In farming districts the chaff from the threshing machines can be begged or bought cheaply. This should be stored in a dry place, and forms an excellent bedding. If dropping-boards are used they should not be nailed to the house, but rest on ledges and be easily removable for cleaning periodically and disinfecting. If frequently cleaned, and kept sprinkled with earth or litter, the objection to their use is greatly obviated. The method of cleaning is the same as that for "perches" recommended on page 27. CHAPTER HI. ON POULTRY RUNS, FENCING, AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT. Space for Exercise — Back Yard — Poultry Runs — Dryness — Green Food — Grit — Personal Experi- ences OF Fowls Kept in Confined Spaces — Easier to Rear Pullets than Cockerels — Grass Runs — Average Space i Acre to ioo Fowls — How to Keep 300 on an Acre — Well Drained Soil and Short Grass the Secret — Additional Green Food — Cockerels must have Much Room — On Fencing — Posts and Wire Netting — The Cost — The Advantages. By " Poultry Runs " is meant the space which is allowed to each breeding pen of fowls, or to any given number of birds running together, in which to exercise themselves when let out of their sleeping apartments. Upon the nature and arrangement of these " runs," and the condition in which they are kept, depend very largely the number of birds which may be kept thereon in perfect health. It is possible e.g. to keep many more birds per acre upon light or medium than upon heavy soil, or upon well-drained land than upon wet and undrained. A large and well-kept grass run is the very best of all runs when it can be kept sweet, and it is for this reason that farmers have so great an advantage over others. 32 POULTRY RUNS, ETC. But more birds can be kept upon bare soil than upon grass, and most of all in runs which are covered over and kept perfectly dry. Back-Yard PoviltFy Runs. — While the cubical space in the roosting house should be much the same wherever they are erected, the space ox the run may differ widely. In a back yard, the run may be nothing more than an enlarged scratching shed, covered from end to end. Where these can be kept perfectly dry and the droppings regularly cleaned away, one hen may be kept for every square yard of covered run if birds of the lighter breeds such as the Ancona or Leghorn, or one for every 12 sq. ft. if Minorcas or Orpingtons. But these are about the extreme limits. Under such conditions, care must be taken that the birds do not get too fat, and loose litter should be plentifully supplied and the hard corn thrown among it. They must also be supplied with green food. A cabbage hung up at a height of i8 in. from the floor by means of a stout cord suspended from the roof, will find them a great fund of useful exercise, besides supplying their needs. When cabbages or lettuce are not obtainable, a swede turnip either suspended or cut into quarters and placed on the floor of the run will answer the same purpose. A plentiful supply of flint grit and of oyster shell should also be laid down. Both of these are great aids to digestion, and the latter supplies material for the formation of the egg shell. Fowl that are at liberty may find a good deal of this for themselves, especially if they have access to the high roads ; but for those in a confined space it is quite necessary for health. A hundredweight of grit is ample for 60 fowls for a year, and as the cost is 5s. or less, it only costs one penny a year for each fowl, and the difference in the health of the fowl with or without it is very great. It ought, perhaps, to be added that, under such conditions as I have named, it is not advisable to keep a male bird with the hens, or to attempt breeding. The eggs would probably be fer- tilised, but very few chickens would hatch out, and those that did do so would be miserable weaklings. POULTRY RUNS, ETC. 33 If it is intended to breed under such limited con- ditions, it is better to keep fewer fowl and to have a portion of the run uncovered, with admission to the covered part by a sliding door. Out-of-door exercise for the stock birds must be pro- . vided of some kind if chickens are to be hatched from birds reared in confined spaces. I have known cases in which several small breeding pens have been kept in a single back yard, and each pen of birds let out for exer- cise some time during the day, or on alternate days, that have proved successful. Above all, it is necessary that the cockerel should have been reared in an open run, and then not kept for too long a time afterwards in a small run. It is probably from want of exercise more than for any other reason that cockerels that have been successful in the show pen, and then have been kept up in a small cockerel pen, or in another show pen until the next show comes round, and so on for two or three months, very seldom prove to be good stock birds until they have been in the open breeding pen for a month or so. Very great disappointment is caused every year by the neglect of these elementary rules. The confined space does not militate much against egg production. I remember on one occasion I had to fetch in from a farm 15 Leghorn pullets before I had accommodation ready in the open runs. They were placed in a small covered run which I had at liberty, size 10 ft. by 12 ft., in which also roosting room was provided, with a screen only to shelter from the open front. They were kept in these confined quarters from September till February, and laid remarkably well throughout a severe winter — in fact, more than double the number laid by pullets of the same breed kept in open runs.^ I remember visiting a few years ago a breeder of Black Minorcas, who lived in a town terrace, with a small garden attached measuring 60 ft. by 14 ft., a wall 6 ft. high running the entire length. Against the wall were built three poultry houses, 5 ft. long by 4 ft. wide, each with a covered run of 15 ft. by 4 ft. There was left an ^ See chapter on The Intensive System, p. 119. D 34 POULTRY RUNS, ETC. open space in front lo ft. wide, the whole space being covered over by wire netting on posts 6 ft. high. In this space were kept three valuable breeding pens of Minorcas, which not only laid well in the winter but bred many valuable pullets, whifh were exhibited and won many prizes for their deserving owner. The cockerels bred and reared in such limited conditions did not make fine birds. They require more space for exercise. It is well known that many of the chief winning pullets of the Mediter- ranean breeds are bred each year in tiny back yards. The difficulty in such a case as the last mentioned is not with the house and covered run, but in keeping sweet the open portion which was only covered with wire netting, and so admitted rain and snow. No grass could grow in such small areas, and the bare earth soon becomes fouled by the droppings. Digging over the ground may answer for a little time, but the whole depth soon becomes foul, and is easily beaten into a puddle if the fowl are allowed out on wet days. In such cases it is better to beat the ground hard and to cover it with gravel or cinders, the whole of which can occasionally be renewed. Grass Buns. — There is no green food so beneficial to poultry as grass, and where it can be provided in abundance they thrive best. It is usually estimated that loo head of poultry can run upon a statute acre of ground and be kept in good health, with a permanent occupation of the ground. It is not meant by this that loo birds may run in one flock. It is not indeed advisable for a group of more than 25 to run together, since it has been proved beyond all question that poultry do much better, i.e., lay better, breed better, and keep sounder in general health when in small lots, and although it costs more to house and divide them, still they pay better interest on the money invested. An acre of land ought therefore, if devoted to poultry, to be divided into not less than four portions, and in the breeding season may better still be divided into ten pens, each with its separate house and run. By means of these subdivisions some parts may from time to POULTRY RUNS, ETC. 35 time be closed, or cultivated for growing crops of food for the stock or for market gardening. It sometimes happens, however, that land is very scarce or very difificult to obtain where it is desirable to keep more than loo fowl to the acre, and it may be of interest to briefly record how for more than ten years 1 have kept an average of over ^00 birds per ac?-e. My vicarage and grounds occupy exactly one statute acre. The whole of the land, including garden and lawns, is occupied by poultry. The stables, coach- house and outbuildings are filled with exhibition pens. There are some 30 to 40 cockerel pens of an average size Fig. 4. A grass run for 30 young fowl, taken in May. Vicarage in the background. Houses, with Scratching Shed on the left, seen in the background on the left hand. of 7 feet 6 inches by 4 feet containing stock or show birds. The lawns and gardens are divided into breeding pens of various sizes, the smallest containing about 100 square yards and the largest 400 square yards. Each of 36 POULTRY RUNS, ETC. these has its own house and scratching shed. These various accommodations contain on an average some 300 birds. There is a small field adjoining which contains a little more than half a statute acre. It is about 75 yards Ground plan of J-acre field, showing houses willi sheds attached. long and varies from 30 to 40 yards in width, containing roughly 2,700 square yards. This is subdivided into twelve breeding pens of an average size of 225 square yards each POULTRY RUNS, ETC. 37 and two small cockerel pens. A central pathway, 4 feet 6 inches in width, traverses the entire length to the top central pen, and pens open out on either side with a gateway near each pen for ease in feeding and watering. In the breeding season each pen contains on an average ten birds, except those which hold a group of laying pullets or of growing cockerels usually numbering 20 to 25. On this half-acre of ground there are never less than 120 birds, and at the end of the breeding season in May and from that time to Christmas there are often some 300 in lots of 20 to t,o. There is very little sickness among them, and 1 attribute this to the observance of those rules respecting ventilation, cleanliness, and scratching shed accommo- dation, which I have already described. I ought perhaps to add that the field slopes gently from north to south, and that the soil is a light loam, rich enough to carry an abundant crop of grass, which is frequently mowed in the summer and autumn to keep it quite short. This is indeed M« secret of success. All the droppings find their way to the soil, and the first shower of rain washes it in and away. If the grass were allowed to grow long and the fowl trampled it down, the excretions would lie on the top and poison it, and the birds would soon become sickly. This constant attention, of course, entails extra labour, but it is more than repaid. The portions of bare soil around the houses are frequently swept free from the droppings, and fresh soil or sifted ashes are added. Grit, etc., are regularly supplied, and I believe this has more to do with the health of the fowl than the amount of run. In addition to these precautions, the runs are dug over alternately every two or three years, at the end of the breeding season in May ; and after the soil has been well broken up, deeply raked over, and rolled, it is thickly sown with new grass seeds. It remains empty for about three weeks only, and is then used for broods of newly hatched chickens, the hen being fastened in her coop. The chicks are not strong enough to scratch up the seeds, and by the time they are a fortnight old, the grass is high 38 POULTRY RUNS, ETC. enough to be mown, and in two months, after frequent rolhng and mowing, has quite a thick sward, and is ready for use for the growing stock. Additional Green Food is supplied from October to May or June. As soon as the swede turnips are plucked I purchase them by the ton, and after cutting them in halves or quarters, place them liberally about the runs and allow the poultry to eat all they like. The skins and any frosted portions are regularly removed. Later on in the season, I prefer using mangolds, of which the birds are very fond. These are most useful because they keep sound well on into the summer months. I have practised these methods for over ten years, and with the very best results. I do not advocate such limited quarters tor the fowl where more land is easily acquired, and I should particu- larly point out that an extensive range is of the very greatest benefit to growing cockerels. When a number of half-grown or nearly full grown cockerels can be turned out upon a field of young clover, the growth they make is marvellous, and in any case they do better where kept in fewer numbers than the pullets, and where more exercise can be given. On Fencing- the Runs. — I have already stated that my half acre of ground is divided into 12 runs. This is done by means of posts and wire netting, the bottom portion of each division being boarded up to a height of ?. ft. 6 in. How this is best done depends upon circum- stances and the locality in which one is situated. If a good timber yard is adjacent there is no 'difficulty ; otherwise the material can be cheaply pur- chased from many of the makers of poultry houses. At the division of every pen 1 put down a stout upright post cut out of 3 in. deals, size 3 in. by 2 in. After being well soaked in creosote these are well fastened some 18 in. deep in the soil, the soil around being rammed hard. Then at distances of 6 ft. to 10 ft. I place lighter uprights cut out of i in. rough American boards, size POULTRY RUNS, ETC. 39 2 in. by i in. These are easily driven into the soil if the stakes are pointed. I usually get them 7 ft. 6 in. or 8 ft. long, and leave 6 ft. or 6 ft. 6 in. out of the soil. The cost of the boards is i^d. per sq. ft., and a 7 in. plank makes three. The cost after sawing is about 2d. each. One stout post about every 20 ft. is sufficient. The runs should be boarded on all sides to a height of 2 ft. 3 in. or 2 ft. 6 in. This prevents the cockerels in each pen from seeing each other, and so prevents fighting or general disturbance. It is further of great advantage in affording shelter from rough or cold winds. It is in this respect that I find most poultry runs fail. There is either no boarded-up portion at all, or what there is is miserably inadequate. And the divisions supplied by most poultry appliance firms are very insufficient in depth. The extra cost and trouble is amply repaid. I am able to find fencing material cheaply. If I had to buy from the timber yards I should get the American boards I have named sawn into a half-inch in thickness. These would cost fd. per sq. ft., which works out at about 6d. per yard run of 2 ft. 6 in. high. Over this fence I stretch 4ft. wire netting of 2 in. mesh. The present cost of this is IIS. 6d. for 50 yards. It is fastened to the posts with thin wire staples. The cost of the materials for such a fence, including posts, wire netting and boarding, is about gd. or lod. per lineal yard, and the cost of labour for erecting 3d. Each of the 12 runs I have mentioned would take about 40 yards. The entire cost of materials alone for con- structing a house 6 ft. by 5 ft. and 6 ft. high, and a scratching shed attached, 7 ft. 6 in. long, and the fencing described would be about £21 i°s. to ;^4, and if the labour had to be paid for about ^6.^ Of course, there are more expensive methods, e.g., if a more permanent fence were bought, and galvanized sheets of iron 27 in. deep instead of wood were employed, the fence alone would cost about 3s. a yard, i.e., ^6, and the houses might well cost ^6 more, and that without great extravagance. A well-constructed poultry yard is, therefore, a matter of considerable expense; and in ' See p. 40 . 40 POULTRY RUNS, ETC. estimating its value at the end of each year a depreciation of lo per cent, would be a reasonable estimate. The advantages of such divisions as I have named are that the fowl may go out in any weather and find pro- tection on one side or another. In case of sickness breaking out in one run it is. also a great advantage to have birds thus isolated. Where the runs are likely to be permanent, it is an advantage to plant fruit trees, as they both give shade and provide fruit. But these are really better suited to large runs. It is more difficult to keep the grass short where trees and bushes are planted, and the sweetness of the grass is even more beneficial than shade, which is less required where ample scratching sheds are provided. Noti. — Since the war began all wire netting and wood have greatly increased in price, and in the case of grooved and tongued boards has actually doubled. Poultry houses are almost unobtainable, and prices have increased from 50% to 75%, while quality has deteriorated. Zinc sheeting and galvanised wire netting have advanced in the same ratio. Prices are not likely to fall to their former level for many years. CHAPTER IV. ON THE VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. The Varied Choice — The Egg Producers — The Table Fowl — Some Breeds stand Confined Spaces — The Nature of the Soil — Cold and Damp the Poultry Keeper's Bane. The Non-Sitting Breeds. — Anconas -^ Andalusians — Camfines — Hamburghs — Leghorns — Minorcas. Table Poultry. — Pure and Cross Bred — Surrey Fowl — The Fatteners — Abundance of Cockerels — Time to Kill — -Dorkings — Indian Game — Old English Game. The General Purpose Fowl. — Orpingtons — Wyandottes — Rocks — Langshans — Houdans — Brahmas — Cochins— Faverolles — Ducks. When the would-be poultry keeper has made up his mind to begin, a bewildering choice lies before him. There are in England some thirty distinct breeds of poultry. A considerable number of these breeds have three or four quite distinct varieties, and one of them, the popular Wyandotte, as many as ten varieties. There are altogether about eighty distinct varieties (not counting Bantams) and for nearly all of these separate classes for competition are provided at the great poultry shows of the year. To enumerate all these and to give even a 42 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. brief description would occupy a work of larger size than the present volume. In a companion volume, which is to follow, an attempt will be made to point out the chief characteristics of these, but in the present instance a selection must be made of the most useful and best known breeds and some of their sub-varieties. This book is written for those whom I may call the minor group of poultry keepers and not for the exhibitor. It is for the amateur smitten with a love for feathered life who wishes to keep a few fowl as a hobby, yet not without making it pay its way, for the householder who wishes to replenish his table with eggs and poultry, and for the embryo poultry farmer who desires to make a livelihood from the sale of eggs, chickens and table poultry. The success or failure of the attempt depends largely upon the proper selection of stock. If the chief object in view is the production of large numbers of eggs, which find a ready sale in the neighbourhood, or for which he has found a means of disposal at some distant centre, he will naturally select those breeds which are famed chiefly as layers, such as the Leghorn or the Minorca, the Ancona or the Campine, the Andalusian or the Houdan. If, on the other hand, the chief aim is to produce excellence in table birds, and there is a remunerative sale for them, the heavier breeds would be selected such as the Dorking or the Indian Game, or best of all an Indian Game-Dorking cross, or the Old English Game-Dorking. Other breeds excelling in table qualities are the Orpington, Langshans, or Faverolle, and, if yellow legs and skin are not objected to, the Wyandotte or the Plymouth Rock. Several of the last-named are also noted as general purpose fowl, being not only good table fowls but first- rate layers of brown eggs in the winter months. There are two other points which must be borne in mind in making a selection of breeds, viz., the space at one's command and the nature of the soil. If the area at disposal is limited, only one variety should be kept, or at most two, one of sitting and the other of a non- sitting variety. Where space is ample and pens can be well separated in the manner already ANCONA COCK. Property of Mr. Sam Peel. Winner^ ist^ Skipton^ etc. 44 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. described, several varieties may be kept. It is not wise, however, for the beginner to start with too many kinds. When space is needed to rear the young stock, the two breeding pens may be run together, after the' removal of the male birds at the close of the season, and one of the two pens thus be liberated. It should be remembered also that some breeds do much better in a liinUed space than others ; and in such cases it is better to think of producing eggs only and not table birds. One of the non-sitting breeds should be selected, and of these the best are Minorcas, Leghorns, or Andalusians. These birds stand confinement well owing to their active nature and to the fact that they do not readily become fat. When a hen becomes fat the egg organs become more or less atrophied and the egg supply ceases. Almost any breed may by improper feeding become fat ijiternally, but table birds and the general purpose birds, such as Orpingtons, Wyandottes, and Rocks, are most liable to it. Then as to the nature of the soil, it is well known that some breeds do not thrive upon a wet or cold soil. Among these are Dorkings, Houdans, Minorcas, Spanish, and the feather-legged fowl such as Cochins and Brahmas. In fact, nothing looks worse than heavily-feathered birds, whether foot-feathered or with topknots, when kept in damp quarters. It should be said, however, that both Brahmas and Cochins are hardy breeds and will lay fairly well even in unfavorable conditions. Probably the best general guide to a beginner is for him to consider what breeds have been proved by experi- ence to thrive in the neighbourhood in which he intends to start, since people in general, though they may not be keenly interested, will be found to keep the breeds that are the least liable to mortality. Happy is the enthusiast who finds a good, light, and well-drained soil that is rich enough to grow good crops of grass. Nearly all breeds will stand cold, even intense cold, if they have comfortable quarters to which they may retire at will ; but damp and cold soil is the poultry keeper's bane. Upon a good, loamy soil, whether light VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 45 or medium, any breed will thrive. Upon such soil the rain percolates and washes away the offending excreta to enrich the land. On a clay soil there is soon formed a quagmire offensive to man and fatal to his feathered friends. I will now give a brief description of sonne of the most useful breeds, both for egg production and table fowls, as well as of those called general purpose breeds, which combine both qualities. The Non-Sitting- or Laying- Breeds {Anconas, Campines, Hamburghs, Leghorns, Minorcas). The Anconas are a race of fowl allied to the Leg horn ; in fact, they may be called " Mottled Leghorns." The general appearance of the bird is sprightly and active. It is of a beetle green colour, the end of each feather being tipped with a V-shaped patch of white. A few years ago, the best specimens showed as much white as black, and the tail of the cockerel was nearly white. Now the fashion is for a black tail tipped with white. An average sized cockerel weighs about 5 lb., and the hens 4 lb. The hens are non-sitters, and lay a good medium sized egg, white in colour. They are rather wild, and if startled not easily kept within bounds. The legs are yellow, mottled with black. The cock has a large erect comb ; the hen's should fall gracefully to one side. The ear-lobes are white. They are said to be very hardy, and that good specimens will lay nearly 200 eggs during the year. They have, however, not done well in the laying competitions, probably owing to the fact that they like an extended range, and that they do not lay well in the winter, during which months the laying competitions have usually been held. As a breed they are not very extensively kept, and are not as popular now as they were before the new fashion for V-mottling set in. They are now more a "fancier's" fowl than a utility breed. The Blue AndalUSian.— The Andalusian is a .-f^y-.,!>*---0^'^'S- '■' ^.- ^^;-v^ m 'n S m.\ ■ THE CAMPINE CLUB'S IDEAL COCKEREL Reproduced by permission^ VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 47 daughter of the Black Minorca, or if not daughter, a cousin, both being descended from a common ancestor, the Black Spanish. They are very like the Black Minorca, except that the plumage instead of black is a slaty blue, with a lacing of black over the breast and thighs of the cock and the body of the hen. The eye is a dark red instead of black, and the head points are not so large. The breed is said to be hardy, and the eggs large and of a white colour like the Minorca. It is, however, very difficult to breed true to colour. When true blues are mated together half the progeny is either black or a speckled white, and only a small pro- portion of the remaining half well laced. That a large proportion of the mismarked pullets are white and of the cockerels black, points to the fact that these were the colours of the ancestors. For this, among other reasons, the blue Andalusian has never been as popular as the Minorca, although it is a really useful utility fowl, and it should be remembered that the white or black pullets among the offspring are, as a rule, very hardy and excel- lent layers. The Campine (pronounced Karapeen) is another very useful little fowl, which is not as well known in England as it ought to be. In general appearance it is more like the silver pencilled Hamburgh than any other of our English fowl. Its chief difference from the Hamburgh is that it has a small single comb, whereas the Hamburgh has a large rose comb. Both breeds have probably a common ancestor of great antiquity. The breed has come to us from Belgium, where it has been known for centuries. The Campine is a very active bird, but not wild like the Ancona. The general colour of a good specimen is a rich beetle green, with mackerel barrings evenly distri- buted over the plumage so as to appear to make rings round the body. The neck hackles are a silvery white, while the saddle hackle should be barred like the body. The legs are a slaty blue. They are an exceedingly 48 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. handsome and distinct race, very precocious and hardy, and not difficult to rear. They are non-sitters, and lay an abundance of white eggs of a good marketable size. What are called the Wasters among the cockerels are plump little birds, ready for the table at 12 weeks old. There are Gold Campines as well as silver, but they are not so well known. In the interest of the breed it is to be hoped that there will be no undue straining after size If so, the egg basket will suffer. HambUFg'hs. — Sub-varieties : Gold Pencilled, Silver Pencilled, Gold Spangled, Silver Spangled, Black, White, Buff. There is no more beautiful fowl than the Hamburgh, and none that lay more eggs, but unfortunately the eggs are very small. It is said to be no uncommon thing for a hen to produce 240 eggs a year. The Gold Pencilled pullet is to me one of the most beautiful creatures in existence. They are hardy fowl where they have a good range, but they do not thrive well in confinement. A full grown cock may weigh 5 lb. and a hen 4 lb. The smallest are the pencilled varieties, and the largest the black. They may be recommended to those who have space at command and who like to see beautiful plumage. They will fill the egg basket at home, but neither eggs nor birds are very saleable in the market. Another fact that has doubtless helped to make the Hamburgh one of the least popular varieties, is that it is necessary to have two quite distinct breeding pens, one for cockerels and the other for pullets, if the correct plumage is to be repro- duced. This is not necessary, however, for the Black Hamburgh, which is the most popular, nor for the newly introduced Buff variety. The Black is an English variety, and so is the Spangled Hamburgh. The latter has a white ground in the silver variety, and a deep gold in the other, both being boldly spangled, with round spangles of black on each feather, a striking part being the black spangle on the end of each sickle feather. The pencilled varieties have in the pullets fine barrings or pencillings of a rich THE CAMPINE CLUB'S IDEAL PULLET Reproduced by permission^ 5° VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. green hue across each feather, equal in width to the intervening ground colour. The cockerels are nearly plain and self-coloured, with the exception of the tails, which are a rich greenish black, with a narrow lacing of gold or white respectively around each sickle. Leghorns. — Sub-varieties : Black, White, Brown, Buff, Duckwing, Pile, Cuckoo, Blue, Partridge. The Leghorn is beyond all question the layer par excellence, and is one of the most popular breeds in England. They are non-sitters, and lay a large white egg which is readily saleable. The eggs from the Black Leghorn hen, or matured pullet, weigh from 2\ to 2-i- ozs, each, and some larger still. The White is a much larger bird than the other varieties. Show specimens often weigh 8 lbs. for the cockerels and 6 for the pullets. Indeed, one of their chief faults is that they have been bred too tall and too large, and in consequence have lost much of their prolific egg-laying qualities, though the egg is as large as that of the black. In recent years, while the exhibition White Leghorn has declined in popularity, the utility "White Leghorn of the original type has jumped into a marvellous popularity, and is more widely bred for the purpose of egg-piroduction than any other breed. It is not difficult, with selection, to rear pullets to lay eggs of 2 oz. More is said of this variety m the chapter on the Intensive System. The Brown has lost part of its egg-laying powers through having been crossed with the Black-Red Game to secure more brilliance of colour. For this variety it is necessary to have two pens to breed exhibition specimens. This need not trouble the "utility" breeder, and I only mention it in order to state that I have found the cock bred pullets more robust than the pullet bred, although there is a ruddiness about their wings and a coarser pen- cilling over their bodies, which is not so pleasing to the eye of the fancier. The Buff Leghorn, like so many other breeds of this VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 5 1 fashionable colour, owes its origin largely to the buff Cochin ; hence the egg is often tinted in colour and not pure white, and is smaller in size. It was created by the infusion of Cochin blood into a Leghorn of a pale yellow and white colour, said to have been introduced from Denmark. It is one of the smallest of the Leghorn varieties, and, during its brief history of some 20 years, has seen many ups and downs. It is now rising again into popularity. The Duckwing Leghorn (gold and silver) very much resembles the Duckwing game in colour; that is, the gold Duckwing cock resembles the Duckwing Game cock, except that in the Leghorn the neck hackle is striped with black. And the Silver Duckwing Leghorn hen resembles in colour the Game hen. How far the Silver Grey Dorking and the Duckwing Game had a part in their origin is too lengthy a question to discuss. Suffice to say that a good specimen is very beautiful, that the cockerel is more Dorking in shape than the other varieties, that they are very hardy and prolific layers. They have never been as popular as the varieties already mentioned. The Pile Leghorn is like the Pile Game in colour, and like the Game requires constant dashes of fresh blood (in this case the Brown Leghorn) to keep up its colour. They have probably been bred by crossing the White and the Brown Leghorn. They are hardy, excellent layers, and very beautiful. The other varieties need only a few words. The Cuckoo Leghorn is in colour much like a barred Rock, i.e., alternate bars of a deep bluish grey upon a ground colour of a greyish white. A well marked specimen is seldom seen, and they are not popular, though useful. The Blue Leghorn is not yet fairly on the market, though I have seen specimens of great and striking beauty. The bluish mauve colour and the yellow legs, with the bright corai comb, made a very pretty picture. The Partridge Leghorn is still in its infancy. The pullets may be evolved of a beauty like the Partridge pen- cilled Wyandotte, but the cockerels will never be distinct enough from the Brown to make them a success. WHITE LEGHORN COCKEREL. Property of Rev. T. W. Sturges. Winner, ist, Knighton, ist, Sp , Knutsford, igoj, ist, IVhitwuk, etc. VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. S3 The Black Leghorn is at 'the present time the most popular of all the varieties. Its colour, as the name implies, should be a dense black, with either a blue or a green metallic sheen. The great difficulty is to get the pure colour in the cockerels. Nearly all the male birds that have yellow legs show white in the sickle feathers. On the other hand, the pullets may easily be got with black plumage, but the legs are dusky. The great merit of this variety is not in its great beauty of broadcloth and gold, but in its undoubted utility. I have kept many breeds of fowls, but it is the best layer of a large white egg that I have known. It would not be difficult to select a strain that would average 200 eggs each bird per annum. They are very hardy, are easily reared, and mature very quickly. Pullets often lay at 16 weeks old, though it is better to keep them back a little by not feeding too well and by changing them from one run to another. If they lay too soon the eggs are small and the bird also stops growing. Their great precocity is seen by the fact that the young cockerels frequently crow at 8 or 9 weeks old. Like all the Leghorn breed, they are not good table fowl, as they do not carry much breast meat when mature, and their yellow skin is somewhat tough. The waste cockerels are best killed when about ro weeks old, just before they begin to lose their chicken feathers, when they will be found to be both plump and tender. This is true of all the Leghorn family. The characteristic features of the Leghorns are that they should be sprightly and active, with round and pro- minent breasts, the body wedge shaped, wide at the shoulders, and tapering to the root of the tail. The tail is carried fairly high, not erect or squirrel tailed, but making an angle of 45° with the horizon, and be well fur- nished with long flowing sickles. The tail of the hen should be carried at a somewhat lower angle. The comb of the cockerels should be large and evenly serrated, quite firm and erect, and that of the pullets large and falling gracefully over to one side of the face. The colour 54 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. of the eye should be red in all the Leghorn varieties. The lobes should be almond shaped and quite white, and the leg colour in all the varieties should be yellow, the deeper in shade the better. I have dwelt more fully upon the qualities of the Leghorn because I place them in the front rank of utility fowls. They do well either in a tiny confined range or running at large, and tliey do almost equally well in cold or in warm climates. The Black Minorca. — The Black Minorca is the queen of the non-sitting fowl. Other breeds and varieties rise and fall in popularity, but the jNIinorca, like the brook, " flows on for ever." It is the largest of the non- sitters. A fully-grown cockerel should weigh 6 or 7 lb., and a pullet 5 to 6 lb. The flesh is tender, white, and of a fine juicy flavour, and though it is not classed as a table fowl it has many claims in that respect. Where large white eggs are a desideratum, the Minorca egg is easily first. It does not lay as many eggs as a Leghorn, but the weight of the year's output is probably equal, and they are of a rich flavour with a deep yellow yolk. Another pleasing feature is that the Minorca is a quiet fowl ; and, although it tells you when an egg is laid, it does not take half an hour to tell it as some breeds do. It is very tame, and can be trained to eat out of one's hand. For the back-yard fancier it is the premier fowl, as it stands a small confined run far better than most fowls. And, although this is not a book for exhibitors, it is well to remember that many of the best exhibition pullets are bred every year in very small runs. The head points, which are similar to the Leghorn, only larger, are often brought out and developed by being kept in a small show pen built in the recess at one side of the fireplace in a cottage or in a cobbler's work room. There is a danger with the Minorca breeders lest too much stress should be laid upon size, and more especi- ally upon the exaggerated size of comb, lobe, and wattles. The smaller birds lay quite as large eggs and many more of them. The Minorca differs from the Leghorn chiefly through being more angular in shape. The back is WHITE LEGHORN PULLET. rioperty of Rev. T. W. Stukges. Winner, ist, Runcorn, isi, Knidsjord, igoj, etc. 56 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. longer in both sexes, and the tail carried at rather a lower angle. The eye should be dark or black, and the leg colour either a dark slate colour or black, the latter preferred in either case. On the other hand I have not found the Minorca quite as hardy as the Leghorn. Its large comb makes it very susceptible to cold winds ; and if eggs are wanted in the winter, shelter should be provided. They are not so precocious as the Leghorn, but they are perhaps greater favourites, and vfhen once taken up are rarely deposed from the affection of the owner. There is also a White Minorca, a sport from the Black, but it is not much seen or known. In thus concluding the notice of the chief non- sitters, it should be stated that there is no known breed of fowl which does not sometimes produce a hen that wants to sit, which is a sign that nature will have her own way occasionally. What is meant by non-sitter is that, as a rule, they do not want to sit. We suspect, however, that this desire to sit is not always due to the outcome of Nature's latent desire, but owing to the meddling of man, who, for the sake of some supposed improvement, has added a dash of "broody" blood to a non-sitting race. Table Poultry. The chief among table fowl are the Dorking, the Old English Game, and the Indian Game, and the crosses between these breeds and one or two others, e.g., Indian Game - Dorking and Old English Game - Dorking, are probably the finest table fowl known. Other noted crosses for size and quality are the Brahma- Dorking, Indian Game-Buff Orpington, Dorking-Buff Orpington, FaveroUe-Dorking, etc. The White Orpington is also a splendid table fowl, and, since its recent introduction, has often won prizes in the dead poultry classes at the great agricultural shows. It is well for those who keep poultry as a hobby, and who like to have in all cases the best of their kind, to VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 57 grow the above-named pure breeds and crosses. But it is very doubtful whether it pays sufficiently to be under- taken as a means of livelihood. It certainly does not pay to breed table fowl and then to sell in the ordinary English market at 5s. and 6s. a couple. It is quite a different matter if one is conveniently placed near the London markets, and has established a connection for the supply of poultry specially fattened. Very high prices are paid for birds of the highest quality, 153. a couple being quite a common price. It should be added that these birds are very large, and often weigh from 12 lbs. to 16 lbs. a couple when dressed for table. The Counties of Surrey and Sussex are well known for the supply of fattened fowl. But these are not grown by the men who fatten them. They scour the country to buy the young birds from the farmers and cottagers as soon as they are old enough to undergo the process, which is usually about four months. The usual time taken to fatten a bird is from three to four weeks. They are kept singly or in couples in small pens where there is scarcely room to turn round, and are liberally fed with sloppy food made chiefly of oats ground very fine, other foods being barley meal, buckwheat meal, and boiled potatoes. The Heathfield fatteners are often content with very small profits per bird, but yet make a livelihood because so great a number pass through their hands. It is a separate business entirely from that of the poultry farmer and requires special training, e.g., it is most important for these fatteners to know the precise day when a bird has reached its highest point of fitness. Every day beyond means loss, not only in the cost of feeding but frequently in the death of the fowl. Birds differ very much in the capacity for laying on flesh during the fattening and cramming period. A good one may increase in weight some 2^ lbs. while a poor one may only add i lb. The cost of food for this three weeks is about 6d. and the labour is considerable, and when hired labour is employed may easily cost another 6d., so that unless the birds take kindly to the process the profit is small or nil. PILE LEGHORN COCKL. DUCKWING LEGHORN COCKL. Property of Mr. G. Tyrwhitt Drake. Wintiers of }?ia7iy I si afhi Speaal Prizes. VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 59 Those who would like to know the details of the fattening method should write to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, 4, Whitehall Place, London, S.W., for a leaflet on " Poultry Fattening," which will be sup- plied free of charge and post free. Every poultry breeder, however, has a number of fowl which must be used for the table, since there are quite as many cockerels hatched as pullets during the year ; and of these quite 80 per cent, or more must be killed as they are not required for stock purposes. In the case of the lighter breeds, those not wanted are best killed at from 10 to 12 weeks old, when they are quite plump and tender, and are worth as much or more than they would be if allowed to mature. The heavier breeds are better kept till 4 or 5 months old. If sent alive to the London markets they will sell at from 6d. to 8d. a pound, according to the demandand to the time of the year. The worst time to sell is from the end of July to nearly Christmas, and the best months March to June. As a rule, it pays better to send birds to London than to sell locally. The railway rates are reduced to a half the ordinary parcel rate for lots of 56 lb. or over. Localities and circumstances, however, vary greatly, and every man should do that which pays him best. If the cockerels intended for killing are separated from the pullets when they are about three months old, and are well fed, they should always be found in good condition for killing without any special fattening method. But where it is desired to add flesh, if at the proper age they are confined for three weeks in small groups of about half a dozen each, in cockerel pens, where there is little room for exercise, and are fed twice a day on as much soft food as they will eat, they will increase very materially in weight, and even when sold alive at 6d. to 8d. a pound it well repays for the trouble. It should be remembered that what is added is flesh and not framework, and that one fatted fowl weighing 8 lb. is worth for the table more than two at 6 lb. unfattened. 6o VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. The Dorking". — Sub-varieties : Dark or Coloured, Silver Grey, White, Cuckoo, Red. The Dorking is essentially an English fowl. It was well known in this country at the time of the Roman invasion. A distinguishing characteristic of the fowl is that it possesses T^zy^ toes, instead of the usu-al four. It is essentially a table fowl and carries a large amount of white meat on the breast. It thrives best on a dry soil, and though it can stand a cold climate it does not thrive on damp soils, and in such cases the chickens are reared with difficulty. If crossed with the Indian Game, or Brahma, or Buff Orpington, the chickens are much hardier. The sub-varieties named above are placed in order of merit as table fowl, and as they stand in public favour. The Silver Grey is the most beautiful. A good cockerel will weigh lo lb., and a pullet 8 lb., and adult birds some two pounds heavier. The Indian Game. — This breed is sometimes called Cornish Game. In its early days it was probably better known there. It is a strikingly handsome fowl, quite distinct in appearance from any other, the feathering being very tight, sparse and hard, The colour of the cock is a rich glossy green-black, inmingled with rich bay. The hen is a beautiful creature of a rich bay or chestnut colour, every feather being laced with a glossy green. They have short cobby bodies, with prominent and broad breasts, and carry a notably large amount of breast meat. They are very much heavier than they appear to be, and, though not so large as the Dorking, a good pair of young birds will weigh 14 lb. or over. They add great hardiness to any stock they are crossed with, and increase the value as table fowl. They are them- selves fairly hardy, but not good layers. They are cruel in appearance and their looks do not belie them. Old English Game. —This breed, as its name implies, is neither modern nor foreign. Until a generation ago they were largely bred for the cockpit, and sometimes find their way there to-day. The breed is reviving in BLACK LEGHORN COCK. Property of Me. Bert Kirkman. Winner, ist and Cup, Leghorn Clut. 62 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. popularity, and beautiful specimens in form and colour are to be seen at the principal shows. Though not so large as the Indian Game, the quality of the breast meat is both excellent and abundant. The varieties and colours are very numerous. Like most things English they take a lot of beating, and when mixed with other varieties add to their vigour and usefulness. The General Purpose Breeds (Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Plymotdh Rocks, Langshans, Houdans, Brahinas, Cochins, Faverolles). The breeds named above are neither the best oi layers nor the best of table fowl, but combine the characteristics of both, and I have named them again in the order of merit so far as I can judge. The first three are the most popular fowls in the world, and it would probably be well within the mark to state that there are more Orpingtons, Wyandottes and Rocks bred in the United Kingdom than of all the other 27 breeds com- bined. If we take a great show of exhibition poultry like the International Show held at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, in November, 1906, we find that out of some 4,000 exhibits (not including Bantams) Soo were Orpingtons 750 Wyandottes, and nearly 400 Rocks, and so we account at once for half the show. And the numbers exhibited at these gatherings are a very fair index of the popularity of the respective breeds and their sub-varieties. It is worth noting also that these three breeds are al. modern creations, or new varieties, bred from com- binations of the old. None of them were known a single generation ago. A poultry book published as recently as 1873 by Mr. Tegetmeier does not mention any one of them, and indeed some of the newer varieties have only had their birth in the present century. The fact that they have caught the lancy of the public proves that they have supplied a need, and their great usefulness and hardiness are beyond question. VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 63 The Orping'ton. — Sub-varieties : Black, Buff, White, Jubilee, Spangled. These are arranged in the order of their introduction. The Black was the first, and like the rest owes its existence to the ingenuity of the late Mr. Wm. Cook, of Orpington in Kent, who named the breed after its place of origin in the year 1886. It owes its parentage to a clean- legged Black Langshan cockerel and Black Plymouth Rock hens, with a dash of Minorca blood. It still retains the brilliant plumage of the Langshan and its excellent table qualities of white tender flesh. But a typical specimen has very thick short legs and is free from feathers. The breast is broad and prominent, and the back short and curved. Full-grown cockerels weigh from 8 to 10 lbs. and pullets 6 to 7 lbs. The egg is brown, ranging in shade from chocolate to rich cream. The largest birds are not the best layers, and as a matter of fact they have been so much bred for size in England that the average Black Orpington is not now a good layer. Where they are selected for their laying properties they are still first class, and in the laying competitions conducted in Australia they obtained first place with a marvellous average of over 240 eggs each bird for a year. The fact is that there are good and bad layers in every breed, and this is more a matter of strain than of breed. They are a popular fowl and likely to remain so. The Buff Orpington was introduced about ten years later, and though it claims the same name is of a totally distinct origin, being formed from the Buff Cochin and the Dark Dorking, the colour being derived from the former and the white legs and flesh from the Dorking, but with the fifth toe eliminated. It is probably the most widely bred fowl in existence, the buff colour having taken the public fancy. In shape it should be like the Black, stout and cobby, with short legs and back, and broad prominent breast. It is a much better layer than the black variety. The eggs are tinted and of various shades. It is very hardy, a good winter layer, very quiet in its habits, and makes a good mother. BLACK LEGHORN PULLET. Property of Mr. W. J. Harrington. Winner^ isty Birmingham^ etc. VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 65 The White Orpington is quite a distinct breed now from that introduced by Mr. Cook. I am inclined to think that it is formed from a cross between the Black and the Buff; at any rate, they can be bred in that way, as the cross between the two colours produces some pure Albinos, and the White, as now bred, frequently throws progeny with buff or black feathers. It is rapidly rising in popular favour, and is perhaps the best layer of the three varieties, while it excels either of them as a table fowl. Tht Jubilee Orpington dates from the Jubilee year, and is Orpington in shape with the mottled black, white and red colours of the spangled Old English Game. It is said to be a good layer, and is certainly a first-rate table fowl. Its colour-breeding properties are not yet fixed, and many of the progeny are mongrel-like in appearance. A good specimen is very handsome, but they have not yet hit the public taste. The Spangled Orpington is a black bird flecked all over with white. It is the least known and appreciated of any of the Orpington varieties. Taken as a whole, the Orpingtons excel in robustness, size, hardiness, table properties, and are above the average as winter layers. The Wyandottes. — Sub-varieties : Goldlaced, Sil- ver-laced, White, Buff, Partridge (or Gold-pencilled), Silver-pencilled, Buff-laced, Blue-laced, Columbian, and Black. This breed, which is of American origin, runs the Orpington a close race for popularity. It is much like it in shape, but is more sprightly in carriage, a little taller on the legs, which are yellow, and the skin is also of this colour. It is distinguished from the Orpington also by having (in all the varieties) a rose comb and not a single one. The Americans seem to prefer the yellow skinned birds for table, in England the demand is for white, On the whole they equal the Orpingtons as layers, though I have always found the eggs somewhat smaller, and they are not much inferior as table fowl. A few lines only can be spared to describe them. They are placed above in F 66 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. about the order of their introduction. They are all "made" breeds, in which the ancient Brahma and the Hamburgh, Cochin, etc., have played a prominent part. The Gold-Lr.ced is of striking beauty, the general colour being a rich golden bay, the feathers on the breast and thighs of the cock and the body of the hen being laced with a thin band of lustrous green black, the neck hackles having a black stripe in the centre, the tail in both sexes being a lustrous black. The Silver-Laced is white where the other is golden bay, and is laced with black in the same way. The White Wyandotte, as its name implies, is a self- coloured bird, and has been bred to be a pure Albino, whose colour is not (in the best specimens) tanned by exposure to the weather. It is one of our premier egg- producers, and, not spoilt by being bred too large, is hard to excel in this respect. The Buif Wvandoite is nearly extinct. It came too late in the race after the Buff Orpington, and it has now few admirers. The Partridge Wyandotte has close relationship with the Partridge Cochin, which it resembles in colour. The cock is a grand mass of colour, following the primal type seen in the Black-red Game and the Brown Leghorn. The hackle is its point of great beauty, and should be a rich orange or golden red, with a broad centre stripe of lustrous green black. The hen, though more sombre looking, is, when closely viewed, a bird of great beauty. The body colour is a light brown, each feather being sharply and delicately pencilled with alternate bands of a darker shade, which should follow the shape of the feather. They are very hardy and good winter layers, but I have found the eggs rather smaller than in the other varieties. The Silver-Pencilled Wyandotte is related to the Dark Brahma, and is like it in colour. Though of striking beauty, it is not yet widely popular. The Buff- Laced and Blue-Laced are not yet firmly enough fixed in their colour characteristics to find many SILVER GREY DORKING HEN. Property of Mr. A. C. Major. Winner, ist and Cup, Paisley, etc. 68 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. adherents, though an occasional beautiful specimen is seen at our greater shows. The Columbian and the Black are quite recent aspirants for fame. It is claimed for the Columbian that it has grand utility qualities, and is one of the best layers in the Wyandotte list. In marking it is very like the Light Brahma, to which world-famed breed, crossed with the White Wyandotte, it probably owes its origin. It is a white bird, with a silver neck hackle striped with black in the centre of each feather, the striping being more dense at the lower part. It is one of the prettiest of the varieties. The Black Wyatidoite was introduced into England in the year 1906. In the first instance probably a sport of one of the earlier varieties, it has been bred for a long time in America, but with black or bronze-coloured legs. When first boomed in England every effort was made to produce the black plumage combined with the character- istic yellow leg, and every breed under the sun, or any cross-bred fowl that had yellow legs or a rose comb, was used to produce it. The " boom " is long since dead, and it is now a respect- able minor variety, though not yet of settled type. It is fairly hardy and a good layer of tinted eggs. The Wyandotte family is a hardy one, and on the whole are good winter layers. The rose comb renders them less liable to be affected by the cold weather. The White is the most popular, and is much used in the great laying competitions. Its great failing is the s\nall size of the egg, the average weight being about 9 to a lb. In cases where "double mating" is practised as in the "laced" and pencilled varieties, the cock-bred hens and pullets lay the larger size of egg. Plymouth Rocks. — Sub-varieties: Barred, Buff White, Black. The Barred Plymouth Rock, an American fowl, has been known in England for some 30 years. It is an VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 69 established favourite, a good layer of medium sized brown eggs and a good table fowl. They are cuckoo coloured, every feather being of a pale grey barred across with bands of a deeper bluish black, a modest quaker- like attire. All the Rocks should have yellow legs and single combs. The Bujf Rock is a cousin to the Buff Orpington, and only differs from it in having yellow legs. It is, however, taller in shape and with a longer back. It is a really excellent layer of large brown eggs, and is one of the best fowl the utility poultry farmer could possibly take up. But, for some unexplained reason, it shares the fate of the Buff Wyandotte, and succumbs to the claims of the Buff Orpington. Probably one buff fowl with clean legs is enough for the popular taste at one time. It is bound to come to the front some time on account of its sterling merits. The White Rock only differs from the others in the colour of its plumage. It is very popular in America, and is gaining ground here. The Black Rock is an offspring from the barred. As the Barred Rock owed its origin to a cuckoo-coloured fowl called the Dominique and a black Java hen, it has always thrown a good proportion of black pullets and an occasional black cockerel. These have been mated together and are now breeding fairly true to colour. The great difficulty has been, and will be, to get good black plumage and the yellow leg. They are the hardiest of all the Rocks — rather slower than the others in arriving at maturity, but excellent layers and birds that will thrive anywhere. A good specimen is very handsome. They were once largely used in manufacturing the Black Wyandotte. The Lang'Shan. — Sub-varieties : Black, White, Blue. The Black Langshan is an old breed and probably allied to the Black Cochin, from which it now differs as much in shape as a football differs from a stick. It is a tall bird on fine boned legs sparsely feathered. It has a WHITE ORPINGTON HEN. Property of Mr. W. M. Bell. Winner^ isls and Spedals. VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 71 long keel, and carries a great deal of first-class flesh. It is an excellent winter layer of nice dark brown eggs. The Croad Langshan claims to be the original type, and only differs from the modern in being stouter in build and having shorter and stronger legs. The White Langshan is a sport from the black, the legs being a light grey instead of the dark slaty grey of the black ones. The Blue Langshan is a cross between the white and the black, and, like all "blues," very difficult to breed true, so that a lot of the progeny are mongrel looking. They are not likely to be popular, though they may be useful. All the varieties have small single combs, and the eyes in all varieties black or dark hazel. When crossed with the Black Minorca the size of the egg is improved and the number increased, but the colour is diminished in intensity, and different hens lay different shades. . rhe progeny are hardy and of great utility. The Houdan — The Houdan is the best known of all the French breeds, and is more popular than any. It is an excellent layer of large white shelled eggs and is a good table fowl, carrying a large amount of flesh on the breast. Both sexes have crests on the top of their heads, and feathers at the side called whiskers, and a curious comb, shaped like a butterfly with its wings open. The colour is an even mottling of black and white. The legs are a pinky white, mottled with black, and, like our Dorking, they have five toes. The cockerels are very largely used in England for crossing purposes, and many of the best cross bred table birds have Houdan blood in them. They thrive best on a dry soil. The Brahma. — Sub-varieties: Light Brahma, Dark Brahma. No list of poultry could be complete without men- tioning the Brahma race. They are of Asiatic origin, and were imported into America about 1846, and some ten 72 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. years later were known in England. They are now much more heavily feathered, especially upon the legs, than when they came over to us. They are the monarchs of the poultry world, giants in size and majestic in carriage. An adult cock should weigh lo or 12 lb., and a hen 9 or 10 lb. They are very hardy, and some strains, when not bred for excessive feathering, are good layers in the winter. They do best on a grass run, where it is kept closely mown. The eggs are large and deep brown in colour. When crossed with other breeds they impart great vigour. A low fence, three feet in height, will keep them within bounds. The Light Brahma is pure white in body colour, except that the tail is black and the foot feather of both colours, while the neck hackle, which is its great charm, is silver white with a dense black stripe running down the centre of each feather. The Brahmas have a triple or pea comb, firmly set in three ridges, the centre being the highest. The head is small and the wattles short.. Those who keep fowls for pleasure and for love of their beauty, cannot fail to admire them. The Columbian Wyandotte owes its beauty to this source. The Dark Brahma cock is black with a silvery white head and neck hackle, and both this and the saddle hackle is densely striped with black. The hen is a beautiful grey, with fine pencillings of a dark grey upon each feather, with a head and neck hackle striped like the cock. They at once arrest attention as a marvel in shape and colour. Though of undoubted beauty, they cannot com- pare with the breeds already named as general purpose fowls. The Cochin.— Sub-varieties: Buff, Partridge, White, Black, Cuckoo. The Cochin is the most heavily-feathered fowl we possess, and, like the Brahma, is of Asiatic origin. With the exception that their combs are single, they were at first very much like the Biahma. They created a great rage of fashion in England when introduced about iSiJo. SILVER WYANDOTTE COCK. Property of Mr. O. F. Bates. Winner, fst, Cryslal Palace, etc. 74 VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. Their enormous size and their tame and docile manners were a great surprise to English fanciers, and they may be said to have originated the present show system. Though not so beautiful in shape or colour as they are to-day, they were undoubtedly then a more useful fowl. They lay a fair-sized tinted egg. They are a perfect storehouse for the introduction of new varieties. The various colours have already been described. In their pure state they are practically now a fancier's fowl only. The Faverolles. — The salmon-coloured FaveroUe is a modern French introduction, which seems to have taken the public fancy. It is a cross-bred fowl and shows the qualities of the Dorking in comb, flesh and shape of body. The head has the mufHing of the Houdan, and the legs the sparse feathering of the original Brahma or Cochin. It has five toes like the Houdan. It is said to be a good layer, and is certainly a good table fowl and readily lends itself to fattening. The cock is a very composite-coloured creature, a mixture of black, white and brown. The hen is a wheaten brown. There are black Faverolles, and white also and fawn. Rhode Island Red. — Since the first edition of this book in 1907, a breed of this name introduced from America has taken a great hold on the fancier and utility breeder ' alike. Good specimens are of a deep red shade. Both sexes have, however, black tails and black markings in their wing flights. The pullet's neck-hackle is also ticked with black. They have yellow legs, which are longer than in the Buff Orpington, and in general shape they are more like the modern Plymouth Rock than any other breed. They are hardy fowl, good layers of tinted eggs both winter and summer, and though a broody race, are not so much so as other breeds laying brown eggs. They are at present a good general purpose fowl, but there is a danger lest in striving after increased size of body their usefulness should be lost. There are two \'arictles, the Single and the Rose comb ; the former being more popular and on the whole more useful- VARIOUS BREEDS OF POULTRY. 75 The Sussex Fowl, long known in the county whose name it bears, has also sprung into prominence, and has been bred by the aid of fanciers into several distinctly coloured varieties. In the order of popularity the Light Sussex takes the lead, followed by the speckled, the brown, and the red. They are as big as the Orpington, though longer in body and not so fluffy in feather. They have clean white legs, and make first-class table fowls. They are hardy, grow rapidly, and make good crosses with game fowl for the poulterer's use. They are, good layers of tinted eggs. Ducks. — The keeper of utility poultry should add ducks to his stock where he has the means of keeping them separate. They don't thrive well together, and the ducks should have a yard to themselves. For breeding purposes it is necessary to have access to water, but they can be reared without either stream or pond and lay very well, or be fatted for table. The demand for ducklings always exceeds the supply, and they are more profitable to feed for this purpose than poultry, as they are so quickly out of hand, being ready for the table at lo to 12 weeks old. The Aylesbury is the duck for table, with pure white plumage and flesh, and is a fairly good layer. The Pekin is a creamy white duck, not so large as the Aylesbury, and much more upright in carriage. It does not carry as much flesh and the skin is yellow. They are very hardy, and excel as layers. The Rouen is the beauty of the flock, being a magni- fied wild mallard. They are not as good table birds as the Aylesbury, nor as good layers as the Pekin. The Indian Runner Duck is, beyond doubt, the best layer of the lot, and is not to be despised for the table, though it is small. The average size is only about 4 lb., while an Aylesbury or Rouen may be 9 to 12 lb., and the Pekin only a pound or two less. PARTRIDGE WYANDOTTE COCK. Property of Mr. J, BORROUGHS. U'iinier, ist, and Special Prize. CHAPTER V. ON FEEDING POULTRY. Their Natural Food — Grains — The Science of Feeding — A Short Table — Value of Albu- menoids — Wheat — Oats — Maize — Cornwall County Council Experiments — Grass — Barley Meal — Sharps — Ground Oats — Green Bones — • Fish Meal — Biscuit Meal — Bran — The Morn- ing Meal — -Dietaries — The Evening Meal — The Rules por Feeding — Water — Green Food. The natural food of poultry is the produce of the fields of which grain forms the chief, with grass, roots, worms and insect life to balance it. In a domesticated state these have to be supplied, and in such quantity, quality, and variety as to enable the fowl to fulfil the purposes for which they are kept. Of all the grains wheat, which is the " staff of life " to man, is the best, if it had to be fed alone ; i.e., fowl would do better on wheat alone than on any other grain alone. But variety is best. This variety must be obtained in the case of grain, not by mixing the various kinds, still less in buying "mixed corn," but in the alternate supply of the various kinds fed separately. The science of feeding and food stuffs is much better understood now than formerly, and it would be easy to give a full list of the various foods, showing their 78 FEEDING POULTRY. composition and the proportion of albumenoids, fats, carbo-hydrates, mineral matter and water which they respectively contain. But these are more puzzling than useful to a beginner. A brief list is appended for reference : — Parts per ioo in the Chief Poultry Foods. Albu- menoids Fats Carbo- hydrates Husk and Mineral Water Peas and Beans ... 24 2 48 I 2 1 14 Oats Wheat 15 12 5i 2 48 70 21I 4 10 12 Barley Maize 12 10 8 56 66 4 13 12 Potatoes ... 6i — 41 2 5° Grass Turnips Fresh Cut Bone ... i 20 I i3i 4 26 7 24 75 93 29 Dry Meat Meal ... Lean Meat 71 20 14 4 — 5 2 10 74 Dried Fish 48 12 — 3° 10 Milk White of Egg 4 12 4 2 5 I 73 Yolk of Egg 16 30 — I 55 A properly balanced ration is one containing about I part in 6 of albumenoids or flesh formers, and it is in the lack of this material that most foodstuffs fail. They contain too much fat and heat producing qualities and not enough of albumenoids. A hen wants more of this when she is laying ; and if we notice how much more eagerly she looks out for worms, grubs, and flies when she is laying than when she is not, we shall see that Nature calls loudly for help in this direction, and that if we are to get eggs in the winter, flesh meat of some kind must be provided. SILVER WYANDOTTE PULLET. Property of Mr. Henry Edye, Winner, isi, Folkestone, etc. 8o FEEDING POULTRY. A glance at the list will show that peas and beans are richest in albumenoids, and we may see why our most powerful horses thrive on beans, and long distance racing pigeons on peas, but the food is too concentrated for poultry, except when given as meal in small quantities, about I part in 7 as a morning feed. Oats form an almost perfect food. There is nothing like it for adding size and stamina to growing stock. Maize is too rich in fatty matter to be fed alone, but when used alternately with oats is a first class food. There has been too great an outcry against maize. Liver disease and other ailments have been attributed to it, which are now traced to other sources. I should advise the readers of this book to purchase the "Report on Poultry Experiments," published by the County Council of Cornwall, price 6d., to be obtained of Mr. J. Gill, Sec, Gwealhellis, Helston, Cornwall. They will there find the result of a series of careful experiments which go to prove that the best possible ration for laying fowl, and especially in the winter months, is an equal quantity 01 oats and maize fed alternately. Grass, it will be noticed, is almost a perfect food, as 7 parts out of 50 of solid matter is albumenoid. Barley, by analysis, would not appear to be over fattening, but it is, and is very hard to digest. It is one of the worst foods for fowls, and they show their distaste for it by leaving it till the last when fed with a mixture of other grains. Barley Meal when finely ground is a good food when mixed with other meals. Sharps, Pollards, or Thirds, are various names given to the same article, the refuse from wheat after the bran has been taken off when grinding for fine flour. It is on analysis about the same as wheat, and is the most useful of all the meals except Ground Oats. — It is a pity that the scientific grinding of oats to a fine flour should be left to Surrey and Sussex, as the carriage makes it too dear for general use. Mixed with Maize Meal it is an ideal food for laying hens in winter. Dry Aieat Meal can be bought in various forms at FEEDING POULTRY. ' 51 from I2S. to 20S. per cwt., and is one of the most convenient of all forms for adding the required proportion of albumenoids. Green or Fresh Cut Bone is another, and is keenly relished both by growing stock and laying hens. It may sometimes be purchased ready for use at about the same price as Dry Meat Meal, but it does not keep wholesome for many days. It is a good thing for one who keeps poultry on a large scale to purchase a bone machine, and to arrange with the local butcher to supply the bones. The great difference in cost soon pays for the machine, but it is hard work and the implement must be kept clean or it soon gets out of order. No well ordered poultry farm is without one. Fish Meal, the product ot dried fish, ground up bones and flesh together, is also rich in albumenoids. An addition of about i part to 1 2 parts of Sharps or other Meal makes a rich food, and is especially valuable during the breeding season. It is the base of the well known " Liverine," an excellent food. Biscuit Meals, made by many poultry supply firms, are also excellent. When used it should be placed in a pail or bucket about half filled, and boiling water poured over it and a cloth placed on the top to keep in the heat and steam. This causes it to swell. The other Meals can then be added to it in the proportion of at least one half and the whole mixed into a crumbly mass. £ran served in the same way is a nourishing food. Unless well scalded, it is apt to cause intestinal irritation, but both chicks and adults eat it dry with safety. The Morning Meal should consist of soft food mixed with hot water. Several dietaries are given below. The whole should be well stirred together and mixed so as to be crumby and not sticky. When rolled into a ball with the hand and thrown upon the grass, or placed in the trough, it should fall to pieces. So long as all the Meal is moistened it is better too dry than too sloppy. Only as much should be given to the fowls as they will eat readily at once. It is better to give too httle than G BLUE LANGSHAN COCKEREL. Property of Mr. W. A. JUKES. M'itiner, ist^ S['icidl IntcriidfionaI, irtc. FEEDING POULTRY. Sj to leave food lying about to go sour and to encourage rats, etc. Fowl naturally require rriore during the time they are laying, and should be given as much as they will eat, and the same when they are deep in moult. At other times they should be kept hungry or they will become too fat. No. I. Dietaries. No. 2. Sharps Barley Meal Meat Meal 2 parts. I part. \ part. Indian Meal Bran (Scalded) - Sharps Meat Meal 2 parts. I part. 3 parts. \ part. No. 3. No. 4. Pea or Bean Meal Sharps Biscuit Meal 1 part. 3 parts. 2 parts. Potatoes - Bran Maize Meal 2 parts, 2 parts. I part. No. 5. No. 6. Ground Oats Maize Meal Ground Bones - 2 parts. 2 parts, i part. Cut Raw Bone - Bran Sharps Cut Clover Hay i part. 1 part. 2 parts. I part. These and other combinations can easily be formed and changed from time to time. Fish meal, meat meal, or bone meal may alternate, and in winter time, when grass is not plentiful, clover hay, cut very short and scalded the night before, makes an excellent addition. My own custom has been to feed adult stock twice only during the day : as early as possible in the morning, in cold and wet weather feeding as soon as they are let out, and in fine weather letting them out while the meal is be- ing prepared. The Evening Meal should be given about an hour before dusk, or in the summer time about 6 p.m., so as not to keep them too long without food. It should be of hard corn, and alternated. Wheat or oats in warm weather, with an occasional feed of maize, and in the winter alternately oats and maize. §4 FEEDING POULTRY. No exact weight of food can be given as a measure, since the bigger fowl eat more than the smaller and more at one time than another, but for an average fowl of 5 to 7 lb. weight I lb. of hard corn is enough for 9 to 12 birds. Briefly, the rules are — feed regularly, and give only as much as they will eat greedily. Don't leave any food lying about from one meal to another. And should this at any time be found out, starve them for the next meal. Let an abundance of clean drinking water be provided and have it kept in earthenware vessels in a cool place protected from the sun's rays. Zinc or iron vessels are wholesome enough unless it is desired to add medicine to the water, when a chemical action often takes place not favourable to health. Let there be a constant supply of green food, and in the autumn and winter swede turnips or mangolds are of great service to supply the defect of grass. See that flint grit and oyster shell is always at hand for the fowls when they need it. HOUDAN COCK. Property of Mr. Henry Edyk. Winner^ ist, liiiernaiioiial^ etc. CHAPTER VI. HOW TO GET EGGS IN WINTER. The poultry keeper who can make his hens lay well from Michaelmas to Christmas will reap twice the profit of the one whose hens begin to lay only in the spring- time. That is when he is looking chiefly to the sale of new laid eggs for profit. If he can supply eggs in winter he is more likely to find ready custom for eggs when they are more plentiful. There are certain well known, but too little practised, methods of attaining this end : (i) Pullets must be hatched at the proper season. The general purpose fowl, such as Orpingtons, etc., should be hatched from the beginning of March to the middle of April ; and the lighter, non-sitting breeds from the end of March to the end of April. (2) They must be brought on to lay by Michaelmas. If backward, a little additional flesh food will produce this effect. The farmer's great mistake is in beginning to hatch too late in the year, and to have only half-grown chicks when the cold season arrives. If they are hatched too early they lay a few eggs and then go into moult like old HOW TO GET EGGS IN WINTER. 87 hens, and if hatched too late their growth and develop- ment is retarded by the cold weather. (3) Good feeding, housing and cleanUness have much to do with it also. It should not be forgotten that in the spring time when all the feathered tribes, wild or domesticated, lay most freely is the time when insect life is abundant. And as this diminishes in the winter, a substitute should be provided by an increase of the albumenoids in the food. (See chapter on Feeding.) It is easier to manage pullets than the year-old hens. When it is decided to keep the hens through a second year, every effort should be made to get them through theit moult early. In the case of the sitting breeds it is advisable to let them bring up one or two broods of chicks. The rest thus obtained during spring and summer, and the warmth during sitting and brooding, induce an early moult. And if a hen sits late in the summer she often changes her dress entirely during this period. But in case the hens do not moult early, whether of the sitting or the non-sitting varieties, it can be induced by feeding them on half rations and by keeping them warm. If they are shut in the houses and scratching sheds, and only fed very sparingly during the warm days of July and August, a fortnight will often start the whole pen to moult. An aperient added to the drinking water — (see " Moulting " in the chapter on Diseases) — will be an aid. After the birds have started fairly to moult they should be let out on every fine day and fed more liberally with nourishing food. If the moult still hangs, a handful of linseed for every ten fowls, boiled and added to the soft food, is an assistance ; or, on warm days, a table- spoonful of flowers of sulphur. Overfed fowl cannot moult easily. Care must be taken not to overfeed the fowl after they are fairly well on with the new attire. If they are to lay during the winter they must be kept in fairly lean condition. Nature BUFF COCHIN HEN. Property of Councillor G. PROCTOR. I'Vhnier of ist a>id Ctih^ Royal S]toiv. HOW TO GET EGGS IN WINTER. 89 prompts the birds to overfeed in order to lay on a lining of fat for winter protection ; but, then, Nature does not ask them to lay in the winter, and we do. There is more than a glimmer of truth in the saying I have known from childhood, " Run the hens to make them lay." When a hen is listless and lazy she does not lay ; and this condition is brought on by overfeeding When a hen is not producing eggs, she does not require more than half as much food as when she is laying. The strain upon the system is not so great ; and yet the care- less poultryman goes on giving the accustomed ration. Feed them on hard corn only, and make them scratch for it until they do begin to lay, and then, if you will divide the layers from the non-layers, you can feed them more liberally, and don't forget the green bones or flesh food of some kind. These methods are simple but effective. CHAPTER VII. ON HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. The Sitting Hen — An Ideal Sitting Box— Materials FOR THE Nest — Value of Bracken — Ventilation — Number of Eggs — Food — Dust Bath — Testing Eggs — Its Utility — Artificial Incubation— Hot Water — Hot Air — The Place to Hatch — Tem- perature. The Sale of Chicks: The Age to Sell — Nature's Pro- vision OF Food — How to Pack them — Distance they will Travel. Rearing Chicks : A Hen's Sense of Colour^Feeding — Dry Food : How to Make — Soft Food — Water — Artificial Chicken Rearers — Chief Dangers — A Cheap Cool Brooder — How to Grow the Chicks. Nature has implanted in the heart of the hen a strong desire to perpetuate her race by sitting upon tlie eggs she has laid. How this desire has been eliminated from the non-sitting breeds I cannot tell. But it is noteworthy that the non-sitters have mostly come to us from Roman Catholic countries, where the egg forms a more important part of the daily food than it does with us. Even these HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. 9I breeds show an occasional desire to sit, though they are not to be trusted with eggs, as the desire usually passes away before the incubating period of 21 days has passed. When a hen shows the well-known signs of broodi- ness, and it is decided to use her for the purpose of sitting, it is as well to allow her to sit for a day or two in the nest box she has been accustomed to use for laying purposes, so that the fever may not pass away. A sitting box should, in the meantime, be got ready. I find it best to have the boxes either single or in pairs, so that they can easily be moved for the purpose of cleansing. An Ideal Sitting Box I have found, after many ex- periments, is made of boards nailed together 32 in. long, 15 in. wide, and 15 in. high, with a sloping top to carry off the wet. When the space occupied by the two ends and the central division is taken off, this leaves each nest a square of 15 in. There is no wooden bottom to this box, but it is covered with a -J^-in. mesh wire netting to prevent rats from burrowing, and it is placed upon the bare soil jn a shady place. A spadeful of earth riddled free from stones is placed in the bottom to form a depth of 2 in. of soil in the centre and more on the sides. It is formed so as to slope gently towards the centre, which is about I in. lower than the sides. It should be beaten down well with the hand, and made round in shape, and covered with about an inch in depth of soft meadow hay. Broken bracken also forms an ideal covering, and has the virtue of keeping away the fleas. This should be covered lightly with hay. More of this is required in cold than in warm weather. There is a door in the front to keep the hen on her nest, but at least an inch of open space should be left at the top the entire length of the box, to admit plenty of fresh air. If the box is too tightly closed, good results are not obtained. The hen should be moved from the laying house, and placed gently on her nest with a platter egg under her and allowed to settle down before the eggs are placed under her, which I prefer to do in the evening, though a good hen will take them at any time of the day. 92 HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. The number of eggs a hen will take depends upon her size, and also the time of year. Nine or ten are enough for a small hen, or for cold and frosty weather, while 12 to 15 may be given in warm weather to a medium sized hen. If more are given than a hen can comfortably cover, the outer eggs get chilled, and, as she moves them from one position to another during her period of hatching, they may all get chilled. The critical time is from about the third to the sixth day, when the germ is weak. The door should be opened each day at a regular hour, and' the hen allowed to come 'off for food. If she shows no disposition to leave of her own accord, she should be gently lifted off, ' the hands being placed under her wings and care taken that no eggs are taken out with her. The best food is hard grain, and maize may be freely used. Water should be allowed for her to drink, and a dust bath provided. A bacon box turned on its side with a strip of wood three inches in depth nailed across the bottom to keep in the dry earth makes a capital bath. She is thus able to cleanse herself when necessary. The eggs take 21 days to incubate, though if the eggs are not stale and the hen is a good sitter, they frequently hatch on the 20th day. A great deal depends on the weather. If the east winds are prevalent the hatch is often delayed till the 22nd day. It is h'//er io test the eggs from the 6th to the 9th day to see if they are fertile. If they are removed, in a box with a little hay on the bottom, to a dark room, in the day time or by night, and held between the thumb and finger of both hands before a strong light, e.g., a duplex lamp, a little practice will enable anyone to tell which have chickens in and which are clear, An unfertile egg is as clear as a new laid one, and it is well for the novice to take one of the latter as a test. The egg should be lifted with the top side as it lies in the box still uppermost, as the chick always lies at the top of the egg to be near to the warmth of the hen's body. On the 6th or 7th day the top of the egg for about one-third of its depth will be darker than the lower portion, and a dark speck, which is the eye of HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. 93 the chick, can be plainly seen. If there is a dark room handy, this should be done while the hen is off for her daily meal. In any case, the eggs should not be kept away more than a ,few minutes, and not allowed to get cool. A great deal of disappointment is often saved in this way, as well as much loss of time. Where many eggs are unfertile, e.g., where half the eggs are clear, as often hap- pens in the season, all the eggs from two hens can be placed under one and the other hen started afresh. Though Nature's way is often the best, hens are very variable creatures. Sometimes they are deficient in heat, and one will hatch well and the next one badly with eggs taken from the same breeding pen. One will chill every egg and bring no chicks, or will break one or more and endanger the rest, or leave the nest and refuse to continue hatching, and that at a critical period, etc., etc. Anyone, therefore, who wishes to hatch large numbers of chickens must have incubators to remedy the hen's deficiencies. Even when one prefers natural incubation it is well to have an artificial incubator at hand in case of a hen forsaking her nest, or in which to place eggs a day or so before hatching, lest the hen should break the eggs or crush the newly-hatched chicks. If the hen does her work well, and is a gentle creature as she often is, it is better not to take her from the nest after the eggs begin to chip. She may be looked at once or twice in the day and the egg shells removed. I prefer the hen to remain on the nest till all the chicks are hatched and for some hours or a whole day afterwards. The chicks are better without any food for 24 hours, and are warmer with the mother on the nest than if removed to a coop. If she is restless, as she sometimes is, if the hatch is a prolonged one, either the chicks should be removed to the warm drying box of an incubator, or in a cosy basket lined with hay near the fire ; or the chicks should be allowed to stay, and the eggs late in hatching be removed to an incubator or to another hen. Artificial Incubation. — For many years both methods have been employed in my yards, some 500 to 1,000 94 HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. chicks being hatched yearly by hens, and 2,000 or more by artificial incubators. I prefer the latter method as being more reliable when a good machine is used. There are many good machines on the market, and more bad ones. If I had to give one simple rule for the selection of a reliable incubator, I should say " Buy the dearest or highest priced machine and shun the cheap ones." The very cheap ones are simply death traps — ovens for roasting and suffocating the chicks, or cold and variable chambers for chilling them. They are of two distinct principles, one which has a tank filled with hot water, and the eggs are placed in a drawer under- neath. These are known as hot water machines. The other principle is the hot air machine, in which the air is heated on its way into the machine, and is then diffused throughout the egg chamber. These machines are regulated in temperature by a thermostatic bar placed in the egg chamber, which allows the hot air to enter until a given temperature is attained, and then lifts a damper to divert the current. This is the favourite method in America, and it is rapidly gaining favour in this country on account of the ease with which it is managed. The Cyphers Machine is the best known, and an enquiry addressed to Cyphers Incubator Co., 199-125, Finsbury Pavement, will elicit full instructions as to their working. The purchaser's first work is to understand the principles on which the machine works, and to faithfully carry out the directions. Regular and intelligent attention is the great secret of success. Unless an incubator house is built on purpose, which should have double walls to secure an eqziable temperature, and windows with shutters on each side to admit light but to shut out the sun's direct rays, the best place is a dry cellar or a room with a northern aspect which keeps a fairly even temperature. Great care is required in the daily trimming of the lamps to see that they do not smoke, and the eggs want regular attention twice each day to turn them and to give airing as directed. A good machine is far less trouble than a hen, or rather than a series of hens. HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. 95 The most convenient size is for 100 eggs. And where this method is adopted at least three machines are desirable, as eggs are better not more than a week or eight days old. Eggs that have to be kept for a longer period are better hatched under hens. The correct temperature of the egg drawer as shown by the thermometer when placed as directed is about 104°, but may vary from 102" to 105° with safety. The machines should stand quite firm and be perfectly level, when tested by a spirit level. Eggs should be tested on the seventh day, as directed before, and again on the fifteenth day. On this latter testing, any eggs which have not made satisfactory pro- gress, and are addled or the chicks dead, should be re- moved, as they otherwise foul the air in the incubator and damage the rest. The egg containing the live chick is by this time quite opaque except at the broad end, where the air cell is plainly seen. The bad eggs are less opaque and often look cloudy and irregular in colour. When the chicks are hatching the drawer should not be opened more than two or three times during the day, and then only for a moment to remove those which are quite dry and strong to the drying box, in which they should remain for 24 hours without food. Sale of Newly-hatched Chickens. — Within re- cent years quite a large demand has arisen for day-old chickens, and hundreds of thousands are sold yearly to purchasers who do not care to go to the trouble of hatching chicks for themselves, or who wish to make up the number of a scanty brood. The best age at which to dispose of them is from 12 to 48 hours after hatching. They are then strong enough to stand firmly on their legs, and they require nothing but warmth to keep them alive and thriving. -Nature herself has provided food enough for the first few days in the yolk of the egg. This is not entirely used for building up the frame of the chick, but remains out- side the abdomen, enclosed in a sac; the mouth of it is attached to the umbilical cord, and during the last few 96 HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. hours of the chick's life in the shell it is drawn into the abdomen to supply nourishment. I have known sickly chickens, that have refused to eat, live for a whole week on this sustenance, and in a healthy growing chick traces of the yolk are to be found still unconsumed for as long a period as ten days. A chicken newly hatched will take no harm whatever for 48 hours if it is kept warm. All that is needed for their safe transit by rail is, therefore to see that they are warmly packed in suitable wooden boxes made for the purpose. A box 8J in. square and 4^ in. deep will hold comfortably a dozen chickens. A strip of cardboard 24 in. long and 4 in. deep, covered with wadding and coiled round the box inside so as to shut off the corners, keeps them from crushing each other, and adds to the warmth. In cold weather the underside of the lid of the box also should be covered with wadding. A small triangular piece an inch wide and |- in. deep, cut out of the top side of the box at either end affords ample ventilation. Packed in this way, I have sent thousands of chickens — not only to the extreme corners of the United King, dom, but also to France and Germany — with perfect safety ; and even when there has been delay en route and the journey has taken 48 hours, no ill results have hap- pened. When less than 12 are packed together, the circle of cardboard should be made smaller, and the out- side packed with hay. Less than three in number do not travel safely. For most inland journeys, if the chicks are sent away in the afternoon, or by the night express, they reach their destination safely the next morning. Sometimes a broody hen is sent with the chicks. In this case she should be placed in a suitable box or poultry basket, and the chicks packed in the chicken box be placed with her. On liberation in the morning she will welcome her brood, which she would otherwise have crushed had they been placed under her. The poultryman may find this one of the most remunerative parts of his business, as there is a ready sale HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. 97 for either pure or cross-bred chicks at prices that pay well for the trouble. Rearing- Chickens.— When the chicks are not thus disposed of, they must be reared either by the hen or in foster mothers. In the case of the hen, when she has finished hatching her brood, she should be well fed with maize or wheat, and be well dusted with insect powder to free her from lice. The dusting is best done, however, a day or two before she finishes her task. A Roomy Chicken Coop made from a bacon box, with sliding door, and well venLilated. She should then be placed in a coop and the chickens be put to her. In cold weather 8. or to are quite enough for her to brood; in warm weather 12 or 15 are not too many. A hen will take chickens from the incubator as readily as those she has hatched, if they are placed with her own while she is on the nest, or if they are of the same H 9S HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. colour as her own. A hen has no head for nu?>ibers, but a keiti eye for colour^ and if chicks of a different colour from her own are placed with them, she will often kill them outright. She will also kill her neighbour's chicks if they stray to her, unless they are of the same age and colour. I prefer to feed the young chicks on dry food entirely for the first lo or 14 days. After that time the morning meal may be of some of the well-known chicken meals. These I prefer soaked in cold water, not warm or hot. There is a great tendency for any remnants of the latter to go sour and to cause diarrhoea, which is the great scourge of chickenhood. For this reason atiy soft food left after the meal should be cleared away, and the coop in which the hen is kept should be moved to fresh ground daily. These " dry chick feeds " may be bought, or, if one has a crushing mill it may be made at home. A good food is made of a mixture of various seeds, e.g. : — 3 parts canary seed 2 parts millet seed 1 part hempseed 2 parts groats I part finely cracked green peas. Alter the first week or ten days, to this mixture may be added an equal portion of finely cracked wheat, and after another week a little finely-cracked maize and broken chicken rice. After a month the chicks thrive best on alternate meals of soft and hard food, always giving the first meal of soft food and the last of hard corn. I prefer to give water ad lib., always kept fresh and cool. To artificially reared chicks the feeding is similar. There are many good brooders on the market, and the directions should be followed. I much prefer the brooders made with three divisions : (i) The warm com- partment for sleeping, {2) the intermediate for feeding and exercise, and (3) the outer run upon the grass, which is better covered, but with a wire-netted front. The best HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. 99 test that all is going well is when the chickens eat well and drink moderately, and when they lie about the sleep- ing compartment well spread about the whole of it and not huddled into one corner. The chief dangers are : — (i) overcrowding, (2) overheating, (3) draughts. All may be avoided by care. It is not well to place more than 50 in one rearer, and most of the brooders advertised to take 50 are much better with only 30. As the chicks grow and take more space, great care should be taken against overcrowding. In winter time they may remain in a brooder till six weeks old, but in warmer weather they may be removed to a cool brooder after a month. A Cheap Cool Brooder may be made at home by using a hurricane lamp. One of the best I know is the one used on our coast-guard stations, called " The Dietz Victor." It may be bought anywhere for about three shillings, and no gale will blow it out. If a coil of fine wire-meshed netting, say 15 in. deep and 9 in. in diameter, be nailed to a board about 10 in. square, the lighted lamp may be placed inside the coil and the whola placed in a large coop or small poultry house. It gives sufficient heat for the chicks till they are old enough to do without it. If the coil of wire is covered with a jacket of calico or linen, it keeps out the dust and dirt and the chickens nestle around it. The coop should be well ventilated, and if the roof gets too hot through nearness to the lamp, a sheet of tin should be nailed on the under side, which will both afford pro- tection from fire and throw down and distribute the warmth. How to Grow the Chicks. — The secret of successful rearing is to keep the chicks growing from first to last without any check. To do this, care must be exercised to keep them from colds and other chicken ailments, free from insect pests, and to give them suitable food and comfortable housing. Until they are a month old they should be fed five or six times a day ; after that, till three months old, four times; and from then till maturity, three times. lOO HATCHING, REARING, AND SELLING CHICKENS. A good ration for birds from three months onwards is (I)- Scalded biscuit meal, i part Pea meal, i part Sharps, 2 parts ; or (2)- Ground oats, i part Maize meal, i part Sharps, 2 parts. For the evening meal whole wheat, oats or kibbled — I.e., cracked — maize alternately. How to keep them free from insect pests deserves a short chapter to itself. CHAPTER VIII. INSECT PESTS. Three Groups of Pests : Fleas, Lice, Mites — Fleas : Broken Egg Invites them — Lice : Difficulty of Clearing— The Dust Bath — Pyrethrum Powder — The Tick — The Red Mite — Value of Creo- sote — Infested Houses— Feather Eating Mite — ■ Necessity of Cleanliness, The losses in the poultry yard, both among the young and the adult stock, through parasitic infection, are very great indeed. Cleanliness is a major element of success. Without any attempt to give a scientific description of the very numerous insect pests that afflict poultry, it may be briefly stated that there are three distinct groups of insect and mite pests, viz. : (i) Fleas, (2) biting lice, (3) mites. The Flea affects the poultry house, with the laying nest and the sitting box, and they feed upon the blood of the fowl. They are only found in dirty and neglected places. If the old straw, hay, or other material of the nest were cleared out once a month they would seldom I02 INSECT PESTS. oe found. It is the same with the sitting box. The material should be changed after each hatch of chicks. The flea lays her eggs (nits) in these places, and the warmth of the hen hatches them. The nits give rise to little white maggots, and a wriggling mass of them may be found at the bottom of a neglected nest. These larvse take two or three weeks to mature, so that if a nest is clean to start with there is little chance of any being found at the finish of the hatch. The most frequent cause of their presence is a broken egg. If this soils the nest material, and it is allowed to remain, fleas are sure to generate. If a hen on the nest breaks an egg it should be at once removed. The remaining eggs should be washed in water of a temperature of 105°, and the whole of the hay or other material of the nest be removed, and fresh hay put in its place. A little of Jeyes' fluid sprinkled in the bottom of the nest, or a few drops of creosote, mingled with the surface of the soil before the hay is placed in position, will prevent a recurrence. And the same treatment should be followed if from any other cause fleas or their larvae are found. The feathers of the hen's breast should also be cleansed. Thousands of valuable sittings of eggs are spoilt every year through neglect of these simple precautions. In a well-conducted poultry farm fleas find no home. Lice are much more difficult to deal with and are very numerous in variety. One kind affects chickens and another adult fowl ; one kind aftects the head and another the tail; and others for dift'erent parts of the body. The dust bath is Nature's remedy and the fowls' chief means of effecting a riddance. They subsist chiefly on the skin and feathers of the fowl, and cause intense irritation. Adult fowl ought to be periodically examined and dusted with pyrethrum powder, which is almost as effective, and very much cheaper, if mixed with an equal weight of flowers of sulphur. The male stock bird in particular should be frequently dusted. The deaths from lice among young chicks are very INSECT PESTS. 1 03 numerous ; and wherever a chick appears to be ailing and its wings drooping, and it goes about with its mournful "peep, peep," lice may be suspected. One kind which affects the head and neck of the chick and commonly called the tick, is especially fatal, and pyrethrum powder does not seem to kill it. They cling very tightly to the skin of chickens, and are difficult to clear away. Pyrethrum powder mixed with a little salad oil and applied lightly with the finger, removes them, or a similar application of white precipitate ointment very sparingly used. Chicks should be periodically examined to ensure their entire freedom from their greatest pest. The bodies of the chicks, as of the hen, can be cleared from ordinary lice by the use of pyrethrum powder. The Mites are another scourge. These are of two main kinds. The Red Mite, which infests the poultry house and the nests. It is found when present most easily under the ends of the perches upon which the fowl roost. They are very minute in size, and in colour vary from a pale grey to a blood red. The younger ones are pale, but the adults are changed with the life blood of the fowl upon whom they feed at night. They live in the crevices of the house, or in any crack or unevenness of the perch. Poultry cannot thrive in an infested house, and thou- sands of hens are killed upon the sitting nest through their infestation. They multiply with alarming rapidity, and they often swarm where least suspected. The best cure I know of is a liberal application of creosote to the house, both inside and out. Creosote is not valued by the poultry keeper as it ought to be. It is cheap, and can be obtained from most tar works at about 6d. a gallon, when bought in quantities. It is very useful for colouring and preserving houses instead of paint, and it is a sure cure after two or three applications .to any house, no matter how badly it is infested. The ends of the perches should be soaked in creosote, and the perches periodically washed with it. Half water and half creosote makes a strong solution, and its effect is heightened if a piece of washing soda as 104 INSECT PESTS. big as an egg is added to each bucketful. The perches should be allowed to dry in the open air before being replaced; and if a house is so badly infested as to require all the crevices inside to be treated with it, the fowl should be removed and the house well aired and dried before they are replaced. Feather Eating or Depluming Scabies is the other kind of mite. It lives at the bottom of the feather of the fowl, and is so irritating to the birds that they pluck the feathers out to get rid of the pest, and often thus learn a vice which is difficult to cure. Fowl may often be seen with the feathers eaten off close to the skin, and with necks and heads nearly bare. An application of creosote ointment, i.e., pure creosote (not the com- mercial product), about six or eight drops mixed with an ounce of lard and worked well together is sufficient ; and this should be rubbed over the affected parts. It is not a pleasant matter to write of these things, and to think that our feathered friends are not as dainty as they seem. But if we care for them we shall give them the means of ridding themselves of their pests by the ever present dust bath, and cleanse their houses and nests, etc., for them, since we compel them to use these for our benefit. CHAPTER IX. DISEASES OF POULTRY. Value of Early Detection — List of Remedies — Colds — Roup — Sulphate of Copper — Other Remedies — General Debility — Moulting — Diphtheretic Roup — Gapes — Cramp — Leg Weakness — Crop-Bound — Liver Disease — Comb Disease — Favus — Canker — Cholera — Scaly Leg. Like all other living creatures, poultry have their ailments ; and, as with human beings, a serious illness may often be prevented by some simple remedy if taken in time, so it is with poultry. The regular attendant should keep a watchful eye over the whole of his flock. If a fowl is not well it can often be easily detected when let out early in the morning. In any case of a suspicion of a contagious disease it should be isolated, and it is well to have some warm corner in a shed as an isolation hospital Io6 DISEASES OF POULTRY. For most of the ailments to which poultry are liable, there are remedies provided by specialists, which may readily be obtained. But it is as well to have a few simple remedies at hand. Among these I place Epsom salts, glauber salts, sulphate of iron, sulphate of copper, permanganate of potash, Jeyes' fluid, Parrish's chemical food, cod liver oil, olive oil, pulverised chalk, creosote, tincture of aconite, powdered alum. If fowl are bred from healthy stock, and are well housed and fed, there should be very little sickness among them, and it is through lack of one or other of these three points that sickness is due. Colds. — As in the human race, so in poultry, the most common ailment is a bad cold, and if this is neglected it may turn to bronchitis in some weaker mem- ber of the flock, or into roup, which affects the whole pen. Symptoms of cold are sneezing, a thin watery dis- charge from the nostrils. The causes are various. A long continuance of cold wet weather, a bird being locked out at night, too many crowded into an ill-ventilated house, which gets too hot, and the fowls, after breathing the hot fcetid air all night coming out into a cold wet run. Remedy. — If the cases are slight, a little sulphate ol iron in the drinking water. One ounce dissolved in a pint of water, and a couple of tablespoonfuls (i.e., one ounce of the fluid) added to each gallon of drinking water will act as a tonic and remove it. For a bad case isolate the bird and add about ten drops of Fleming's tincture of aconite to a half pint oi its drinking water, keeping it in a dry pen or show basket. A couple of days should effect a cure. Another remedy which I have found very effective, both as a cure for colds and as a pre- ventive, is the use of pure sulphate of copper. One ounce of this should be dissolved in a lo oz. medicine bottle of water, and one ounce of this solu- tion added to each gallon of drinking water. When DISEASES OF POULTRY. 107 this remedy is tried, soft water should be used for- the drinking water wherever possible, as the lime in hard water causes a precipitate. The water also should be placed in stoneware or enamelled vessels. If placed in zinc or iron vessels a chemical action takes place which, though not dangerous, is not so wholesome. The effect of this remedy is wonderful, and it is sim- plicity itself in its application. Although roupy cases are to be found all the year round, it is chiefly an autumnal scourge, and particularly affects the half-grown stock. Roup. — Colds rapidly develop into roup if neg- lected. The discharge from the nostrils becomes thicker, and it is offensive in odour. Sometimes the face is badly swollen, or the eyes appear frothy, and at other times one eye is completely closed. The birds lose their appetites and mope about. The cause is the same as in colds ; but as influenza colds differ from a common cold in being contagious, so does roup differ. It is oftentimes very contagious and sweeps through a whole yard. Remedy. — If the cases are few they may be isolated, and the sulphate of copper remedy tried, using a tea- spoonful of the mixture to half pint of drinking water. I have known cases in which the bird could not see to drink, in which case the water has had to be poured down the throat. In this event the face and eyes and mouth should be washed in the solution also. A few days treatment will often cure a severe case. If the bird can't see to eat, it should be sparingly fed with boluses of soft food by hand. If a little lard or other grease is added to the bolus the cure is hastened. In the case of many birds being affected, isolation is useless, and the sulphate of copper remedy should be doubled in strength and given to the whole pen. In mild cases a little Condy's fluid put in the water, or as much as would lie on a sixpence of permanganate of potash, added to two gallons of water, stops the contagion from spreading and remedies the discharge. loS DISEASES OF POULTRY. Another well-known remedy is to place in a jug oi quart bottle — 4 oz. Glauber salts 2 OZ. Epsom salts 4 oz. Sulphate of iron lo drops of creosote (a pharmaceutical preparation). Pour over this a quart of boiling water, add 2 table- spoonfuls to each gallon of drinking water. I prefer the sulphate of copper treatment until the roup has gone, and the other to follow as a general cor- rective to the system, and continued on alternate days for a week. General Debility — Moulting". — The prescription above named of Glauber Salts, etc., is a most useful remedy for occasional use when the birds appear a little out of sorts. It is_ a corrective for indigestion and corresponds to the use of Apollinaris, or Hunyadi waters, etc., etc., which are such well-known correctives to overfed, and ill-fed mankind. It is also a valuable aid to an effective moult, which, though not a disease, but a natural process to provide a new winter's dress, is yet a very trying time. DiphtheretiC Roup.— This often follows an ordi- nary attack of roup. Cheesy matter forms in the mouth, and collects about the windpipe, and unless attended to causes suffocation. Cure. — The cheesy matter should be taken off with a knife, and, if in the windpipe, the quill of a feather can be used to get it out. The surface will bleed slightly. A little powdered alum placed on the parts is as good a remedy as any, and the bird should be treated as for ordinary roup. Another good remedy is to paint the mouth and affected parts with a solution made by adding one drachm of perchloride of iron to 2 oz. of glycerine. In a bad case it is better to kill the fowl and bury DISEASES OF POULTRY. I09 or burn the carcase. It is very contagious, and the hands, etc., should be cleansed before handling another bird. Gapes. — Gapes is a disease of chickenhood, and mostly affects them between the ages of one and three months. Symptoms. — As the name implies, its chief symptom is that of the chick opening its mouth wide as a person does when gaping, only repeating it at frequent intervals. Cause. — Its prevalence is due to a thread-like para- sitic worm, which affects the windpipe and causes the chick to gasp for breath and run backwards. They are frequently half an inch or more in length. The male and female are found in the windpipe in copula, and when full grown the bird expectorates them. The female worm is full of eggs. If a chick eats a worm, or picks it up with its food, or eats an earthworm that has swal- lowed one, it becomes infected. It is evident, therefore, that the disease is very contagious, and often breaks out on the same ground year after year. I have not had a case in my yards for 15 years. It is most commonly found in damp, dirty, and neglected places. Cure. — When discovered, the chickens must be re- moved to fresh quarters. When possible, the ground should be well limed and dug deeply and re-sown with grass. A small feather stripped all but the tip, dipped in turpentine and water, or in eucalyptus oil and thrust down the windpipe and twisted round, will often effect a cure. The administration of a camphor pill has also been found effective. Camlin powder has a great name as a remedy. Care should be taken that all the worms withdrawn or expectorated should be burnt, and also the bodies of any chicks that die. Cramp. — Cramp is a common ailment of growing stock, and is chiefly due to dampness or the soil and continuous wet weather. The birds affected walk stiffly, and the toes are often contracted. I 10 DISEASES OF POULTRY. The Remedy is removal to a dry pen, and nothing is better than a bed of peat moss or of long straw. Bathing in very warm water and rubbing with Elliman's embroca- tion or turpentine assists the cure. When there is a roomy and dry scratching shed attached to the poultry house, and a perch or two placed in a sunny quarter, upon which the birds may sit, there is little trouble with cramp. It is chiefly brought about by the birds having nothing but damp places to rest upon. Legf Weakness. — This occurs even in dry quarters, and is due to the birds overgrowing their strength. It is most frequent in large breeds when about four to six months old, and undergoing their final chicken moult. The drain upon the system in providing new feathers is great, and the birds recline on their hocks. They squat about, and, if disturbed, walk a few yards and then go down again. If not attended to they frequently grow up inkneed. Remedy. — These want nourishing food. Green bone is of great assistance, about half an ounce should be given twice daily, and a little Parrish's chemical food, a teaspoonful to half a pint of water. If the birds are well fed and supplied with bone-forming material from the first, they are rarely affected. A little flowers of sulphur added to the soft food is of great assistance when they are feathering. Crop Bound. — When a bird is noticed to have a full crop in the morning before breakfast, and then to have little appetite for food, it will be found on examina- tion to be crop bound. The cause is commonly found to be that it has been eating long and tough grass, which has twisted itself into a ball and cannot pass through the outlet of the stomach into the gizzard. Sometimes it is due to feeding younger chicks on coarse barley meal or ground oats, or it may be due to some large piece of grit or cinder which the bird has swallowed. The cure is to give the patient a good drink of warm DISEASES OF POULTRY. Ill water, and so distend the crop, which should then be worked about with the hand and the mass softened. If the bird is held with its head downwards, and the crop squeezed, the liquid will often run out, and the process can be repeated. Finish by giving more water which contains a teaspoonful of Epsom salts. Place the bird in a dry pen, and in a day or two it will probably be all right. If this does not cure it, and the fowl is a valuable one, the crop may be opened with a sharp knife. The outer skin should first be cut and then drawn downwards, and an incision made into the crop itself. A small orifice will suffice to insert a finger and draw the offending substance away. The crop should then be stitched separately with silk or horsehair, and the outer skin afterwards. The bird should be fed moderately on soft food for a few days, and no water be given. A day or two effects a cure, but unless the bird is a valuable one, it is not worth the trouble, especially as the ailment is likely to recur.. Liver Disease. — This is one of the most dreaded ailments, and sweeps away thousands of poultry every year, and especially in the autumn on the approach 0( moulting. It is a regular occurrence in many farmyards for 50 per cent, of the adult stock to die in this way. It is a tuberculous disease, and is contagious. Symptoms. — The birds mope about and become thin and emaciated in appearance ; the comb becomes shrivelled and is often purplish in colour; the excreta is a light yellow; the birds often limp in their walk. The cause is primarily due to improper feeding, and the want of green food and grit. The Asiatic breeds and their descendants are more liable to it than the more active varieties. Its direct cause is a tuberculous baccilus, which attacks the liver and the intestines, and is passed out with the excreta. If birds had a periodical dose of the Glauber salts. 112 DISEASES OF POULTRY. etc., mixture (indicated on page 124), it would not be so frequent. On its approach ttiis remedy should be given, only adding /(3z^r ounces of Epsom salts instead of two to the mixture. The birds should be removed to fresh quarters, and the worst cases killed and burnt, not buried or thrown on the manure heap, as this is the surest way to spread the disease. Where it has been very prevalent, the whole place should be disinfected with Jeyes' fluid, and if it is arable land it should be dug or ploughed, and a crop grown before the birds are replaced. Earth or cindered yards should have surface soil removed, and new material put in its place. My own losses through this disease do not exceed I per cent. Prevention is so much better than cure. Comb Disease— White Comb. — The most common form of this disease, which is another dreaded scourge and very difficult to eradicate when introduced, is White Comb or Favus. Symptoms. — White spots appear on the comb or wattles, almost as though a speck of whitewash had fallen upon it. It is a fungus growth and spreads rapidly. It frequently extends down the neck and sometimes over the body if not checked. Its cause is due to a parasitic fungus, a fine dust like a very diminutive thistledown. The comb of a fowl is its host. A yard may be entirely free from it one week, and then, after a pugilistic encounter, the com- batants' combs will be found infected. The fungus would seem to attach itself to the perches, to the exits from the house, and to mingle even in the dust bath and to float in the air. Cure. — An affected bird should be isolated, and the comb washed with a hard brush and warm water and soap, then dried and rubbed with ointment. A pharmaceutical preparation, "unguentum sulphuris iodidi " (iodide of sulphur ointment) is a good remedy. It should be well rubbed in. In two days after it should be examined, the comb, etc., again well washed, and the treatment repeated. If the merest trace DISEASES OF POULTRY. II3 of the fungus is left on the comb, etc., it will develop again. It is better to kill a bird than run the risk of infection. Canker is another form of comb disease. It usually begins at the front of the comb near the nostrils. This is a soft, raised, ugly sore, covered with a scab and filled with pus. Powdered alum well rubbed in often effects a cure in a few days. The patient should have a dose of Epsom salts, a teaspoonful in its drinking \vater. Fowl Cholera (Enteritis) is a very fatal disease, and is quick in its action. The fowls appear well one day and are dead the next. I have known farms nearly depleted from this cause, but have myself never had a case except in little chickens. Symptoms. — The fowls are exceedingly thirsty, the excreta is at first greenish, and then thin and white, and adheres to the feathers. The cause is undoubtedly due to a cholera bacillus, which is evacuated and is most contagious The remedy lies in isolation and removal of un- affected birds to fresh pens. "Liquor ferri perchloridi fort" is a good antiseptic remedy, and, in the case of young chicks, often stops the infection. A teaspoonful to a quart of water is strong enough for adults, and half the quantity for chickens. There is no hope for a pen of birds without removal to fresh ground, and the affected birds killed, removed and burnt. The excreta should be gathered and burnt also, and the earth covered with lime. Happily this disease is not common, though when it appears it often sweeps over a wide area. Scaly Leg". — This is another disease chiefly due to wet and dirt, and is most common among feather-legged and slow-moving fowl. It is due to a minute parasite which breeds under the scales of a fowl's leg, and, if neglected, the scales are raised and present altogether a leprous appearance. At first it appears like a fine yellow 114 DISEASES OF POULTRY. dust upon the back of the shanks and at the edge of the scales. It is contagious. The cure is effected easily if taken in time. The best remedy is to wash the bird's legs with warm water and soap, scrubbing off the offending substance, and then anointing with sulphur ointment. This should be washed off in a day or two, and the treatment repeated. Except in severe cases, two or three dressings will cure. An easier but less successful cure is to apply paraffin and rub it well in. If it is intended to exhibit a bird thus treated, care should be taken to wash the legs quite clean before send- ing to the show. CHAPTER X. HOW TO SELECT THE BEST LAYERS. Good and Bad Layers in every Flock — Trap Nests AN Accurate Test — Early Maturity a Good Guide — General Sprightliness and Activity. As the main purpose for which the previous Chapters have been written has been to show the way in which our yearly egg supply may be greatly increased by paying all due attention to the health and well-being of the pro- ducer, so it may fitly close by a few hints as to the methods of selecting the best layers. It is well known that there are good and bad milk producers in every herd of cattle so there are some hens in every flock that lay many more eggs than others; and this remark applies to the best laying strains as well as to the poorest. If, for instance, we find a first-class pen of fowls that yield during the year an average of 200 eggs for each hen, it will be found on testing that some will lay as few as 150 and others lay 230 or more. Now it is evident that it pays better to keep only the best layers and to breed from the best in order that a Il6 HOW TO SELECT THE BEST LAYERS. Strain may be improved, or its excellence be maintained. B)' indiscriminate breeding the best laying strains rapidly deteriorate. Trap Nests. — The most accurate and decisive way of testing the laying capacity of a pen of fowls is to identify each hen by means of a numbered ring worn on the leg, and to arrange in each scratching shed or laying house what are known as " trap nests." These are simply laying boxes into which the hen enters when she wants to lay, and in which a door is arranged to close behind her and "trap" her in until she is released by the attendant, who takes the number of the hen when he collects the egg, and notes the fact on a tabulated list. By this means the best layers during a given period are undoubtedly picked out, and any that fall far short of a given degree of excellence are discarded for breeding purposes. The drawback to this method is the great labour attending it and the accuracy that is required. Another thing which has made the method unpopular is that, until recently, the trap nests have been very cumbersome affairs and have taken up too much room, and have also proved not very accurate in working. Simpler and neater " nests " are now on the market, and this will add to their popu- larity. When a sufficient number of trap nests are employed and it is the duty of the attendant, as part of his daily routine, to attend to them at stated periods, the labour involved need not be so great as it looks. It is a matter of methodical care and strict attention to details which makes this branch a success as it is in other departments of poultry culture. That by its means great advances have been made may be seen by any member of the Utility Poultry Club who consults the annual lists of the laying competitions, but the method will never be " popu- lar," in the sense of general adoption, with small keepers of poultry or by the agricultural community. Early Maturity is a good general guide to selection. In every flock of fowls it will be found that some are HOW TO SELECT THE BEST LAYERS. I I ^ more forward than others, though hatched on the same date, and when the eggs are from the same breeding pen. This early maturity is often very marked. Some pullets will lay at 4 months old, while others will delay the start till 7 or 8 months. The early birds are not only the first to begin but often the last to stop laying, and lay the greatest number of eggs. These birds are naturally smaller, as a rule, than those that mature later. It will be found, how- ever, as a general rule that the smaller birds lay most eggs. The winning birds in the laying competitions are under the average size for their respective varieties. This feature is borne out when we notice that the smallest breeds, as, e.g., the Hamburghs, are the most pro- lific layers, closely followed by the Campine and the Leghorn, etc., etc. It is further verified by the known fact that when in any breed undue stress is laid upon size, the egg-producing powers suffer. And the rule that applies to the pullets applies also to the cockerels. The cockerel that crows at the tenderest age and is the one most persistent in his efforts, is known in Holland as "the singing cock," and is selected as the lord of the harem for the next season. This rule, how- ever, must not be carried to excess. If persistently fol- lowed, the stamina. and size of the breed would be de- creased and eventually die out. General Sprig-htliness and Activity are the un ■ failing characteristics of the best layers. The hen that lays most eggs is early to rise and late to roost. And during the day she is the most active in search of the materials for egg formation. She will be found to have a sleek head and a large bright eye, with racy forequarters, and a well-developed stern. The worst layers sulk and squat about all day long, and may almost be said to sleep between one meal and the next. These are best cleared out, as they cumber the ground. The observant poultryman can soon learn to distin- guish the eggs of his best layers without the use of trap nests. There is nearly always some slight difference be- tween one egg and another in shape or size or texture or IlS HOW TO SELECT THE BEST LAYERS. colour. And the eggs from the best layers should be selected for hatching the chickens to supply the next year's stock. If the poultry keeper wishes to succeed he must be no laggard in his business. Intelligent observation and persistent attention to details brings its due reward in the " survival of the fittest." CHAPTER XI. THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. Since the first edition of this book was issued in 1907 a system of poultry keeping called " Intensive " has come much to the front, and been very widely adopted. By " intensive " is meant the keeping of poultry in large or small numbers in confined houses and runs without the advantage of outside runs in the open air on grass, or about the farm. " Intensive " houses are made for this purpose by various makers to hold as few as six fowls, or to accommo- date as many as a thousand, or more where the " double decker " plan is followed, in which one lot of fowl are kept on a floor above the others. So far as my information goes there are comparatively few of the very large houses in use, for a thousand birds or more, in the British Isles, though they are common enough in America, the land of great enterprises. Moreover, where these mammoth houses have been used in England they ' have not proved a success, and indeed I have seen in them the most miserable failures. The type of house most generally adopted by those who go in for the intensive system as a means of liveli- hood is built more or less on the plan shown on p. 120. This house is 20 ft. long, with canvas shutters all along the front, 16 ft. deep from the shutters to the back of the house, and 7 ft. 6 in. high in front, of which 2 ft. 6 in. is boarded, the shutters occupying about 4 ft., and the frame- work and top plinth about a foot. The house is only ' 4 ft. 6 in. high at the back. The floor space 20 ft. X 16 ft. ="320 sq. ft., and is usually considered to be capable of accommodating 100 fowls. Three square feet is the minimum allowance of floor space per bird. I20 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. The cost of such a house in 1914 was ^15, and if with a strong floor of i in. boards with creosoted joists and foundation sleepers, ^^20. As the price of timber has almost doubled since the war began and the cost of labour greatly advanced, it would now (1917) cost ^^30 complete, or perhaps more. In many cases two or more of these houses are placed side by side, thus saving the cost of one end, and with a door leading from one to the other. Houses on a somewhat similar plan to hold 50 birds used to cost ^12, and one for 25 birds ^"9 — the extra Intensive Laying House, 20 ft. X 16 ft. X 5 ft., to accommodate 100 birds. proportionate cost being caused by the need for a house, however small, to have its two sides. These prices are now increased. The catalogues of the various makers of appliances show a considerable variety in detail. In many cases the bottom row of canvas shutters, instead of projecting at an angle, as shown in the plate, are made to slide up and down over the boarded portion at the bottom, and in others this sliding shutter is fitted with glass, as being warmer in the winter and admitting more light. In all cases the open spaces are covered inside the house with strong, fine-meshed wire netting. THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 121 An excellent type of house, called the " Martock," is shown below. One in common use is lo ft. long and lo ft. wide, 6J ft. in front and 5 ft. at back. It is meant to hold 25 fowls. Two separate shutters made of board or canvas, whichever desired, are fitted at the top of the front of the house, the bottom flap is of glass, giving the birds plenty of hght. Behind these is placed i in. mesh wire netting, at the back is a wide dropping-board, and, above this, two perches. Sent out in sections with bolts and nuts, locks and keys, this house is complete in every detail."- I should prefer the top shutters made of wood, and The " Martock" Intensive Poultry House. the bottom frames to be covered with canvas. Its pre-war price was p/^6 X2s. 6d. It is beyond the scope of this book, which deals with poultry keeping in general, to describe the various styles of houses adopted by the intensivist. It is important, how- ever, to consider the principles which underlie the scheme, and to note the chief points to be insisted on by the purchaser. See the house before you buy it. Don't be altogether guided by the illustrations in the catalogue. The cheaper houses are very frail concerns. The wood of which they are made should be well seasoned, or it will warp into * It is now the general opinion of expert observers that 16 ft. is too wide for a house, and that 10 ft. for a small house and 12 ft. for a large one is the ideal width, as they are better ventilated and lighted than when 16 ft. 122 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. all shapes, and by alternate swelling and contracting soon cease to be impervious to the weather, and become both draughty and let in the rain and damp. In this case it is impossible to keep the house sweet. For the larger houses the timber should be an inch thick, and for the smaller ones for 25 birds not less than f in. of grooved and tongued boards. They should be well creosoted outside, and all the framework should be steeped in creosote before being boarded. The floor boards, and the joists 3 in. x 2 in., and the sleepers on which they rest, should have been steeped in creosote before being laid down. Ask the maker for a guarantee that the boards will not shrink, and that doors and windows will not warp or swell, and if they do that he will repair or replace free of cost. Avoid by all means the "jerry builder," and go to a man with a reputation. " Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar." Seek strength and durability rather than glitter or ornamentation. The Size of the House. — In my opinion very large houses are a mistake, or, as perhaps I should put it, it is a mistake to allow very many fowl to run together. One hundred is the extreme limit I should suggest for a house. And even this would be better with a wood and wire division to separate the 100 into two flocks. The back portion over the dropping-board, say 4 ft., should be boarded right up to the roof This is a preventive against draughts. The other portion should be boarded up 2 ft. 6 in. from the floor, like the front of the house, and the top portion fitted with 2 in. wire netting. A sliding door should be fitted on the side near the front of the house. The bottom of it should be 6 or 8 in. above the floor to be clear of the litter. It should be formed of boards and wire like the division. Two feet is wide enough, and this would allow the door to slide back its full width and still be 6 ft. high. One advantage of small flocks is that birds of various ages or different varieties can be more easily segregated, and their individual wants attended to, and ailments or diseases THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 1 23 can be more easily noted. If one wished to have, say 500 birds, and a modest Hvelihood could not be made from a less number, it is far better to have them in ten divisions of 50, than in one of 500, or in groups of 100 or more. I also prefer the isolation of the houses themselves, and not to have more than two houses for 100 side by side. They are easier of access, there is less danger of carrying infec- tion from one house to another, and they are much more easily disposed of in case of wishing to sell. The Site. — The same general principles govern the management of the intensive system as that of the extensive or out-of-door method. For full productiveness birds must be in first-class health. To effect this they must be dry underfoot, have abundance of light and fresh air, and therefore good ventilation. There must be the strictest cleanliness, abundance of fresh, cool untainted water, a variety of the necessary food-stuffs and plenty of exercise. The aim of the intensivist should be to copy nature, as far as his unnatural methods allow him to do so. The site, therefore, must be a dry one, and in nine cases out of ten should face south, so as to admit all the sunlight possible. The chief use of the intensive house is to provide abundance of eggs from Michaelmas till Easter during the most sunless half of the year. This is also the wettest, windiest and coldest part of the year. The fowls need, therefore, all the sunlight they can get at this time. But as they need dryness and warmth also, and it may happen that the rain and wind blow most frequently in some districts from the south, a somewhat altered position may be necessary. Or in some cases it may not be possible to have a southern aspect. The next best thing is to have as much south as possible, whether south-west or south-east, and while the front is kept open for fresh air, to admit light from one or both of the ends, by means of glass windows. Upon the site depends not only sunlight but dryness. You need a dry approach for your own comfort, and a dry foundation for the welfare of the birds. An ideal spot is the top of a gently rising bank, sloping from north to south. In any case swampy ground must be avoided. If the ground is level the house should be raised 124 THK INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. above it a foot or more, and the floor, if boarded, should be so arranged that a current of air can sweep under it from one end to the other. No fowl in a confined space can thrive on a wet floor. The Floor of the House. — If the house can be kept perfectly dry perhaps no foundation is as good as a boarded floor. On the other hand, nothing can be more unwhole- some than a wooden floor saturated with moisture and soiled by the excreta of the fowl. To live in a miasma of filth spells ruin to the health of the occupants. If there is no damp and stench rising from the soil under the house, the boards can be kept sweet by having a good deep covering of litter. (See later Section.) Next to a good boarded floor is mother earth. If the house is raised on brick or sleepers, a good foot above the level of the ground, then this space can be filled with soil or sand. The bottom should be filled with broken brick, rubble, pebble, or stone, whichever is available, and rammed down hard, and then soil placed on the top to a depth of ■6 in. and the litter placed on the top of this. To keep it dry a trench a foot or more deep should be sunk round all sides of the house to carry away the rain, which runs down all the sides of the house after a shower, and especially at the back or shallow end off the sloping roof. This should always have zinc or wooden spouts to catch the roof water and to c'onvey it to a tub, which should have an overflow to a drain, or else the whole of the water should be conveyed by a downspout to a drain. If rats are about they are sure to try and burrow into the house. A good preventive is to sink 2 ft. fine-mesh wire netting into the ground and nail the top of it to the lower portion of the house. Where expense is no object concrete may be tried, made of a foundation of rubble as a base and Portland cement for a finish. But it is expensive and needs careful doing, and after trying both this and macadam, I prefer either wood or earth. Cement is always cold and often damp. Unless it is well made rats will burrow under it and tlirough it, and when they get in are very difficult to dis- lodge. Macadam is worse still, is always chipping and THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. I25 getting out of order, and absorbs any excrement which finds its way down to it. Earth, should it get fouled, can more easily be removed and changed, and, where there is a garden, is of considerable value. The Litter. — Whatever the foundation, it is necessary to have a good deep covering of litter. It should be at least 6 in. deep, and more than this is better than less. It is cheaper, too, in the end than a shallow sprinkling. A bed of 6 to 8 in. lasts ten times longer than one of 2 in., since any excreta which falls on it is soon buried and deodorised by the scratching exercise of the fowls. I have known a good deep bedding last for six months without being very unsavoury, whereas a shallow bed would stink in a month. The material for it should be what is most handy and cheap. The usual materials employed are straw, peat moss, dried autumnal leaves, sawdust, chafif from the threshing machines, or fallen bracken, or road sweepings. If bales of straw are laid in, even if long and strong, such as is used for the stables, it is a wonder to see how, after a few weeks, it becomes broken up into short lengths, and finally into powder, by the exercise of the birds in scratching for their hard corn. Peat moss is good, and is perhaps the best deodoriser, but is very expensive. A 2 cwt. bale is barely sufficient for a good bed in a house 20 ft. by 16 ft, and is invaluable afterwards for the garden, especially for the cold frames, and, when mixed with the earth, for almost all plant life. Fallen leaves gathered on dry autumnal days are very plentiful with me, and I can readily gather half a ton, enough to last for a whole season for several hundred fowls. They cost nothing except the labour, and this must in any case be employed to clear the ground. The larger leaves, like those of the chestnut trees, make admirable bedding, and when the houses are cleared out after the leaves have been triturated, and mixed with excreta by the fowl, make the very best of all manures for cold &ames, potting and bedding plants, and the innumerable 126 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. uses of it in a garden. To this I owe more than anything else a fine crop of violets every autumn and winter. Try it when you can do so. When dry, leaves are good deodorisers. Chaff I also find cheap and good for adult fowls, though I don't like it for chickens or growing stock. Bracken is good, and has the excellent quality of being a valuable insecticide. There are no fleas or lice where bracken is used. A mixture of these may be used, and road scrapings where obtainable form a valuable adjunct. The chief point is to use whatever bedding is employed in a dry state, and to keep it dry. If when the damp autumnal and winter evenings are prevalent it gets moist, the only thing to do is to shake it up well and let in the air. Bedding naturally lasts longer in fine than in damp weather, when the top ixioisture cannot be altogether avoided even with good ventilation. Dry bedding is the crux of success, and every effort must be made to keep it free from damp and consequent mal- odorousness. It should be loose and friable for the fowl to take exercise. A sense of pity for the poor living creatures who are made to do us service confined within four narrow walls, when nature calls them to a wide and lengthened range, should urge us alike for their benefit and our own to attend to this essential element, alike of comfort to them and success to ourselves. Dropping-boardS underneath the perches are an essential in intensive houses. The fowl, in the winter especially, spend more than half their time on the perch. And as perching begins soon after the evening meal, the greater part of the excreta falls at night when they are at roost. A convenient width is 3 ft. to 3 ft. 6 in. I like them to be at least 2 ft. 6 in. or 3 ft. from the floor, so as to make the space underneath them lighter, and so available for dry litter and scratching exercise. I prefer a house at least 5 ft. high at the back to allow good head room over the perches. This keeps the birds cooler in summer and warmer in winter. The boards should be cleaned of the droppings at THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 1 27 regular and stated intervals, and where time permits a daily cleaning is best. They should be sprinkled over daily with a few handfuls of the finer litter or earth, so as to catch the dung and prevent the boards from becoming filthy and foul smelling. Upon this depends as much as anything the sweetness of the air in the house. The dropping-boards usually run the full length of the house, be it 20 ft. or 10. But they are best made in sections, so as to be readily removable for cleansing at stated periods, when a good scrubbing with creosote and water will freshen and cleanse them. The readers of this book know the value I place upon creosote, and though the price has increased since the cost of coal and labour have advanced, it is still the cheapest and most effective deodoriser known. The droppings when removed may either be thrown on the manure heap to mix with the stable manure, or be placed under a dry shed and sold or used in the many ways known to the horticulturist. The Perches may be arranged to run the whole length of the house, at the back, i. «. 20 ft. long in a house for 100 birds. The perch should be 2 in. wide with rounded corners. They are much better made in sections 5 ft. long for ease in removal for cleansing. If the dropping-board is 3 ft. wide, it is best to cut out of floor boards, 9 in. x i in., two pieces of the same length, to turn these boards on their edges, and then to nail the perches on them. If 3 ft. width is allowed, the perches should be 18 in. apart from centre to centre, and this leaves 9 in. from the back of the house and the front of the dropping-board to catch the excreta. Some breeders advise the perches to be arranged across the dropping-boards in short sections, 3 ft. or 3 ft. 6 in. lengths, but I prefer the longitudinal way, as fowls prefer to perch facing the light. The perch room provided should be ample to avoid crowding, and as each fowl should have 6 in., I prefer not more than 80 birds should run in a 20 ft. house, or 40 in a 10 ft. house. If a stout piece of cord with a 2 in. hook at the end is suspended from the top of the house, these short perches can easily be lifted without removal while the board is being cleaned out each day. 128 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. Nest-boxes must be provided. I prefer them made in sections of 3, each nest being about 15 in. square. One nest is ample for five fowl, as they never all lay at the same time. These may be placed either under the dropping- boards, with the entrance to the box from the back, since fowl like to lay out of the light, or placed with their back to the front of the house. The latter place has the advantage of height, and two or more boxes can be placed on the top of each other, care being taken to allow a ledge for the birds to alight on when they seek the higher boxes. This is easily done by allowing the lower box to project a couple of inches, by being placed farther from the wall. They should be kept scrupulously clean, and the nesting material periodically removed. Water. — It is difficult to keep the water cool, sweet, and clean in the intensive house. It must be kept out of the reach of the dust and dirt of the scratching material ; and, above all, from the fowl being allowed either to soil it with their feet, or by perching on the vessel and fouling it with their excreta. They require an abundance of it, always fresh. As a fowl requires at least \ a pint of water a day, a gallon is wanted for every 16. The best plan I have seen is to arrange a box outside the house, like the old-fashioned out- side nest-box used for gathering the eggs, and to place the water vessel in this from the outside, a lid closing over it keeping out the sun's rays. It may be arranged either from the front or on the sides of the house. A hole should be cut in the house to admit the projecting lip, 2 in. wide, from which the fowl drink, and a perch or platform arranged inside for the fowl to stand on, well above the litter. A bottle, jar, or zinc vessel to hold one or more gallons can easily be arranged to stand upside down in a dish or vessel with a lip, which is automatically supplied as the fowl drink. If a wide drinking space is allowed, upright bars 2 in. apart should be arranged to allow the fowl to put their heads through, but not their feet or bodies. The appliance-makers have lots of contrivances for those not able to make their own. THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 1 29 Food. — Special attention is required for the correct feeding of poultry kept on intensive lines. The same foods are required as for those kept " extensively," but the manner of supplying it differs materially. Chapter V " On Feeding " (p. 77) gives the values of the various foods and a table of the proportion of albumenolds, etc., contained in them. This will be found useful when mixing the " dry mash " and the "wet mash" referred to later on. The chief difference in feeding is caused by the different conditions under which the birds live. When there is ample range the birds find a good portion of their own living in grass and in insect life, and find ample exercise in getting it. The grain may be fed to them either on the grass or in troughs, and the same with their soft food. But if birds so closely confined in a house were fed in the same way they would get fat and lazy, and with no need for exercise would rapidly fail in health and the egg supply would diminish. They must be made to work for their livelihood by scratching among the litter for their food. For the same reason smaller grain should be given; maize, peas and wheat are better kibbled, and finer seeds like millet and tail wheat supplied. Again, it is usual to feed fowl kept in the open only twice a day, but in the intensive system " little and often " is a safe rule, and the inmates should be kept "on the hungry side" all day long until the last feed at night, when they should retire on a full crop. The last feed, if of hard corn, should be given an hour before dusk to enable them to scratch for it among the litter in which it has been buried. But the methods of feeding are very various. Dry mash is a term used for a mixture of meals such as bran, middlings, Sussex oats, fish meal, etc., given in " hoppers " in a dry state. VVet mash is the name for similar meals given wet after being scalded. It corresponds to the old term "soft food." It may be fed in open troughs. In the dry mash one of the chief advantages is that the various meals may be mixed to provide the exact albu- menoid ratio needed. The chief ingredient used is bran, which has a high albumenoid ratio. It is not so fattening K 130 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. as Other meals and is usually cheaper. It is better to mix the meals in considerable quantities before putting in the hoppers. A good mixture by measure, not weight, is — I part maize meal 4 parts ground oats 4 parts sharps or middlings I part fish meal, or dried meat. When used put with this mixture equal parts of bran, i. e. if you take a measure, say a bucketful of this, add to it a bucketful of bran, so that it forms half the bulk. A dry mash used in the Maine Experiment Station, U.S.A., by weight- Bran, 3 parts Fine sharps, i part Maize meal, i part Granulated meat, i part. Any of these can easily be alterecf or changed, e.g. linseed meal, or bean meal, or soya bean meal can be sub- stituted for the maize meal, and thus three changes provided ; or fine biscuit meal powder substituted for the sharps and another change effected. All the meals should htfine. If a coarse mixture is added, e.g, either of biscuit meal or meat, they will pick these out first, and in so doing waste part of the rest. If green food is short, one part of alfalfa meal or very fine clover meal may be added to either of the above. It is better to add these latter meals in a progressive method, as the fowl do not take kindly to them at first. It ought to be stated that all breeders do not adopt the " dry mash " system. They object to it as being wasteful, as encouraging a greedy hen to gorge herself and get fat, and, if the hopper is not skilfully constructed, to lead to waste through being spilled and then soiled and irrecoverable from the litter. Again, practice varies in the length of time the hopper is left open. Some leave it open all day long and only close it at night to prevent rats or mice from eating it, and others, more wiselj', I think, open it only at certain intervals between the chief meals. Others THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 13I discard it altogether and feed only on dry grain and soft food called the "wet mash." The Hopper itself can be bought of appliance-makers, made either of wood or zinc. The object of it is to store the meals enough for a day or longer, and yet to have only a small supply available at a time, for the feeding aperture to be narrow, only big enough for the fowl to peck at, and not big enough for the feet to scratch it about. A lid about 2 in. wide or rather less is ample, and this can be thrown back or closed at will. \ Outline of the side of Hopper made Vrom a Square Box. A. Dotted line showing where to cut out. B. A 2 in. opening for fowl to peck at dry mash, to be covered liy loose board or lid when not in use. C. Hinged lid to fill the box. The wet mash is similar to above, but is fed in open troughs, or in zinc vessels with a stout wire door, which falls and keeps the mesh in its place as it is pecked away by the fowl through the wide meshes of which it is made. Good broad troughs, 4 ft. long and 6J in. across the top, can easily be made by nailing at right angles two boards, one 4 in. and the other 5 in. Broad ends made of 6 in. x I in. boards about 15 in. long keep the bottom of the trough just from the floor and prevent it from toppling over. Such a trough is big enough for 20 fowl to feed at once, and it 132 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KF.EPING. is far better to have several small ones, which can be removed after feeding and hung up, or placed on end, in a corner, than to have longer and cumbersome ones. A batten i in. sq., nailed on both ends to divide the trough, keeps the fowl from scratching out the food, or from trampling on it. In preparing the wet mash it is better to boil the vege- tables, such as cabbage, turnips, potato-peelings, carrots, or dandelion leaves or nettles, both of which form a first- class tonic and corrective. When soft, use the water to scald the bran, mash up the vegetables to add later on, and dry off to a crumbly consistency with the stock meal. I prefer to let the bran remain for an hour before mixing with the other meals, and to have it in a very moist con- dition so as to take the additions, ^^'hen clover hay or alfalfa is used, this should be scalded also, as this softens it and brings out the flavour, which makes the fowl relish it more. When the fowl are chiefly fed on the dry mash and hard corn a wet mash is often provided of vegetables and clover hay alone. This is especially desirable when green food is not plentiful. Green Food. — The fowl can never be overfed on this, and as intensively kept birds cannot forage for their own, it is absolutely necessary for their health that they should have it provided. The easiest way is to suspend a cabbage or lettuce some 2 feet from the floor and allow them to peck at it. If turnips or swedes are used, they should be cut in halves and placed in the troughs. All soiled or frosted remains should be regularly cleared away. ^ A rack lor vegetables with wired front prevents waste and dirt. Grit and oyster-shell, necessary to all la^'ing stock, must be p)rovided to fowl kept shut up who cannot find their own, or digestive troubles will be prevalent. Many breeders find a valuable corrective for these troubles by providing a box filled with charcoal, which is opened for the fowl's use once or twice a week. How muchfood should he given f'er bird I — No fixed rule can be laid down. Some breeds want more than others, and fowls laying hard require more than those at rest or in moult. A good average is 4 oz. per day per bird. THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 1 33 When hard corn is given 2 oz. is a full meal. This is better given at two distinct intervals. If dry mash only is given, 2 oz. of this per bird a day is ample. If wet mash takes its place, 2^ oz. per bird is about enough. The best plan is to multiply the number of stock by 2 oz. per bird. Thus 100 birds take 200 oz. = i2|^lbs. Measure this out, and mark your measure after weighing, then place it before the birds in troughs. If any is left over, or if they do not eat it with a keen relish, you have given too much, or vice versa. Once or twice weighing is all that is needed, and measuring is afterwards easy enough. It is better to slightly underfeed than to overfeed. Even with extra care some birds will grow too fat and others too lean, and a watchful eye has to be kept over such cases. Individual interest in the flock is never labour misspent. One of the best tests is to examine the birds after they have gone to roost. The advantages of the syste?n and otherwise. — From what has been written it will be evident, even to the novice, that keeping poultry on the intensive system is no child's pla}'. It is not an easy matter to keep fowl so confined in robust health. They are like prisoners of war kept in internment, and often suffer as badly from improper food and other forms of neglect. They certainly cost more to feed, and take a great deal more time to look after than fowl at liberty, and unless the management is done system- atically success cannot be expected. If the inmates can be kept in robust health, well and good ; if not, failure comes sooner or later. I have seen the most miserable specimens, birds with pale, flabby combs, and generally anremic-looking, whose output of eggs would not pay for their keep. Others as fat as Christmas geese, which only laid an occasional egg as if to show that they had not quite given up the business. The crowded condition also lends itself to the rapid spread of disease. Indeed, there is no escape from it for the major part of the flock once it gets a fair start. Houses full of birds with colds or roup ; others with every other bird stripped half naked from feather-plucking; others with comb disease, which began after a "general scrap," make a miser- able sight, more reminiscent of the shambles of Verdun 134 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. than of the smartness of a parade. Of these various ail- ments feather-plucking is the most common, and it is almost certain to break out if the birds are not kept active. To throw the grain idly on the top of the litter, which is sometimes allowed to get as hard as the high road ; or to allow it to accumulate in and among the litter and so be a surfeit ; or to feed with wet mash too abundantly ; or to deprive the fowl of greenstuffs, almost always brings on this unsightly ailment. On the other hand, this and other ailments or bad habits need not break out, and due care may prevent them. If you know your business and are prepared to take time and trouble, and, above all, to be methodical and regular, all may be well. Or if you have got that extremely rare person, an intelligent and hard-working poultryman, or, as I had better have said, a poultrywoman — for they excel the men where carefulness in details is required — things may prosper. But careless supervision or incompe- tent labour can never manage a large intensive business, nor a small one either, for that matter. A famous poultry- breeder, who has perhaps won more prizes in laying compe- titions than any other, and who has tried both "intensive," semi-intensive and extensive breeding, recently gave me his opinion on the matter. He writes : — " I do not believe that the intensive system of poultry- keeping is a wise proposition. Perhaps poultry can be made to pay a certain amount of profit even under these con- ditions, but you have to have a right man to handle them, and you know as well as I do that poultrymen are born, not made. 1 believe in the semi-intensive system, that is, a house and run, or a full range if possible. It is quite possible to keep loo fowls together in the two latter systems and make a profit of 5^'. per bird." I endorse the common-sense words here given, and shall have a note on the " semi-intensive " later on. The Advanlat^es. — If, then, the perils are considerable, what are the advantages ? (i) First, the system can be emplo)'ed where room is scarce. It is not everybody that has green fields for birds to roam about in, nor even a paddock THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. 1 35 or a garden. Readers of the earlier pages {cf. pp. 5 and 33) will see that keeping birds in con- fined spaces with success is no new thing, and the intensive system has caught hold of these facts, and has attempted to improve on them. It certainly has in great measure done so, espe- cially in the matter of lighting, ventilalion, and feeding. (2) Thousands of folk may keep fowl profitably in this way, who could not do so otherwise. It is better, as I have said, for smaller than for larger groups. (3) Then there is the compactness of the thing. You may have it quite near to the house if the site is suitable, instead of having to wander far afield, and with care it may always be kept sweet and, therefore, inoffensive. (4) Almost all the work may be done in the dry, for what shelters the fowl will shelter you, and this is an advantage from Michaelmas to Easter. (5) Its chief benefit is that eggs may be obtained more readily in this way, and more abundantly in the autumn and winter, when eggs are scarce. (6) The eggs may be relied on as being both fresh and clean, as there are no odd corners or hedgerows for them to lie undiscovered for days or weeks. (7) There is a certain amount of labour saving. You have neither to be up early to let the birds out, nor to be out late to shut them up, or to trudge out all wealhers to look after them. (8) For the poultry breeder who keeps fowl on both systems, intensive and semi-extensi\e, a large house such as has been described has numerous uses. It is a first-class place to fetch in the fowl from outside in the autumn to hasten the moult. They can be kept warm, be half-fed to induce the moult, and then well fed to get them through it. 136 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. (9) It is a grand place for early chicks, Detember lo March, or earlier still, to protect them from inclement weather and give them a good start. (10) I had omitted to add that if trap-nests are in use to test the fecundity of individual birds, they are much more easily managed than when scattered about the farm in various pens. The Semi-intensive System.— By this is meant the keeping together of a large number of fowl, be it 50, 100, or more, in one of the large houses already described, for part of the time, and letting them out of the house either on a free and extensive range, or into a wired-in run at certain intervals. The space usually allotted /;/ the house is not less than 3 square feet. The space outside in a run for fowl which are to 'occupy it exclusively should not be less than 10 square yards. It is only on suitable land, light and well drained, that a run of 10 yards by 20 yards can accommodate 20 fowls for a whole year and the land be kept sweet ; and in most cases, where the land is not specially good and well cared for, this space of 200 square yards is not more than enough for a breeding pen of ro fowls. The usually accepted standard regulation is one acre, i.e. 4,840 square yards, for 100 fowl, i. e. 48 square yards per bird. ^^'here room can be had for suitable runs, I consider this semi-intensive system the ideal one. A run of 25 x 25 yards attached to a house which holds So to 100 birds, divided into two divisions, would serve admirably. Half the stock could be let out at one time, either for part of the same day, or on alternate days for the whole day, if the weather was suitable. As the birds would not go out at all in cold or wet weather, and not very much during the winter months, such a sized run would be ample, and the best results may be expected. If 2 or 3 male birds ran with each group of 50, I should not hesitate to Ijreed from such matings. Intensive Houses are not g-ood for Breeding- Purposes if large numlicrs are kept tcigelher. It is true that even in such confined spaces eggs may be fertile, and THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING-. I37 a proportion of the chicks may hatch out, but they would almost certainly be weaklings. I would on no consideration whatever either purchase for my own use, or recommend others to do so, eggs for hatching, or chickens hatched from purely intensive breeding. When breeding is contemplated, the advocates of intensive breeding recommend that fewer birds should be kept together, and usually suggest 10 sq. ft. instead of the usual 3 ft. .This would mean about 30 hens and 2 cockerels in a house 20 ft. x 16 ft. But even then I should not recommend it. A long experience has shown me that unless fowl can have a free run of reasonable size the chickens hatched are weaklings. The very suggestion that the space should be increased from 3 ft. to 10 ft. per bird is an acknowledgment that close confinement in such packed conditions is not wholesome. The same truth is borne out by the acknowledged fact that exhibition stock, if much shown, and therefore kept indoors to preserve colour, etc., are of little use for breeding until they have had a considerable period of outdoor life. The intensive system under wise management may produce more eggs, but will never breed strong stock. The semi-extensive system may- answer both purposes. The best breeds for intensive houses are the lighter breeds. Of these the first place is undoubtedly to be given to the White Leghorn, closely followed by the Campine and the Black Leghorn. Minorcas do well, and so does the small White Wyandotte. Rhode Island Reds of the smaller type do fairly well, but I should never think of using the heavier breeds, unless it was for a short period during the colder months. They are not active enough in their habits, and too readily lay on fat. The System still on Trial.— it ought to be added that the system is still a comparatively new one, and there- fore liable to much improvement. The makers of the houses themselves are constantly altering their size and shape, their lighting and ventilation, as well as adopting fresh suggestions as to feeding and such items as the arrangement of perches and nest-boxes. No later than May 17, 1916, the editor of Eggs and 138 THE INTENSIVE SYSTEM OF POULTRY KEEPING. the Intensive World, quite the best weekly paper devoted to the subject, writes; "The intensive system has been a great success, and the success will increase tenfold as the housing question becomes better known. There have been very few failures, but these have been attributed entirely through bad housing. Ourselves . . . and other of the biggest breeders have made mistakes, but we have corrected our mistakes. To begin with, all houses were made too deep. Deep houses cannot be lighted or ventilated satisfactorily. Narrow houses (and they should not exceed 10 feet), properly ventilated and lighted, will keep birds in perfect health all the year round." He also advocates that the top row of shutters should be kept open all the year round, otherwise the birds are liable to roup. These are grave admissions. The whole article is worthy of careful study. It proves at least that finality is not yet reached, and it has yet to be demonstrated that the new suggestions will prove an unqualified success. The moral to be drawn is that if one should decide to venture on the system it should be done slowly, and experience gathered as one proceeds. I should certainly advise any one who starts to stock one house, and that not to its full capacity, with pullets which had been bred in the open, and to see that they are strong and healthy. The system has many attractions, especially for town and suburban districts, and is likely to be widely adopted ; but, as I have shown, it requires great interest and unflagging care if it is to be made a success. Carelessness in any one of- many ways may easily breed disappointment and even disgust. The size and shape of the house may have much to answer for, but the greatest element of success is the personal factor in management. INDEX Ancona Cock, illustrzition of, 43 Anconas, described, 45 Andalusian (Blue), describedj 45 Artificial Brooders, 58 ARTiFicrAL Incubation, 93-95 Aylesbury Duck, described, 75 Backyard Poultry Runs, 32-34 Barley, value as food of, 80 Barley Meal, value as food of, 80 Barred Plymouth Rocks, described, 68-69 Biscuit Meals, value as food of, 81 Biack Hamburgh, described, 48 Black Langshan, described, 69 B[,ACK Leghorn, described, 53 Black Minorca, described, 54 Black Orpington, described, 63 Black Kock, described, 69 Black Wyandotte, described, 68 Blue Ani:ialusian, described, 45 Blue Langshan, described, 71 PJlue Leghorn, described, 51 Brahmas, described, 71-72 Bran, value as food ot, 8t Brkfds, for laying, 42, 44, 45, 56; for table, 42, 56-63; soil for diQerent, 44 Brooueks, home-made, 99 Brown Leghorn, described, 50 Buff Laced and Blue Laced Wyan- dotte, 66 Buff LEf;HORN, described, 50 Buff Orpington, described, 63 Buff Plymouth Rock, described, 69 Buff Wyandottk, 66 Campines, described, 47-48 Cam pine Club's Ideal Cockerel, illustration of, 46 Campine Club's Ideal Pullet, illus- tration of, 49 Canker, treatment for, 113 Chicken Coop, illustration of, 97 Chickens, brooders for, 99; foods for, 98, 100; rearing of, 97, 99; sale of newly-hatched, 95-97 Cochin?;, described, 72, 75 Cochin Hen (Buff), illustration of, 88 Colds, treatment for, 106 Columbian Wyandotte, described, 68 Comb Disf:ase, treatment for, 112 Cramp, treatment for, 109 Creosote, value of, 27, 103 Croad Langshan, described, 71 Crop-Bound, treatment for, no Dark Brahmas, described, 72 Depluming Scabies, treatment for, 104 Dietarirs, tables of, 83 Dietz Victor Lamp, for Brooder, 99 Diphtheretic Roup, treatment for, 108 Diseases of Poultry, 105-114; simple remedies for, 106 Dorkings, described, 60 Dui^KiNG (Silver Grey) Hen, illustra- tion of, 67 Dropping Boards, 23, 30, 126 Dky Chick Food, ingredients for, 98 Dry Mash, 130 Dry Meat Meal, value as food of, 80 Ducks, described, 74-75 Duckwing Leghorn, described, 51 DucKwiNG Leghorn Cockerel, illus- tration of, 58 Eggs, average price of, 3-4; cost of pro- ducing, 4; foreign method of packing> 17; grading of, 17; in winter, how to get, 86-S9; number of, for sitting hen, 92; rates of carriage on, 13-14; regu- larity of supply of, 18; table of esti- mated production of, 12; testing of, 92, 95; value of imported, 3, 10 Enteritis, treatment for, 113 Evening Meal, ingredients for, 83 Fattening Fowls, method of, 57, 60 Faverolles, described, 74 Feather Eating ok Depluming SCAB[E = , 104 Feeding Poultry, 77-84 Fencing, 38-40 Fish Meal, value as food of, 81 Fleas, treatment for, 101-102 Foods for Chickens, 98-100 Fowl Cholera, treatment for, 113 Fresh-cut Bone, value as food of, Bi Gapes, treatment for, 109 Genei-al Debility, treatment for, 108 General Purposes Breeds, 42, 62-74 Gold Campines, 48 Goll-Laced Wyandottes, 66 Grass, value as food of, 80 Grass Runs, 34-38 Green Bone, value as food of, 81 Green Food, value of, 38, 132 Ground Oats, value as food of, 80 140 INDEX. Hamburghs, described, 4S-50 Hatching Chickens, 90-95 Hopper, 131 HouDANS, described, 71 HouDAN Cock, illustraiion of, 85 Hurricane Lamp, for Brooder, 99 Incubators, described, 94 ; need for, 93 Indian Game, described, 60 Indian Runner Duck, described, 75 Insect Pests, 101-104 Intensive LA^ iNG Houses, 120-121 Intensive System, 119-13S International Show, 1906, poultry at, 62 Jubilee Orpingtons, described, 65 Langshans, described, 69-71 Langshan (Blue) Cockerel, illustra- tion of, 82 Layers, best breeds as, 42, 44, 45-56; how to select best, 115-118 1-eghorns, 50-54 Leghorn (Black) Cock, illustration of, 61 Leghorn (Black) Pullet, illustration of, 64 Leghorn (Duckwing), illustration of, 58 Leghorn (Pile) Cockerel, illustration of, 58 Leghorn (White) Pullet, illustration of", 55 Leg Weakness, trt:atment for, no Lice, treatment for, 102 Light Brahmas, described, 72 Liver Disease, treatment for, m Maize, value as food, 80 RIeaL'^, value as food, 80-81 Meai s. Set; Evening afid l\Iorntng Meals Minorcas, described, 54-56 Mites, treatment for, 103 Morning Meal, ingredienLs for, 81 Moulting, treatment for, 108 Nest Boxes, 128 Non-Sitting Breeds, 45-56 Oats, value as food, 80 Old English Gamf, de^^cribed, I'o, 62 Orpingtons, described, 6^-65; number at InternalionaJ Show, 62 Orpington (White; Hen, illustration of, 70 Partridge Lei^horn, dc'^cr.bed, 51 PartivMi^ge Wvando TTE, de_scribed, 66 Peat Moss, value of, 23 Pekin Duck, dei-cribed, 74 Perches, 26-27, ^27 Pn.E I^ivGhorn, described, 51 Pile Leghorn Cockerel, illustration of, 58 , Plymouth Rocks, described, 6B-D9; number at International Show, 62 Pollards, value as food of, 80 Poultry, best time for killing and sell- i'lg) 59 ; cost of keeping, 4 ; diseases of, 105-114; fattening of, 57-591 feedmg of,' 77-84; housing of, 20-30; number of, in Europe, ti; treatment of, 7 Poultry Foods, table of, 78 PniiLTRV Houses, 20-27; accommoda- tion in, 25; cost of, 2q; ground plan of, 36; illustrations of, 22, 23, 25; methods of ventilating, 24 Poultry Runs, 31-40; fencing of, 38- 40; illustration of, 35 Rocks. See Plymouth Rocks Rouen Du^k, described, 75 Roup, treatment for, 107; (diphtheretic) treatment for, 108 Scaly Lfg, treatment for, 113 Scratching Sheds, 27-29; ad\'antnges of, 28; cost of, 29; ground plan of, 36; illustrations of, 22, 23, 25 ; pre- servation of, 30 Semi-Intensive Sy'stem, 136 Shakps, value as food of, 80 Silver Grey Dorking, described, 60 Silver-Traced Wyandotte, 66 SlI.\ER-l-'tN'CILLED WyaNDOTTE, 66 Simple Remedies, list of, io6 Si i t(ng I-ioxES, how to make, 91 Sitting Hen, number of eggs for, 92 Spangled Orpington, described, 65 Sulphate of Copper, -v-aluc of, 106 Sunshine, value of, 27 Table Bi^eeds, 42, 44, 56-62 Tablf.s, II, 12, 15, 16, 78, 83 Thirds, \'alue as food of, Zo Trap Nests, use of, 116 Ventilation, methods oi. 24 Wet Mash, 129 White C(.'Mb, treatment for, 112 White Langshan, described, 71 White Leghorn, de.'^cribed, 50 \\'nrrE IMinorca, described. 56 \\'iHTE Orpington, described. 65 M'liiTE IviiCK, described, 69 ^\'lllTE ^VvANDOTTE, described, 66 Wvandottes, described, 65-6S; number at International Show, 6z Wyandotte (Partridge) Cock, illus- tration of, 76 Wyandotte (Silver) Cock, ilUistia- iii>n of, 73 Wyandotte (Sh.yer) Pullet, illustra- tion of, 79