How to build up a heavy laying strain; a thorough and exhaustive treatise on egg production and the conditions which govern the development of a heavy and persistent laying strain of fowls

Front matter

A FORTUNE IN EGGS

By L. F. VAN ORSDALE

PRICE, FIFTY CENTS

II J

A row of Colony Houses at State College of Agriculture (Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.)

The breeding cockerels and pullets are put in open front colony houses on free range, or in very large yards, and are divided into flocks of 25 each. The feed is now gradually changed from the moist mash to the dry mash fed in hoppers and kept before them all the time. This is made up of one part wheat bran, by weight, to two parts corn meal, one part middlings and one part beef scraps. In addition to this cracked corn, wheat, beef scraps, cracked bone, oyster shell, grit and charcoal are kept before them in self feeding hoppers

HOW" TO BUILD UP A HEAVY LAYING STRAIX

all the time. It will be found that they do not stand around the troughs and gorge themselves but take a mouthful at a time and go ranging over the fields, only coming back to the hoppers when hungry.

The object in feeding in this manner is to save labor, and it can be appreciated that where the feeding may be done once a week by a man and a horse, it is much easier and cheaper than to make from three to five trips a day over the whole plant. The results from this method of feeding are as satisfactory as under any method of hand feeding, and this should commend it to every poultry keeper who raises a few chickens as a little diversion and does not have the time to be at home every time it is necessary for them to be fed.

The cockerels to be kept for breeders are fed in much the same manner as the pullets, only more feed must be provided. The cockerels to be marketed are put in a house about 9 by 11 feet in size, with a yard 20 feet square around each house, 20 cockerels in a house. They are fed on a wet mash made of 100 pounds of wheat middlings, 100 pounds of corn meal and 40 pounds of meat meal. This" is given as a porridge thick enough to drop but not run from a spoon. The following observations from the Maine Station bulletin are well founded : "Four weeks is about the limit of profitable feeding, both individually and in flocks. Chickens gain faster while young. Birds 150 to 175 days old give comparatively small gains. The practice of successful poultrymen selling chickens at the earliest marketable age is well founded. By using skim milk in mixing the porridge, instead of water, 4.3 pounds of grain were required to make 1 pound of gain, against 5.3 pounds of grain when mixed with water.

HATCHING THE CHICKS

These different phases of poultry keeping are so closely and so intimately connected that it is a very difficult matter to assume where one subject begins and another leaves off, however, the different chapters will follow each other in as rational a sequence as possible. We have already given onr views on feeding the chicks.

It is an axiom appreciated by every experienced poultryman that a chick "well hatched is half raised/' and as the beginner gains in experience he will be more able to accept this assertion as the truth. It is truly wonderful how a chick that has been properly hatched from strong and sturdy parents will grow and thrive even in the coldest weather and under conditions that would kill a chick improperly hatched in one day. In this struggle of nature there is a constant selection of the well and fit being made and often it appears that an especially good bird from the standpoint of form and feathers is a little backward in growth, or is in need of special care in the matter of housing and feed. The outcome is usually this: The bird being so fine is used for a breeder and this apparent weakness is really a constitutional defect which is bred into the flock and as a result the whole strain is weakened. The chicks are weak when hatched and never grow as strong and and healthy as a youngster should. As a result they are coddled and nursed to a doubtful maturity, and in turn the breeders are selected for their form and color instead of their health and vigor. The results of this sort of selection are evident to any careful observer-, and it is stock of this kind and eggs from such parents that the buying public are yearly fleeced of thousands of dollars in good hard earned money. We do not believe that this sort of selection is practiced by the old and experienced breeders as much as by theyoung and unknowing ones who are willing to chance a questionable mating thinking that it will turn out all right.

It is reasonable that nature should have first call in hatching and brooding the choicest youngsters, and it is also true that taking the average of results the hen is far superior to an incubator as a producer of the largest percentage of strong, livable chicks. As a brooder I have always ha \ better success in raising them by artificial means. I do not say that an incubator cannot hatch as many chicks as a battery of setting hens — when the incubator is run under perfectly normal conditions — but there is the rub — to always operate the machine so that the eggs are incubated under perfectly normal conditions for the entire 21 days. Here is where the machine falls far behind the old setter.

Provided you have a fairly representative specimen of a clucking hen you can trust a setting of costly eggs to her with far more assurance of securing an equal number of chicks than you have with the same quality of eggs entrusted to an incubator. L T nder

HOW TO BUILD UP A HEAVY LAYING STRAIX

the setting hen your eggs have no chance of being overheated or a thousand and one things that are possible and probable to happen to your incubator. Of course, where a large number of eggs are incubated it becomes, necessary to depend on other than the natural means of hatching, and this is possible with almost any of the improved patterns of mechanical hatchers on the market to-day. Of course the incubator manufacturers will come forward with a large batch of statistics and well meant testimonials to prove that the writer is leading you astray by advising that for the best results with fine stock or costly eggs is to stick to the old setting hen both for the incubator and for the brooder. I am willing to admit that hundreds of prize winners are hatched artificially and brooded by a wooden hen, and I still contend, with thousands of other breeders that the same chickens naturally hatched would have been finer specimens. Right here- I want to say that the most important development in artificial incubation in recent years is the application of the sand tray to the aid of the machine hatcher. The chicks hatched from a sand trav incubator are not only heavier when hatched but. are covered with a longer, thicker 'fluff, are stronger and far more vigorous than any I have ever seen taken from a dry air machine.

In operating the incubator there are a few "first aids to the amateur" to be considered. The maker of the machine of whatever particular make, will furnish you with certain fundamental rules which ought to be closely observed. The machine must set level. Do not run any machine with the thermometer hanging up unless you use two in the machines, one hanging and the other on the eggs. Set the incubator in a cellar, preferably. Use the very best oil. Run first week (with lay down tMlrmometer) at 102 degrees; second week at I02y 2 degrees; third week at 103 degrees. This is the temperature that it is advisable to maintain in a cellar where it will average 50 to 60 degrees. When the weather is warmer and the cellar is not lower than 70 degrees the machine should be operated at 101, 102, 102^2 degrees the first, second and third weeks, respectively. (This is with the thermometer on the eggs.) It should be remembered that the first few days of incubation are the vital ones and the temperature should not be allowed to go very much over 103 degrees, and should be held as near to 101 or 102 degrees as possible.

I would advise anyone who has one of the hot air type of incubators to try the plan of the sand tray machines, at least, in an experimental way. This consists in placing a tray that is about one-half inch deep under the Qgg tray, and keeping it nearly full of sand. This sand is kept constantly wet throughout the entire hatch, up until the eighteenth day, when it is removed. Anyone who has never tried this method will be agreeably surprised at the size and vigor of the chicks. The last word that the writer has to offer on the subject of hatching is for the operator of the machine or of the setting hen, to let both very much alone until it becomes absolutely necessary to readjust the thermometer, or wash the eggs, or some such positive action. Don't monkey with the regulator just because the heat isn't within one-half a degree of what it was before you turned the eggs, and don't lift up the old setter while the chicks are coming out just to see if they are really there. Both operations are conductive to no good.

FEEDING THE HENS

It is to be remembered that egg production is not at all a matter of breed or variety. It is first of all a matter of feed, then a matter of care and finalh r a matter of strain.

The best laying strain of chickens in the world if put into uncongenial quarters, fed unwholesome food and given indifferent care will deteriorate into fowls perhaps more profitable than the former flock of mongrels kept under like conditions. The reason for this is very plain inasmuch as the highly productive fowl is the result of years of careful feeding, more careful breeding and systematic selection. The mongrels having become used to inferior care and feeding have reached the level only possible under such conditions and being maintained as such for a series of generations have ceased to be nourished into a state of productiveness. The writer does not argue that mongrels are not profitable in some cases, but the difficulty is apparent w T hen one begins to breed for improvement. The multiplicity of ancestors which may exceed 2,000 in the ten previous generations makes profitable improvement an endless and unprofitable task. Whereas, if pure bred birds are given the same care and general treatment that made this flock of mongrels productive the results would have been very much more profitable, and improvement by selection of breeders merely a matter of care in mating.

Good layers is not a question of breed, nor a question of variety — but entirely a question of strain. I. K. Felch's strain of Light Brahmas have egg records that would put to shame some of the best bred and much touted heavy laying White Leghorns — its merely what the man behind the hens breeds them for — eggs, meat, feathers, or all three.

As so much importance is attached by all straightforward breeders to the feeding in' addition to the breeding it behooves one to study this matter at length and also to apply earnestly his best powers of knowledge and observation in order to produce a satisfactory supply of eggs.

As the chicks have been well fed during their entire youth, they should come into laying well developed in size, and in such condition as to put forth an abundance of nice, large eggs during the entire winter.

Now that they are in laying shape the yield of eggs should be practically continuous, and if they have the inheritance of well bred "bred-to-lay" parentage ; have been normally hatched ; have been normally brooded; have had an abundance of sound, clean feel of the correct sorts; if they are now fed with more common sense than corn, they will lay and keep at it.

The regular laying ration is made up, by weight, of 200 pounds of wheat bran, 100 each of corn meal, middlings, gluten food and beef scrap, and of 50 pounds of linseed meal. If this amount of linseed makes the bowels too loose reduce the amount until the bowels become normal. This is mixed* up in a trough, with a shovel, and carried in pails to each pen where it is kept before the hens at all times in self feeding hoppers. They do not like the dry mash well enough to eat too much of it, and you will alwavs find them rea^'y to scratch for a kernel of grain.

The pens are kept well covered to a depth of six, eight or ten inches with clean oat straw, renewed every two weeks in winter and every four weeks in summer. In this straw is thrown for the morning feed four quarts of oats put to soak in boiling water and allowed to stand over night, or four quarts of sound, clean wheat. This is raked, forked or kicked well under the litter, an 1 the hens will soon be heard singing, scratching -and pecking — happy as can be — and these are the conditions which makes for us a full egg basket. At noon, every day, cabbage, carrots, beets, mangled wurtzels, potato parings or steamed clover is fed- — a good liberal amount. About four o'clock in the afternoon four quarts of whole corn is fed in the litter. On excessively cold days the amount of corn is increased to 6 or 8 quarts for each hundred hens.

The whole matter of feeding depends to a large extent upon the experience of the feeder.' A good feeder will know when the fowls are receiving the proper amount of the proper foods, not only by the eggs produced, but by observation and handling. Of course, when trap nests are used the breeder is brought into individual contact with practically every hen in the pen in the course of two days, and he, knowing the exact condition of each bird, can tell at oncf whether the feeding is correct or not.

It is understood, of course, that oyster shells, grit, charcoal and beef scraps are to be kept in self feeding hoppers at all times and the supply never allowed to run out. While a great many people seem to have, when neglecting to provide any of these elements or at least say they have, good egg yields, it is nevertheless true that the greatest number of eggs will be produced and at least cost when the necessary egg forming elements are provided in the greatest abundance.

With all that has been said and written about this matter of egg production it must be forcibly remembered that it depends as much on the element of exercise as upon the matter of any kind or condition of feed or feeding. Not that the hens will lay when underfed, but this constant exercise will do much toward offsetting the dangers and bad habits incidental to overfeeding.

The eggs depend more upon the head that carries the feed pail than upon what the pail contains.

HOUSING

More attention has been paid of late years by all poultry keepers in securing comfortable quarters for their chickens. This endeavor lias taken rather radical grounds in comparison to the oft quoted adage "That poultry should be kept warm," inasmuch as the most practical houses of the present day represent a house that is little warmer than outdoors.

The house in use by the writer is an adaption of the Cornell laying house, No. 1 shown here in the illustration. This house is built in units each twelve feet wide by sixteen feet deep, 5 feet

1. Model Laying House for Poultry, advocated by the Department of Poultry Husbandry of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, Ithaca,

N. Y.

at the back and 8 feet in front ; in the front of each one are two windows each 4 feet, 6 inches long and 2 feet wide in two sashes. These windows are placed as close to the ends of each (one at each side) pen as the construction will allow. Three feet from the floor and between the two windows is a space two and one-half feet wide in which is fitted the muslin curtain. The frame for the curtain is made to fit closely in this opening, and swings in and fastens to the rafters when not in use. My frames are covered with the common six cent muslin. Do not buy the oiled muslin that is advertised for this purpose because the oiling defeats the object of the curtain.

Along the back of the house and thirty inches from the floor is placed the dropping board. This is made of matched flooring and is 42 inches wide. On top of this, in swinging brackets, are two roosts, each ten feet long, made by planing the corners off 2 by 4's and setting them on edge. The brackets are hinged at the back to swing up out of the way when cleaning the dropping board. In front of the dropping board is another cloth curtain which is fastened to the rafters and drops down fitting closely at the sides. This is only used when the temperature is likely to go down to zero, or close to it. In the writer's house the dropping board extends the whole length of the pen, and the end not occupied by the roosts is used as a storage box for the winter's supply of road dust. It is handy to the dropping board and there is quite a saving of labor to have it in each pen. It is also available for the winter dust bath.

Each pen is occupied by 25 hens or thirty pullets. Along one wall is placed a self feeding hopper six feet long and the dry mash is fed in this. Along the other wall are the shell boxes and beef scrap hopper. A battery of six trap nests is arranged under the dropping board at one end of the pen, two tiers high, and made to slide in and out like drawers. A solid board partition separates each pen. This is necessary in order to prevent draughts..

A great many people are skeptical as to the practicability of an open front house such as this in a cold climate, but the fact that this type of house has been adopted by practical poultry keepers in Maine, Minnesota, and even farther north in Canada, should be sufficient assurance that the house is the best one yet in actual use considering the many good features it contains. The writer lives on the summit of the Allegheny mountain range, and from practical experience with both the closed and open house, he has discarded all the houses of the closed type that it was impracticable to make into open front houses, and now uses them for other purposes. The birds are in far better health in open houses, the eggs hatch better, the chicks are stronger, the loses of layers are less, and a case of roup is, as yet. unknown in his flock. This is really a wonderful record considering the birds handled and raised yearly.

The widespread adoption of the open front house is almost entirely due to the vast circulation of this type of house by the Maine

Agricultural Experiment Station in its bulletins and also bulletin No. 90 of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry. For the benefit of readers who contemplate the erection of a large building for the accommodation of 500 layers or over, this house has many features that will especially recommend it to them. The only objection I can see to this house is in the size of the pens. It is more profitable to keep the layers in smaller flocks than 100 in a pen, and for this reason I would suggest that the house be built not over 18 feet deep and the pens each 16 feet wide. This size pen will accommodate 50 layers, and the profit will be greater than in the 100 bird pens.

THE LATEST FORM OF CURTAIN-FRONT HOUSE

From bulletin No. 90, Bureau of Animal Industry:

The description is here given as it represents the latest development of this style of house (pi. 3.)

The house is 20 feet wide by 400 feet long, and is divided into 20 sections, each being 20 feet square. It is on the same general plan as houses Nos. 1 and 2, just described, but house No. 1 is 12 feet wide, house No. 2 16 feet wide, and this one 20 feet wide. The widths have been increased in the last two houses, as experience has shown the advisability of it. At first it was thought the houses should be narrow so that they might dry out readily, but the 20- foot house dries out satisfactorily, as the opening in the front is placed high up so that the sun shines in on the floor to the back in the shortest winter days.

The economy in the cost of the wide house over the narrow ones, when space is considered, is evident. The front and back walls in the narrow house cost about as much per lineal foot as those in the wide house, and the greatly increased floor space is secured by building in a strip of floor and roof running lengthwise of the building. The carrying capacity of a house 20 feet wide is 66 per cent greater than that of a house 12 feet wide, and is secured by merely building additional floor and roof. The walls, doors and windows remain the same as in the narrow house, except that the front wall is made a little higher. Three sills which are 6 inches square run lengthwise of the house, the central one supporting the floor timbers in the middle. They rest on a rough stone wall, high enough from the ground for dogs to go under the building to look for rats and skunks that might incline to make their homes there. The stone wall rests on the surface of the ground, and there are openings in it like cellar windows every 20 feet to allow the air to draw through and keep the basement dry during the summer. The floor timbers are 2 by 8 inches in size and rest wholly on top of the sills. All the wall studs rest on the sills ; the front ones are 8 feet long and the back ones are 6 feet, 6 inches long. The two sides of the roof are unequal in width, the ridge being 8 feet from the front wall. The height of the ridge from the sill to the extreme top is

12 feet, 6 inches. All studding is 2 by 4 inches in size and the rafters are 2 by 5 inches. The building is boarded with one inch boards, and is papered and shingled with good cedar shingles on walls and roof. The Moor is of two thicknesses of hemlock boards which break joints in the laying.

The building is divided by tight board partitions into twenty sections, each section being twenty feet long. All the sections are alike in construction and arrangement. The front side of each section has two storm windows of 12 lights of 10 by 12 inch glass. These windows are screwed on upright and 2 feet 8 inches from the end of the room; they are three feet above the floor. The distance between the windows is 8 feet 10 inches and the top part of it to a depth of 3 feet 6 inches from the plate is not boarded but is left open to be covered by the cloth curtain when necessary. This leaves a tight wall three feet ten inches high extending from the bottom of the opening down to the floor, which prevents the wind from blowing directly on the birds when they are on the floor. A door is made in this part of the front wall for the attendant to pass through when the curtain is open. A door 16 inches high by 18 inches wide is placed close to the floor under one of the windows for the birds to pass through to the yards in front. A similar door is in the center of the back wall to admit them to the rear yard when it is used.

A light frame made of 1 by 3 inch pine strips and 1 by 6 inch crossties is covered with 10-ounce white duck and hinged at the top of the front opening, which it covers when closed down. The curtain is easily turned up into the room, where it is caught and held by swinging hooks until released.

The roost platform is made tight and extends along the whole length of the room against the back wall. It is 4 feet 10 inches wide and 3 feet above the floor, being high enough for a person to get under it comfortably when necessary to catch or handle the birds. There are three roosts framed together in two 10- foot sections. The tops of the roosts are 1 foot above the platform and hinged to the back wall so they may be turned up out of the way when the platform is being cleaned. The back roost is 12 inches from the wall and the spaces between the next two are 16 inches. They are made of 2 by 3 inch spruce lumber placed on edge with the upper corners rounded off. The roosting closet is shut off from the rest of the room by curtains similar to the one described above. For convenience in handling there are two of these curtains, each 10 feet long. They are 3 feet wide and are hinged at the top so as to be turned out and hooked up. The space above this curtain is ceiled and in it are two openings each 3 feet long and 6 inches wide for ventilating the roosting closet when necessary. In every compartment there is a door placed 5 inches out from the edge of the roost platform. These doors are three feet wide and seven feet high, divided in the middle lengthwise, and each half is hung with doubleacting spring hinges allowing it to swing open both ways and close. Ten nests are placed in two tiers against the partition in each end of the room. They are of ordinary form, each nesting space

Interior of Curtain Front Pou.try House shown in Plate No. 3.

being 1 foot wide, 1 foot high and 1 foot long, with the entrances near the partition away from the light, ami with hinged covers in front for the removal of eggs. Each section of five nests can be taken out without disturbing anything else, cleaned and returned. In constructing the house it was designed to use these nests only during the present year. The framework where 'they rest was arranged for the use of trap nests, the intention now being to install them in October of the present year.

Troughs similar to those described on page 24 are used for feeding dry mash, shell, bone, grit and charcoal.

Two lines of 4 by 4 inch spruce are arranged as an elevated track above the doors. The track extends the entire length of the building, and being faced with narrow steel bands on top, .a suspended car is easily pushed along even when heavily loaded. The car platform is 2 by 8 feet in size, and is elevated a foot above the floor. All feed and water are carried through the building on this car. Ten iron baskets into which the accumulations on the roost platforms are cleaned every morning, are put on the car and collections are made as the car passes on through the pens to the end of the building, 400 feet away where the roost cleanings are dumped into the manure shed. As the car is pushed along a guard at the front end comes in contact with the doors and pushes them open, and they remain open until the car has passed on, when the spring hinges force them to close again. This car is a great saver of labor as it does away with nearly all carrying by the workmen. It has enabled one man to take good care of the 2,000 hens from November to March, except on Saturdays, when the litter has been removed and renewed by other men.

At one end of the building there is a temporary feed and water house, also used for dish washing and scalding, where the car remains when not in use.

There is a walk outside of the building extending along its entire front. It is 14 feet wide, made of 2-inch planking, and is elevated 2 feet above the floor of the building, which allows the doors below it, through which the birds pass to the front yards, to be opened and closed without interference. The door which opens out of each room through the curtain section is above the outside walk and necessitates stepping up or down when passing through, which is not a very serious objection, as the door is used but little in the daily work, but mostly in the weekly cleaning out and renewing of the floor litter. A guard of wire poultry netting 1 foot wide, along the outside of the walk prevents the bird from flying upon the walk.