The "Excelsior" poultry book

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Chapter I. Poultry Raising Pays

Some people are inclined to the belief that the poultry business is a rather small business, while others claim that "the annual value of the

Soultry product of the United States exceeds that of the wheat crop." iow I don't know much abiut the size of the poultry business taken as a whole— don't know whether "poultry is king" or not, but I do know from my own experience in poultry raising, and from the experience of other poultry raisers, that poultry can be made to pay a greater profit in proportion to the time, labor, and money invested than any other crop that can be grown on a farm— boys and girls excepted. This may sound like an extravagant statement, but I know exactly what I am writing about, and have the facts and figures to back up my statements.

Of my own success in the poultry business I will not say much here, lest it sound too much like "bragging"; suffice it to say that I made my poultry pay from the start, and after I had mastered the business the profits exceeded my most sanguine expectations. But I am going to tell you what some of my friends and acquaintances have done with poultry. One commenced half a dozen years ago wii h 50 hens, a very small stock of experience with poultry, and made a clear profit of $70 the first year. The second year he made $128 from 95 hens; the third year $329 from 200 hens; the fourth year he bought an incubator and brooders, and with their help cleared almost $500 from 250 hens, which was more than he made from all the other crops raised that year on his 80- acre farm; and it was not a bad year for the other crops either. The fifth year my farmer friend added another incubator to his outfit, and at the close of the year found that he could honestly claim a clear profit of $900 from his poultry business. This last year he cleared about $1500 from his poultry, and over one-half of the profit was from his spring chickens and ducks alone.

Another poultry raiser, who makes market eggs the main thing, but who raises a few hundred broilers each season, and sells a good many eggs for hatching, writes me that he has for the past four years made from $800 to $L000 a year from a breeding stock of 300 fowls kept on a little 25-acre farm, "and worked out carpentering about quarter of the time be?ides."

Still another poultryman, who devotes his time and talents to the spring chicken business, hatching and raising the chickens wholly by artificial methods, cleared $2500 last year, and that too without working any harder, perhaps not so hard, as some of his farmer neighbors who didn't make more than half as much.

And from other poultry raisers in different parts of our country, whose

6 THE EXCELSIOR POULTRY ROOK.

experience and opinions I have been at some trouble to get for your benefit, I have obtained figures which show a profit from $1.00 to $5.00 per head on every fowl kept for breeding stock. Now just compare the profits of the poultry business with the credit side of other branches of farming. Take your dairy : suppose you keep six cows ; then, of course, you sell either milk or butter. How much profit do you make from your cows per head in a year? One farmer who keeps six cows and sells butter at a little above the average price for good dairy butter, told me that his cows brought him an average yearly profit of $20.00 per head. He values his cows at $40.00 each. One of his neighbors, a woman, keeps sixteen hens, and makes a profit of $20.00 a year from them— as much as he makes from a cow. The sixteen hens are worth $12 00— not quite one-third as much as one of the cows. From 100 hens she could make more money than he makes from six cows, and that too with less work, and less than half the capital.

Take your root crops, your grain crops, or your hay. How much profit can a farmer make on an acre of land devoted to grain or root crops, or to hay? Can he make a profit of $100 per acre on wheat, corn, or potatoes? I don't know; but I do know that a poultry raiser who understands his business can make more than $100 profit from an acre of land devoted to the production of poultry and eggs for the market.

Yes, poultry raising pays. It has paid others, and it will certainly pay you if you go at it in a sensible, business-like way, and stick to it.

SOME WORK IN IT.

The man or woman who goes into the poultry business with the expectation of making a great deal of money without working much for it, will get most sublimely left. I want you to understand at the very outset that this poultry business is not an "easy" sort of business lhat will pretty much run itself, and still pay a big profit. Poultry raising is no "royal road" to wealth ; neither is it a short cut across lots. To be sure there is no great amount of what is usually called "heavy" work connected with poultry raising, but there is an immense amount of light work, unceasing care and watchfulness, a patient attention to minute details, a continual looking after little things needed in order to make the business successful, And come to think the matter over, all these things put together do make pretty hard, "wearing" kind of work after all ; and it is just the kind of work that men generally don't like to do, consequently they neglect 1t, and that is the reason so many men fail to make poultry pay.

Success or failure in poultry keeping does not depend wholly upon any one thing, but upon many little things. A close looking after and prompt attention to all the petty details of poultry management will ensure success, while a neglect of this little thing to-day, that little thing to-morrow, and some other little thing the next day, each one of which, may seem but a trifle when considered alone, will in the end cause failure. Look closely after your business, keep track of everything connected with it, and do everything just when the time comes to do that thing. Success in poultry raising, as in any other honest calling, can only be won by the steady, faithful, "plodding" worker. BRAINS NEEDED.

There are men in the world, and we all know some of them, who seem to think that the poultry business will do well enough for women, but is entirely beneath the dignity of a full-grown man Of course they know tbat a good many men are making money in the poultry business, but they argue that these successful poultry keepers must have a soft spot somewhere in their heads; that there must be a screw loose somewhere in their make-up— something which renders them incapable of managing any other branch of farming, else surely they would not spend their time fussing with a lot of hens. Let me tell you, my misguided brother, that it requires just as much common sense and judgment, just as much of the qualities of mind known in common parlance as ''gumption" and "calculation," just as many brains to manage a poultry farm successfully as it does to manage a cattle or sheep ranch, a wheat or a dairy farm, or any other farm that amounts to anything.

CAN'T BE OVERDONE.

A good many farmers who know well enough that poultry raising pays are afraid to keep more than a dozen or so fowls for fear that this poultry business will soon be overdone, and prices for poultry and eggs fall away below the cost of raising. Now you needn't worry a bit about that. Croakers have talked that way ever since Mrs. Noah insisted on taking her favorite hen into the ark. I have no doubt but that Noah, or some of the boys, told her that after the shower there wouldn't be any market for eggs and chickens, and besides they didn't believe the old hen was worth saving anyway. But Mrs. Noah had her way (women generally do), and I have never heard of a time from that day to this when good poultry, or fresli eggs had to be given away because there was no paying market for them, and I don't believe any one else has.

The" production of poultry and eggs has increased enormously during the last ten years, but still the demand for prime poultry and fresh eggs is ahead of the supply, and there has been no falling off in prices. The American hen does not supply our own markets. Every year millions of dozens of eggs are imported from Canada, and from across the ocean. The people who are so afraid that the poultry business will be overdone, do not take into consideration the enormous and steady increase of popula ion, or the fact that as production increases consumption will increase. The time may come when production will increase to such an extent that prices will be somewhat lower than now, but as prices decrease the poultry raiser will learn to cheapen production so that he will still have a big margin for profit.

POULTRY ON THE FARM.

If it pays to produce poultry and eggs to sell, and it certainly does, it will pay to produce them for home consumption. I never raised much pork or beef, but those who have, and figured out the cost of raising, declare that it costs less to raise a chicken than it does the same number of pounds of beef or pork. Anyway, it is handy for the farmer's wife who lives in a place where other fresh meat cannot often be obtained in warm weather, to have her supply of fresh meat in the shape of lusty young roosters, or good fat hens, for she can kill enough for one meal at a time, while the next meal can run around without danger of spoiling before wanted.

The farmer who keeps a moderate-sized flock of poultry— say from 50 to 100 hens, can keep them cheaper than anybody else, for the reason that he can give them practically unlimited range during at least one:

8 TIIE EXCELSIOR POULTRY BOOK.

half of the year, when they will pick up a good share of their living; and during the other half of the year he can feed them largely on refuse food, unsalable vegetables, etc., much of which would otherwise go lareely to waste

Besides furnishing the farmer's table with a cheap, abundant, and convenient supply of fresh meat, the poultry flock greatly benefit the farmer by devouring injurious worms and insects. In many places farmers have given up trying to raise plums on account of the injury done by the plum curculio, but if they will keep the ground around the trees destitute of grass, and allow the fowls to loaf there, the biddies will capture the mischief-making insects as they come out of the ground, and your fruit will escape the bite which ruins it.

The value of poultry manure is also an item that farmers should not lose sight of. In any part of the country where the land requires manure in order to induce it to produce paying crops, the manure from a flock of fowls will, if saved in good shape and properly applied to the land, pay for all the time spent in caring for the fowls. A Massachusetts farmer, who keeps G2 hens, says that the hens make two barrels of manure while eight head of cattle are making one cord, and the two barrels of manure, used as he uses it, will grow just as much corn as the cord of stable manure. And one of my acquaintances who makes a specialty of growing vegetables for market, but who also keeps a flock of GO fowls and raises one or two hundred chickens every year, says: "Poultry manure is a valuable fertilizer, quite as valuable as any of the commercial fertilizers, and I consider that the manure from my poultry pays fully one- third the cost of keeping the flock."

POULTRY IN LIMITED SPACE.

But while a farm is the best place to raise poultry, it does not follow that every poultry raiser must have a big farm for his hens to ramble over. Poultry can be profitably kept in limited space. I know of many

Eaying flocks that are confined the year round to the limits of their ouses and yards. Many village poultry keepers, who are obliged to keep their poultry confined, make their hens pay better than the majority of fanners' flocks. They have better fowls than the farmer, more comfortable houses, and bestow better food and care.

POULTRY RAISING FOR WOMEN.

For women who possess an average amount of health and strength, and who have or can get a few acres of land, I can recommend the poultry business as a means of livelihood. I know several women who are supporting themselves, and others dependent upon them, from the profits of their poultry business; and other women can do as well, provided they go into the business with a determination to succeed, and stick to it. Poultry keeping has none of the drawbacks that many occupations present to women who have themselves and children to support. There is but little work connected with poultry raising that a wo nan cannot do better than most men A woman may not be able to build poultry houses, or drive the posts for the yard fences, but it is not necessary that she should be able to do such things any more than it is necessary that she should be able to make the dish-pan that she washes dishes in, or the darning needle that she uses in mending stockings, or the cradle that holds the baby. Poultry raising does not require the exercise of any great amount of mere brute strength, but it does, as I have rermrked before, require p\tienc3, gentleness, unceasing, watchful care, and a close attention to minute details, and for this reason most women are especially fitted for the work. I believe that most women are born poultry raisers; anyway they generally master the details of the business quicker, and make their fowls pay better, than men do under like conditions.

Another point in favor of poultry raising is that it is work that can and must be done at home, and the children, instead of being a hindrance, can be taught to help in many ways. Next, poultry raising has always, so far as my knowledge extends, been considered women's work (I suppose that is the reason why some men consider it too small business for them), and a woman can engage in it without the fear of being pointed at as a "dreadful creature" — out of her "proper sphere." Besides this it is a business that can be started with very little capital, and will soon yield an income. It is not like investing your money where you must wait six months or a year before any returns begin to come in.

And for women, farmers' wives and daughters, and others living in country places, who do not wish to devote their whole time to earning money, but who do wish and feel the need of devoting a part of their time to some money-making occupation, there are but few things that come within their reach that will pay as well in cash as a small flock of fowls well cared lor.

FOR INVALIDS.

Right here I want to put in a protest against 1he perpetual reiteration by some poultry writers of the old, old story to the effect that poultrykeeping is a very suitable and profitable occupation for half-invdlid women who are not strong enough to engage in any employment ihat requires downright hard work— that a half invalid woman can make a living by raising poultry. A semi-invalid may undertake some of the lighter work connected with poultry raising — she may even assume the entire care of a small flock of fowls, and in many cases be greatly benefited by the out-door air and exercise, but she certainly cannot do enough to support herself. It is with poultry raising as with any other occupation that women may engage in, — the ones that make "big money"— the successful ones, are the ones that do the most and best work; and in order to do her best a woman must possess her full power of health and strength. I do not write this to discourage any one, but to warn them against indulging in hopes that cannot be realized, and going beyond their strength in the vain effort to do the work of well women. Let your work be according to your strength ; and then if your health and strength increases you can increase your work accordingly.

WHAT BOYS AND GIRLS HAVE DONE.

In the report of the Poultry Committee of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture we find an account of a youth who built a moderate sized poultry house, bought a small flock of fowls, took care of them while attending school, and doing his share of the "chores", and in one year and a half cleared, afcer paying for all food consumed, one hundred and forty dollars; and yet he spent no more time in caring for his poultry than many of his schoolmates did in amusements which profited them nothing beyond the passing pleasure of the moment.

Another young man who reached his twenty-first birthday this last summer had then $800 in bank, which he had cleared from his poultry in the six years preceding his majority, besides doing his share of the other work on a 2 0-acre farm.

And the girls are not one bit behind the boys. Among my acquaintances there is a farmer's daughter who a few months ago bought a $175 parlor organ, and paid for it with the money she made from her poultry in the last two years.

Another farmer's daughter of fourteen, very fond of reading history and biography, wanted some books which her parents could not afford to buy for her. Her father said : " Katie, I'll give you a chance to earn the books you want. I'll turn the poultry all over to you, and you may have all you can make over and above expenses. I will allow you market price for all the eggs and chickens used at home, and shall charge you for food furnished your poultry, but you must keep an accurate account of everything." That was two years ago, and now Katie has almost $100 worth of books which she has bought with her poultry money, and there is not a prouder, happier girl in seventeen States.

What these young people have done other boys and girls can do if they will; and I advise the farmers whose sons and daughters want to engage in poultry raising to let them go ahead. The business will pay in cash; and better than that your boys and girls will learn to think and manage for themselves, will learn to like farm life better, and will acquire business habits, and habits of system and economy that will be of incalculable benefit to them in the future.

WHEN TO BEGIN.

There is a market for poultry products all the year round ; you don't have to wait six months or a year before the returns begin to come in; so you can begin almost any time (except perhaps in the "dead" of a northwestern winter), after you have decided that you can and will make poultry pay, and have money enough to begin with.

WHERE TO BEGIN.

To those who propose to make the market poultry business their chief business, the location of the poultry farm is a matter of importance. It must be near a good market; but in these days of express trains, fast freights, and refrigerator cars, it is not necessary that the poultry farm should be on high-priced land close to a city or large village. You can go back several hundred miles from a city, and still be near your market, provided you are on a through line of railroad.

Besides our cities, manufacturing and mining villages are good markets for poultry products. I once lived in a mining village where during half the year it was almost impossible to get fresh eggs and chickens at any price ; and when we could get them the prices were higher than in the city market sixty miles away. And now in the country village which is my present abiding place, and which is within "teaming" distance of two large manufacturing places, fresh eggs nearly always command higher prices than in New York or Boston. Any of the New England States, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey are good States to move to to go into the business of raising poultry and eggs for market. Of course you won't have a chance to do so much "growing up with the country" in the East as you would in the West';, but all the same there are no better places in the United States, or anywhere else, for profitable poultry raising than some of those rocky New England "hill-farms," where the land, what there is of it, is so poor naturally that it won't grow pennyroyal. Many of those hill-farms, those with good buildings on them too, can be bought for a ridiculously low price; and when you get "settled" on one of them, instead of being "a thousand miles from anywhere," you will be near good schools, churches, and good neighbors; and as for a market for your poultry products, you can't get out of reach of a good market if you try. In most places poultry and eggs can be sold for "cash at the door."

But bear in mind that poultry properly managed will pay in any locality; so if you desire to undertake the business, either as a means of livelihood, or as a sort of "side show" to provide yourselves with some extras that could not otherwise be afforded, do not hesitate because you happen to live where you cannot obtain the high prices that the Eastern poultry raiser gets for his poultry products, but go ahead and do the best you can right where you are. ' Half a loaf is better than no bread" every time.

HOW TO BEGIN.

Do not imagine that you can begin with 1,000, or even 500 fowls, and make them pay. You can't do it. It requires a good deal of poultry knowledge to enable one to successfully manage 500 fowls, and you can not buy this knowledge w T ith the fowls, or "catch" it like the measles or whooping-cough or learn it in "six easy lessons". The poultry business must be learned just like any other business, by study and practice. Begin at the beginning and learn one thing at a time. Begin with a small flock of fowls, and as your poultry knowledge increases, you can increase the size of your flock until you have as many as you can manage profitably. Twenty-five or thirty laying hens will be enough for those who have had ho experience with poultry to begin with; while those who have already had good success with that number may safely venture to try a flock of 50, 75, or even 100 hens.

If you are at present engaged in anything by which you can make a living, don't, because somebody is making more money with poultry than you are in your- business, quit everything and rush headlong into the poultry business. Stick to your other work, but get a few fowls and care for them between times, and study up the hen business at odd times when your other work does not press. In this way you will get a good deal of poultry knowledge without losing time from your regular work, or encroaching upon whatever capital you may happen to have. After a while your poultry business wiil grow until you can no longer manage it in the odds and ends of time that you can spare from your regular occupation; then you can drop all other work, and devote your time and talents to the poultry business with a certainty of realizing a fair per cent on the investment.

HOW MUCH CAPITAL?

" Once upon a time " a Yankee who had just moved into a new place wanted to start in the poultry business, but was too poor, or too stingy, to buy the necessary fowls, so he contrived a way to get them for nothing. He borrowed a sitting hen from one neighbor, a dozen of eggs from another, put them together, and in course of time the hen hatched every egg, and raised them until they were old enough to care for themselves,

He could then return the hen to her owner, hut how about the eggs? That puzzled him at first, but fina ly he hit upon the plan of keeping the hen until she laid a dozen eggs; "then he "paid" the borrowed eggs, returned the borrowed hen and remarked : "I calkerlate I've got as nice a brood of chickens as anybody, and they aint cost me a cent neither!" Now I don't want any of you to begin the poultry business that way, but I do want to impress upon your minds that you do not need several hundred dollars in order to make a start in the poultry business. If you already have or can have the use of a small piece of land— half an acre or so,— and have any old building that can be transformed into a comfortable poultry house, it will require but very little cash capital to begin with. Among my friends there is one woman, a mechanic's wife, who clears about $300 a year from the sale of broilers that she raises in a building and small yard that occupies one corner of a village lot of one-third of an acre, and she commenced with just $25.00 in cash and a dozen of the commonest kind of common fowls. If you have the land you only need cash enough to buy some fowls, build the house and fences, and buy food enough to last until the returns begin to come in.

PAY AS YOU GO.

If you have not money enough to build just such a house as you want, and buy as many fowls as you wish to ttart with, don't go in "debt, but do the best you can with what money you have If you can do no better begin with one hen, a dozen eggs, and a chicken coop. Better begin that way than to begin with borrowed money, or go in debt for anything. Pay as you go.

LOOK AFTER THE LITTLE THINGS.

Failure in the poultry business comes from seemingly little things. A little neglect here, a little more there, a little waste of food to-day, a little more to-morrow, and putting off until to-morrow or next day the work which should be done to-day, are all little things, but they all count, and in the long run will bring disappointment and pecuniary loss as surely as two and two make four.

KEEP ACCOUNTS.

When you start your poultry business, start a poultry account, and keep it right along as long as you keep in the business; then you can always tell just where your business stands, and how much it pays. You will not need a "set of books," or any elaborate "system of book keeping" for a poultry account ; all you really need is a blank book in which to charge the fowls with all expense incurred, and credit them with all the eggs and chickens used and sold.

DON'T BE DISCOURAGED And give up if everything does not go smoothly from the start. The poultry business will have its ups and downs like any other business, but if you are determined to succeed, and stick to your business right through thick and thin, you will succeed. Start out with an ironclad determination to succeed, no matter what obstacle may be in your path; never let a doubt of your ability to overcome all difficulties enter your mind; work away bravely and hopefully in the face of all discouragements, and your ultimate success is as sure as anything in this world can be.

Chapter II. About Breeds

As market poultry raisers, and the world generally outside of a few fanciers, care little or nothing about the "origin and history of the domestic fowl,'' or the origin of the different breeds, and I don't know much of anything about it anyway, — don't know, or care, whether the "Gallus bunkiva" or some other Gallus was the parent of our domestic fowls, I shall not burden these pages with much "history", but shall tell what I do know about the leading breeds. It is not where a breed came from, or what it was long ago, but what it is, and what it is good for now that interests the great mass of poultry raisers.

It is absolutely necessary that the beginner in poultry raising should have some knowledge of the merits of the prominent breeds in order to enable him to select the breed best adapted to his climate, and to the special purpose for which he proposes to keep fowls. One of the reasons why so many poultry raisers have failed to achieve the highest degree of success, is because they had not the "best breed" for their purpose. If vou fail that way it will not be my fault.