Pleasure and profit from poultry

II Professor Of Poultry Husbandry

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

SYRACUSE, N. Y.

AMERICAN POULTRY ADVOCATE CO.

Publishers

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1922, by

American Poultry Advocate Co.

Syracuse, N. Y.

Chapter I STARTING WITH DAY-OLD CHICKS

;HE poultryman can be a producer or buyer of day-oid chicks. It is common practice for thousands of successful poultrymen to buy chicks to replenish their flocks. For these there is no heavy expense in investment in incubators, incubator cellars, labor and other necessary items that go with the job of incubation. Incubators cost money at the present rime, and considering the short time they are in use they make the cost of chicks com.e somewhat high and initiate an overhead expense of no small means.

Market eggs are bringing a good price and day-old chicks can be bought at a fairly reasonable rate. Besides the expense attached in purchasing incubators, buying oil, labor involved in incubating, v/hich comes at a time when there are a million and one other things to do on the farm, you can conservatively figure that it is going to take two or more eggs cut of your production to produce one chick. At this writing eggs are selling in Syracuse, New York, for 50 cents per dozen. Good chicks can be had this year for 12-17 cents apiece. Now figure a little bit before investing too heavily in incubators. Far be it from me to discourage anyone in purchasing incubators, for I feel incubators have a place in every poultryman's equipm.ent. The foregoing statements were made for the benefit of the beginner, and the writer's main hope is in getting that beginner started in the most economical way.

If you feel there is a future opportunity to sell day-old chicles to neighbors and the community in general, it would probably pay you to purchase a small unit of a mammoth machine and add to your units £s the business demanded. Starting in such a manner you have not piled up an expense in small lamp-heated incubators which you would have no use for after putting your mammoth into use. Chicks can be produced much more economically in iTirjnmoth machines than in a series of small incubators.

T have visited many poultry farms and found nothing but mammot!: incubators, not a sign of a small machine around, but invariably these poultrymen iiave sold off a string of small machines at considerable loss. They had. not seen the vision of bigger possibilities in their business when they started.

Nov^r don't be too optimistic over what I have stated; don't be too cocksure. First know that you can produce birds of the quality that are fit to produce eggs for your incubator, which v/hen hatched will turn out to bs big, strong, vigorous chicks that will sell.

If you will follow methods outlined in this book, couple them up with some good conimon sense and some good hard work, which means constant attendance to business rather than muscular activity, you can soon be a producer of day-old chicks.

Now a good many of my readers v/ill be interested in producing poultry just for the winter eggs and meat they will produce, and will have no general interest in building up a riroduct of standard bred and high egg producing strains of his own. In other words, they will want to be just poultry-farmers and not breeders or fanciers. From that standpoint they can have a world of enjoyment and make good profits, but the breeder, the person who puts his skill into producing standard bred, and by standard bred I mean birds that have the qualities bred in them as laid down by the "American Standard of Perfection," a book published by the American Poultry Association and which is the Bible for all poultry judges, and in addition to these qualities has egg-laying ability bred into them, is going to have more fun and make far larger profits.

I have one friend in the Middle West, a real fancier, who has worked up quite a business in selling day-old chicks for one dollar each. These chicks are well bred, out of show stock, and are sold with the expectation that they will develop into quality breeders and show birds. The price is not high when you consider what a setting of high grade eggs are worth, and give the buyer the same chance of owning a winner as does the breeder. This man would go out of poultry keeping rather than sell his best stock, but is willing to share chances in chicks with those who will pay him his price. Some breeders will not do this, even, but draw the line at the selling of eggs for hatching. A few breeders of note sell neither baby chicks or eggs for hatching, but stop short and "shy" when you try to get them anything except pairs, trios and pens, of full grown stock.

One of our best New England breeders had a visitor, one day several years ago, who proceeded to look over the mated pens. When they had gone through the plant the visitor turned to the breeder and asked: "What can I have a setting of eggs from pen three for? Quickly came back the answer, "Fifteen dollars for fifteen eggs!" That price looked big, and he had less than ten dollars in his pocketbook, so he asked the cost of half a setting. He finally went home with eight eggs and left eight dollars behind him. How many of my readers would have thought they would ever see eight dollars' value out of the product of eight eggs? This man did get his money back, and much more. Out of those eight eggs from the best show mating of the plant, was hatched and reared a cockerel that was especially fine. Its good qualities became known and the fancier who sold the eggs paid this man fifty dollars for that one chick. It was worth even more than he paid, but the other man could not resist parting with a fifty-dollar male out of a dollar egg. What was true of the "dollar an egg" deal has several times come true from the "dollar a chick" offer. There is always a "chance" in the selling and buying of eggs or chicks. It must be considered, not accepted, by both parties. I believe that prices will be higher in the future than in the past, and out of the selling of quality eggs and chicks will come profit to the seller and satisfaction to the buyer.

I know of a farmer living in a modern Massachusetts town who, in addition to carrying on general farming, maintains a plant of 700 layers, and he has never hatched an egg. He buys early hatched chicks, broods them with coal burning hovers in his colony houses which later become his laying houses. I doubt, and he does also, if he could make the wonderful success he has enjoyed in the past if he attempted to hatch his own eggs, which naturally would involve the expense of maintaining breeding pens, incubators, etc., and labor coming at a time when other details of the farm are so much in demand.

Chapter II MAKING MONEY WITH INCUBATORS

SHIPPING chicks over long distances is no longer hazardous. I remember receiving a 1,000-mile shipment of 102 chicks about 12 years ago and finding 101 of those alive and in excellent condition, 98 of which I raised to maturity. Nov^^ w^ith more demand for them, with better methods of boxing and more attentiveness on the part of the transportation parties, millions of chicks have been shipped each season until the specialized business of chick hatcheries has become enormous and highly profitable to many. Isn't it fortunate for us that nature has endowed the chicks with sustenance tc carry through a period of 72 hours? Nature may sometimes work against us but certainly not in the case of the baby-chick business.

Now with all I have said about the expense attendant to hatching and selling chicks, I believe that many a man on his small one-man poultry plant can well take up the selling of day-old chicks if he has the incubators or the vision of future possibilities with a mammoth machine. If he has no great outlay in small machines the expense of a mammoth unit would not ordinarily burden him. It would mean a home market for many of the eggs laid, the running of the machines through additional months, and the supplying of a demand that really exists. Many a man, or woman, can well add this side of poultry keeping to that already worked out, and gain a better income. The person who is successful in his own hatching is just the one to do it for others. The man who is hatching sturdy chicks is the one to be willing to produce more of them for other folks. There are large incubators, lamp heated, that do splendid hatching; there are the mammoth hatchers that are heated by a coal stove, to be had to make up a plant of any size. The woman with her one 400-egg incubator can well earn $50.00 every spring through starting it earlier and running it later than her own needs require. She can sell several hundred day-old chicks every spring. The man who wishes to get deep into the game is not at all hampered by the lack of call for chicks. Such plants are selling today five thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand chicks every season. I have in mind the handling of the smaller number, perhaps ten thousand, each year, and let the business grow as you find you have the ability to carry it through.

More Than One Breed The small poultry farm that is going into the producing of day-old chicks can well try out the carrying of two breeds. It may be that you will find the Wyandotte and Leirhorn to fit in well in this plan of mine. The season of hatching the Wyandotte chicks can begin in January, while that of the Leghorn can run into July. The idea is to hatch chicks that will lay eggs before the coming of severe winter weather. People buy day-old chicks, usually, to get pullets for producing eggs for table use. They are not thinking of the broiler and roaster side of it except as it relates to the getting rid of a product that is in the way. I know the most of the farms that are hatching the chicks for sale are known as the breeders of a single breed and variety, yet on the side they often have other pens of a different breed. They could well supply the sort of chick that would best fit your needs.

Older Chicks I have been surprised at the growing demand for half or full grown pullets for layers. People who do not care to bother with hatching or breeding are desirous of getting pullets that are well feathered, well beyond the need of artificial heat, well beyond the dangers of young chickenhood. "Pound pullets" are not to be lightly spoken of, fill a demand that is constantly increasing, and should be thought of in the planning of the spring's work. Then in the autumn of the year come the village and town folks asking for pullets for layers. In my day I have seen the price of a big pullet increase twice. Today a pullet of the American class, be it Rock, Wyandotte or Red, that is within a month of laying, sells for two dollars to three dollars, it is hard to find a matui'e pullet cf this sort in October for less than $2.25, and most of them sell for more money. Not far away is a small breeder of Rhode Island Reds who hatches freely through March and April, and he had to shut down on pullet sales at $3.00 each, because he would have had none left for his own pens. The demand at that price was more than he could fill. A pullet of five pounds should not cost to raise to six months of age over $1.00' for feed and expense other than care, leaving a good profit for the labor that is needed by the producer. It is one of the questions that must be decided before the middle of March — the question of doing more or less hatching this year. It is a good time to enlar:^:e the poultry side of the farm. Poultry has sold at paying prices for dressed birds, table eggs seem likely to sell at higher average prices through this coming year, and the call for fancy stock is mucn more than for several years. The poultry shows have been very largely attended, the circulation cf the poultry papers is getting more substantial, poultry institutes and lectures are becoming more frequent and better attended, so that I have great expectations of good times for poultry producers, especially those who are fortunate enough to live on the farm.

Make Changes Slowiy Do not make the mistake of growing too rapidly in any new change in your poultry business. If you decide to do a little in the producing of day-old chicks, let the increase be not over double that of last year. Success each year in your moderately enlarged business will point the way to larger and better things another year. You do not want to burden yourself with an outfit that will be a large loss if you find you are not fitted for the work. Do not be afraid to go a little in debt,but do not make it so large as to be a drag for several years. If in doubt what to purchase let it be settled by the success or failures of those in nearby towns. The breed that pays, the hatcher :hat does good work, the brooder that raises the chicks can be selected by getting close to other folk that are in the line of work that you wish to u'.idertake. While you are learning from the experiences of others, be free in sharing your knowledge with those who come to you for advice. There are no people more open and frank in helping a beginner than poultry owners. If you are in doubt of this, visit some neighboring poultry farm or a.-:!: a serious question of some exhibitor at the next shov/ you visit.

Sure Gain Each Year Somewhere in our poultry work we should improve over that of last yeai. The moment we stand still we cease to go forward. In fact, the moment v/e cease to advance we begin to go backward. Let none of us rust, none of us "go to seed," none of us get tired in well doing! Did none of you make mistakes in the year that has passed? Did the cold snap nip ''he c">"-:b3 of the layers? Would cloth curtains have helped save the combs? Y/ere your houses open or closed? Glass or wire fronts? Really, I do not know as it made much difference in the houses in my section of countr^^ The temperature was twenty below zero, the wind forty to fifty miles an hour. Surely a lot of birds got frozen combs and nipped wattles. They were in open front houses, in glass front houses, in cloth curtained houses. I had less trouble in houses that were tiglitly closed with thin cotton, curtains, where there were rather too many birds for the floor space. The more glass in the house the more sure was I to find frosted head parts.

Chapter III METHODS OF BROODING

IT is a mistake to put too many chicks into any brooder. The number that was right for day-old chicks may be twice too many at four weeks of age. Only this evening the telephone brought me a message of chicken trouble at the other end of the line. Four weeks' old chicks were off their feed! Were off their legs! Going wrong! They seemed to have been getting too high feeding, been too closely housed at night. In their feed they have been getting fish scrap in the scratch feed, beef scrap in the dry mash, and sour milk in the drinking vessel. Unless the animal food is carefully considered it is easy to overfeed and throw the chicks out of condition. In this case one of three forms of animal food should have been left out! Then a little inquiry brought out the fact that the chicks had done well up to a very few days ago. At the start there had been over 80 chicks put into the circular, portable brooder. Danger from rats had caused the putting of a fine wire fence several inches from the felt of the hover. How had it worked out? The chicks were now four weeks old, were five times as large as when hatched, and the 80 chicks were twice too many for the brooder space. They had increased in size without the notice of the owner, and had reached the age when too little air to breathe was injuring them. Loss of appetite, empty crops, off their legs! That is always a tale of woe when it comes from a poultry keeper. What could I say? Just this : Divide the fiock between two brooders, starve the chicks for two or three days, cutting out the beef scrap in the dry mash, and supply abundant green food.

I have no objection to gocd beef scrap, no objection to a high grade fish scrap, believe in the good results from feeding sour milk, but it is a mistake to feed all three to any one flock of chickens. The quantity of each is so small, when all three are used, that there is a great danger of overfeeding if you pretend to feed them all. If you start the chicks on sour milk make it the chief source of animal food until the chicks are three weeks old, and then gradually change to fish or beef scrap. If at all limited in the amount of milk at your disposal, by all means keep it for the very young chicks. Sout milk starts them right, gets them to growing, and yet does not over-do the feeding business. Do not change from sour to sweet, or sweet to sour milk. Feed either one or the other and stick to it all along. Sour milk is to be preferred to sweet milk in the feeding of chicks or hens because it is not always possible to keep milk sweet and the irregularity of feeding sour and sweet milk is always sure to set up digestive troubles in the intestinal tract. And another thing, the lactic bacteria which cause the souring of milk have been found by extensive experiments to have inestimable value in arresting the development of harmful bacteria in the intestinal tract, one of which is the dreaded white diarrhoea bacteria.

It is not my purpose to tell you whether to use the heatless brooder, the lamp brooder, or the mammoth brooders that are being put out by many makers. The fireless or heatless brooder has had a big run. But this much can be said, the fireless brooder has seen its day, it is dead, and well that it is, for poultry farming cannot succeed where so much risk and labor are demanded. If you are brooding 50 chicks or less, better get some hens for mothers. It will pay you.

The coal burning brooder has come into its own and practically every plant of any size has one or more of them. They are efficient in every way, provided you have a good one. Before purchasing look around and see what your neighbors have, how they like them, etc. And by all means never put

Front and Enc! View of a Practical Ercoder Houss

Framing of Same Brooder House

Interior View Showing Roosting Poles and Feed Hopper 8 more chicks under them than that rated number the manufacturer advises. It is much easier and safer to put a smaller number under them. I buy the 500-chick size brooders and never put more than 350 under them. When the coal burning stove first became popular 1,000 chicks was the usual number to put under them, but poultrymen who did this have seen the folly of their ways and you will seldom see one who puts more than 350 chicks under any single hover.

There may be a thousand and one good ways to feed chicks, but in my estimation there are just two good economical ways to brood chicks, the first, as mentioned before, is with the coal burning stove, and the second is with the portable lamp hover that will care for 50 to 75 chicks. I believe the outdoor lamp brooder has seen its day of usefulness — it has given way to the more modern methods.

An excellent type of colony coal-heated stove brooder house is the one used and recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture on its Beltsville, Maryland, experimental farm. This house is 12 x 14, and has sufficient room to brood 350-400 chicks. At any rate a house 12 x 14 or thereabouts in floor dimensions, with front about 8 feet high in front or 5 in back, with two Avindows and muslin space in front, will make an excellent place for your stove. Houses of this type can be put on skids and moved around in the orchard or corn field or wherever you want to put them. If your laying house is divided with solid partitions and is not being occupied in the spring months you can put your stove there; however, there is nothing like an orchard for growing stock and by all means use it if you have one. If you haven't one groiv one this year.

A 6 X 8 ft. house, 6% feet high in front and 4 feet in the back, with two windows and muslin space in front, will make an excellent house for your portable hovei's. Such a house is used by several leading breeders, and is highly recommended by them.

A Practical Poultry House

In order that birds be kept in a healthy condition, and they must be kept in a healthy condition if they are to lay a large number of eggs, they must have good quarters. By good quarters is meant a house where there is sufficient floor space per bird, where ventilation is sufficient to remove the moisture, and to keep the house sweet, a house which can be easily cleaned and a hcv.se which is not too expensive.

A most practical colony house for the more northern States has been developed by the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, with the United States Department of Agriculture co-operating. Illustrations of this house are shown on another page of this book.

This colony house is designed for the use of a coal burning brooder and will house comfortably 400 chicks. Its advantages are: It is easy to clean out and keep clean; it can be moved readily on the average farm with the average farm team; there are no draughts on the floor; it is light, the sunlight extending far back into the house; it can be used in the winter to house fifty laying hens and this is a big advantage because most brooder houses are not adapted for use in winter; it is simply constructed and is as cheap to build as any other type of good brooder house.

Construction

The floor timbers are bolted onto the skids to prevent the skids from pulling together or pulling apart when the building is being moved. The skids are 6x6, and this size is used to lift the building over the ordinary obstructions or rough places met in moving. On the farm, a sapling 6 inches or so through can be used, the ends being champered off. These skids are run the long way of the building so that they won't interfere with placing f'msH

OiCHB^ Wire

Figure Nc. 4 A Handy Feed Hopper

Figure No. 5 A Very Practical Nest the houses close to each other in winter if one desires to do so. This is a very good way to use these houses. In the summer use them on the range or in the orchard for the growing chicks, and in the fall haul them up near the laying house and butt them together, and they are nearly as handy as a long permanent laying house.

The floors are double to prevent any draughts blowing up through. It will be well to use building paper between the floors. The studding used was 2x4, though 2x3 would answer the purpose as well. The walls are of di'op siding, but can be made of matched boards, painted, or of ordinary boards, covered with roofing. The drop siding costs a little more but makes a building which is somewhat lighter in weight and a great deal better looking. The objection to building paper on the sides of a portable colony house, is that it is very apt to get torn, and patching roofing paper is rather unsatisfactory work.

The roof is straight-edge boards, covered with ordinary roofing, and this makes a very good roof. The roof projects at the front and at the back ten inches to carry off the water, so that it won't blow or drip back intO' the house.

The top of the window is placed at the plate so as to get the sunlight as far back into the house as possible.

The door is in front, the upper half being open front, covered with one-inch mesh wire. A water table or a board inclined, to carry off spattering rain, is placed on the lower part of the open front both in the door and in the building itself.

The curtain is hinged at the top and swings back and is held by a fastener suspended from the collar beam. This curtain should be covered with thin cotton cloth. This curtain should be up each day after the chicks are put in, unless it is very cold or windy, and as soon as the nights get at all warm and the chicks are three to four weeks old, leave the curtain up at night. Because chicks need a good deal of fresh air, and just as long as it is warm underneath the hover, the more fresh air they get the better they will be.

The roosting poles are fastened together, and, being hinged at the back, they can easily be lifted up and fastened and be out of the way in cleaning off the dropping boards.

The nests should be placed on either or both walls, according to the kind selected. Of all places to put nests, don't put them under the dropping boards. They are unhandy to get at, they shut off the light form the space underneath the dropping boards, and that much floor space is wasted. Furthermore, they should be as far away from the roosting quarters as possible so that they will be as free as possible from lice and mites. The nests should be easily removable and, if made in two tiers, one above the other, they should not be made together, because they will be too heavy to handle. The bottom of the nest may be made of wire or of a board which is hinged on the back side and which can be let doAvn to easily clean. The nest box should be one long box with no divisions in it at all, because it is not necessary, and there is less liability of crowding and breaking eggs if there are no partitions. An illustration of the above described nest is shown elsewhere in this book.

The feed hopper should be so constructed that there will be no grain wasted, that there is gra'n always available to the hens, that the grain feeds down readily and yet not too readily, and this hopper, illustrated in this book, seems to fill all these requirements. It is not a perfect hopper by any means but it works well.

When the house is used in winter for hens, a pail set in a wooden frame to keep it from tipping over is all right for a drinking fountain. This pail may be set just inside the door on the floor.

Cost

With the present prices of lumber and with labor at $3.25 a day, this house cost approximately $100 to build. The cost of labor was about $33, so if a man was to purchase all his materials and do the carpentry work himself, if would cost him approximately $67. If a man can get out some of the rough boards or dimension stuff on his own place, he can build one of these houses at a comparatively small outlay of actual cash.

Permanent House

For a permanent house, would recommend that the house be a little higher posted and wider, and as long as necessary to get the desired capacity. For Northern States we would advise that the house be 18 feet wide and 22 feet long, this to accommodate 125 hens. The studs would all be 6 inches longer in order to get the light as far back into the building as possible and also to aid in ventilation.

The windows should be screwed on to the' studding about 3 feet from each end of the front side and the space between the windows, from the plate to within 3 feet of the floor, to be entirely open, except for one-inch mesh wire. There should, of course, be curtains which can be let down over this open space. There should be a door in the front side, even though there are several pens of this size, because these doors are convenient in cleaning out the house and in many other ways as well. If there are several compartments, the partitions should be boarded up and doors, which svdng both ways, placed in the middle of the house. If as many as six of these pens are built, it will be well to install some sort of a simple litter carrier to help in carrying grain, green stuff, eggs, etc., because it will save much time and labor.