Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-08-16
A few words about Chickens.

We are confident that most of our farm
ing friends would find that more attention
to their poultry-yards would add essentially
not only to the comfort of themselves and
families but also to the aggregate of their
annual farm profits.
Without any particular effort or any eX-
ira buildings or yards, from fifty to one hun
dred fowls may be kept on every farm of
one hundred acres, and the contributions
which they will make, in eggs and chickens,
to the products sold, will amount in the
end to handsome sum. 1t is true that to
be a source of profit they must be attended
to the eggs must be gathered daily two
or three hens must not (as is frequently the
case) be allowed to set on one nest coops
must be provided for chickens as they are
hatched, and they (as we'll as other domes-
tic animals) must be fed.
Fowls will sometimes do mischief, and if
allowed access to fields of grain will pull
down and destroy more than they will eat
and if they find the planted corn they will
show great perseverance and dexterity in
tracing out the rows and extracting the
plants worthy of any featherless biped that
lives by its wits and the pIunder of the pub
lie. The true way to put an end to such
troubles at once, when you do not wish to
kill them, is to confne the depredators and
then little extra feed is all that is neces-
sary to save both your crops and your
/ fowls.
Domestic poultry usually do much better
when they run at large than when they are
restricted to coop or yard. Their health
is improved, their flesh is finer and better
tasted, and they will produce more eggs
when at large than when confined The
turkey in particular is a strenuous advocate
of the largest liberty. Hens in the garden
are pest, but there is no absolute neces-
sity for being troubled with them there. A
common picket fence five feet high will turn
them, and if made plain will not cost much
more thana common fence.
To have a poultry-yard profitable the
hens should not be kept until they are five
or six years old There is no objection to
keeping a favorite cock so long as he is
active and healthy, but hens after they are
three years old will not lay so many eggs
as those but one or two years old. Much
depends upon the breed which is selected,
but more upon the manner in which it is
kept so far as good layers are concerned.
Almost every one has this or that breed
which he or she recommends and considers
all others worthless but as all do not
choose the same breed, we may justly con-
clude everything is not in the breed. One
reason why many are not more successful
with chickens is, s,because the eggs are gath
cred and all laid in one week probably put
together, and when hen wants to set,
enough eggs are taken indiscriminately
from the pile (some laid the day before and
some week old to accommodate her This
is wrong, the eggs put under hen should
be as nearly as possible laid at one time
or they will hatch irregularly. When hen
'sets herself" or as it is termed "steals her
nest" she every day while laying the egg
brings the others enough forward in the
process of incubation, and if she be mode
rately good at setting matches every egg
into young chicken.