The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1869-12-24
How Shall We Keep Our Fowls !

This is question which concerns thou
sands at this season. A supply Of fresh
eggs is a great addition to our kitchen
economy, and most agreeable one to our
table. Fresh eggs for breakfast all the
year round is decidedly Utopian. In the
first place we must provide light and air.
Windows are absolutely necessary on the
south side of the hennery, 50 that the
winters sun can be made available for
warmth. All the scraps and s0sp-grease
of the kitchen can be returned to N in
the shape of fresh eggs, and will greatly
lessen the expense of feeding the hens
They must have animal food. When the
ground is open, and worms abundant, they
are as well supplied Is though they dined
on roast beef and mutton; but in winter
it must be given to them. All the bones
left from the table, the bits OF fat, the
scrapings of the plates, ETC., ahould be
treasured for their use. Keep an old
kettle on the back of the stove, turn AL
slops into it, even coffee grounds, and
when well feed it. At noon time,
it can be given smoking hot and quite
watery-the warm drink helps to supply
the carbon they need. Where beefsliver
can be chesply obtained, it makes excel
lent food chop it fine, and they viii eat
it greedily. Keep box filed with gravel,
ashes, old plaster, slscked lime or oyster
shells-even hard-coal ashes viii not come
amiss-for hens must have food needful
to form egg shells, else they viii drop
them shell-less.
For grain, we think . mixture Il the
most profitable. SWeepipgs from the
grist-mill do very vell-oats, corn and
rye ground together coarsely, make good
food. Hens desire variety--win not lay
eggs on one kind of nutriment
Where oil-cake and scrap cakes can be
purchased, they are the most desirable
food. They come in solid mass and are
not wasted. Bone-manure is excellent to
go with scraps. To this diet add coarse
corn hominy, and you will never COM
plain that hens are not worth their feed.
Cleanliness is all-important-the hem
house should be whitewashed with hot
lime, spring and fall, and the poles on
which they roost should be covered with
precautions are needful to destroy the in
sects which will breed in such places.
Pure warm water IN iron basins, with
bit of birthstone in the basin, should be
given every morning, but not allowed to
them soap-pills made of yellow bar.soap
this acts like cathaltic. II chilled, give
pepper-corns-two of them if the chick
ems are large-or hot milk and pepper can
be turned down the neck with q teaspoon.
A hen increases in the amount OF eggs
she lays until four years old; then she u
only fit for chicken broth.
We would not enter into discussion
upon the merits of different breeds, nor
would we pay twelve dollars pair for
novelties" The white Leghorns are
our favorites; their eggs are large, their
chickens grow rapidly, and their hesh u
tender and of delicious favor.
The Brahma Pootras Tor Bran FStHse,
as a good farmer in our neighDorhooo
will call them) are good sized fowls. and
produce fine coffee-colored eggs; but We
confess to greater delight in the purely
white eggs, and think that what the
chicken gains in size, it loses in delicAcy
of flavor. They have mixed with our
Leghorns, and formed a mongrel breed
which seems to promise well. We have
forty-five chickens ready for dripping pan
or pie, which have sprung from the DIFF
ferent breeds, and are of good size. Ii Is
more profitable to keep dozen hens than
one pfg-the outlay is much less, the in
come much greater, and the pleasure you
take in the former is inexhaustible. What
pride we take in sending dozen fresn
eggs to our kind neighbors in the depth
Of winter What relish they give 70
every meall Try it, friend, and see how
cheaply pleasure can be purchaseo.-
HezrM and Home.