Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-05-13
CARE OF TURKEYS.
An Approved NJ ethod of Successfully Rails
Ing Young Birds.

When the young birds have become
80 restless that they will not remain
longer in the nest, but seek to slip out
OF every little crack, put them in a
basket on soft cloth. As you take
each one from the nest, remove the lit
tie horn upon the bill, by hooking your
finger nail under it and quickly jerk
ing 1t off; it is in the way of learning
to eat. Then drop whole grain of
pepper down the throat. This is to
give appetite and warm up their deli
cate stOmachs. When all have been treat
ed us, rub the hen under the wings
well with drippngs from salty bacon.
Many rub with lard and sulphur, while
Others use lard aud turpentinc; we
have always found that salty grease
answers as well to keep the young free
of lice, and is less trouble to prepare.
Now your birds are ready to remove to
their coop. This should be off from
the haunt of other fowls, and if it can
be on the eastern side of grassy slope
so much the better, A coop made of
fence rails, high enough for the hens
to stand erect, and have room to flap
their wings, is all the kind that is need
ed, with a tight roof over the top to turn
rain. In coop of this size you can
put two or three hens, if they hatch
at the same time. From the time they
are taken to this coop feed the hens
twice day, with corn and green food,
and keep both old and young supplied
with clean water To feed the young
have several small boards, which must
be kept scrupuiously clean; lay these
along the sunny side of the coop, and
for the first four days put on them few
crumbs of hard-boiled eggs, and good
sweet light bread soaked in new milk
then squeezed dry and lightly peppered.
AT first they will only eat crumb or
two, but against they are a week old
they generally begin to eat quite greedi-
ly. Then if you add fine cut onion tops
or chives to their feed they will eat
these before any thing else you give
them. After they begin to eat well,
boiled rice, oat meal mush and the curd
of sour milk, drained well and mixed
with onion tops, are all good feed.
From the time they begin to eat well
until they begin to wander away from
the coops we feed them four or five
times through the day, putting it on
their boards, and as soon as they have
eaten all they can, the boards should
be cleaned off and set up in the
sun to dry, ready for next feed.
When they are old enough to begin to
go away from the hens to hunt bugs,
then the hens should be let out of the
coop, at first only little while in the
heat of the day, increasing the time as
they grow stronger, until they are let
out early in the morning and allowed
to roam all day. They can now be
fed only morning and evening, unless
they are tame enough to come for it
at noon. When this old we feed them
entirely on sour milk-curd and onions,
and onion tops finely cut. They eat
this in preference to any other feed,
and thrive well on it. They should be
taught to roost in the coop, on account
of night rains. They are now old
enough to fly up on roosts. These
can be placed in the coop across one
end. We feed and care for them thus
until fall, when we add grain to the
curd-iirst wheat, then corn. Many
persons do not feed during the season
that grasshoppers and worms are
plenty, but we think they will pay well al
butchering time for the curd and grain
given them. This plan of raising
turkeys we have used successfully for
years, and so well does it work that il
one of the young should die through
the season we would think strange Of
it. And we call our way of rearing
turkeys grandmother's plan. No
tIoslGl St0ckRlaD AID Farmer,