The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-11-29
SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL.
Facts and Fiction in Poultry Raising.

mense profits of the poultry business
have been going the rounds of the
poultry and agricultural press lately;
stories that make the practical poul-
tryman smile, but which are calculated
to work an injury to the poultry indus
try by deceiving the animated and in
experienced. Such stories mislead peo-
pie and induce them to 60 into the
poultry business filed with great ex-
pectations and erroneous ideas. Then
when failure and disappointment
comes-as it invariably does to such
beginners-they retire in disgust, de-
nouncing the whole thing as a fraud,
and declaring that no money is to be
made out of chickens. Whereas, the
cause of their failure is not because
there is no money in poultry-culture,
but because they took hold of it at the
wrong end. Back of their failure is
also the wrong done them by the
writer's of fictitious yarns about the
immense profits in chicken-raising.
Yarns of the kind referred to are
likely to cause people to lose sight of
the value of experience-the price of
knowledge. The man who knows how
to handle poultry successfully had to
pay something to find it out. There
was time when his position in the
poultry world was uncertain; when he
was battling the difficulties in the
road; when his disappointments SCI
verely taxed his strength, and he, tired
and weary, was almost ready to quit.
It was only by hard work and perse-
verance that he reached the point
where the world called him successful.
He knows the cost of it; the time and
labor expended; the working and wait
ing. He knows also that he has not
struck gold mine, and that the profits
of it are not fabulous. And further,
that a story like the following, which
is taken from Southern exchange, is
mostly pure fiction. We select only q
few paragraphs:
.'Mr. Dodge, of Atlanta, last year
fed fifty blooded fowls at an expense of
$40, using at night a handful of corn to
every two fowls, and in the morning
mostly wheat bran, meat and pepper.
From these fowls, kept on a lot 40x50
feet, he sold $1,000 worth of eggs and
$40 worth of manure, thus clearing a
thousand less some small expense for
labor, ETC."
Reader. do you believe thatp We
don't. Now what are the facts, or
rather what are the possibilities under
such circumstances IF Mr.. Dodge's
fowls were of the very best laying
strain. they might have laid him about
$50 eggs each in a year, or 1900 eggs
in all. The value of these eggs at the
average market price of cent and a
quarter each for the whole year would
be $88. IS, or CLIPS less than he is said
to have sold them for. But it is said
that Mr.. Dodge's fowls were
thoroughbred. It is possible then.
that he sold some at fancy
prices. We will grant that he had
trade of this kind and that he not only
sold some, but that he sold every egg
laid during the three breeding months
March. April and May--at the rate
of two dollars per thirteen eggs, or
about seventeen cents each. At that
season of the year his fowls would
average about fifteen eggs per month
each, or forty-five eggs each for the
three months of fancy trade, total of
2,250 eggs, which at seventeen cents
per egg would have brought him
$382.50. Add to this the value of the
other 5, $50 eggs disposed of at fifteen
cents dozen, and we are forced to adj
NIT that under the most favorable cir
cumstances possible, and presuming
that Mr.. Dodge is a fancier of such
prominence that he can readily dispose
of every egg laid in his yard during
the breeding season at 80 per- thirteen,
he could not possibly make over
$448.12 off of his fifty thoroughbred
hens. AJ the same time we are able
to point out the fact that If he should
dispose of his eggs at fifteen cents a
dozen he would realize $685. 70 for them
as at first stated, or $66.75 net over
and above the cost of keeping his fifty
hens, a very handsome profit indeed,
and yet a reasonable one. and quite
possible. Then there comes from the
East the story of man who kept 500
young hens all winter in a building
60x40, sub-div' led into pens of 15x4O
feet containing $50 hens each. and that
from the 600 hens this thrifty man
gathered every day in the winter 420
eggs, which were taken up eagerly. at
the very door for forty-two cents per
dozen. enabling him to clear eleven
dollars per day in return for a few
hours light work. Now let us get at the
facts here, also. While it is true that
fowls will stand crowding in the winter
better than at any other season of the
year, yet it is equally true that hens
will not lay well when in large fiocks
under any circumstances We never
knew hens to average 10 eggs per
month each in the winter time. and