Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1889-03-08
POULTRY IN WINTER.
How Hens Should ne Kept to Make Them
Profitable,

Written for the Free Press by b. II. Albeel
Poultry, by right selection of breeds, and
proper management, may be made a source
of profit, or, by conducting injudiciously
the reverse will be true. The average farm
er seems to think that a fowl will thrive I'M
der conditions unfavorable to other classes
of domestic animals. The COW is given
stable in which nothing ever freezes. the
horse Is carefully blanketed, but the fowl,
i'll many instances at least, is thrust into
some cold, out of the way corner to shift for
itself and then complained of because it
doesn't lay No one of course can blame it,
a man forced to put up with such umtoward
conditions could not work, and no more can
a fowl
In the selection of breeds l have noted
that much depends upon the location of
your buildings. For a warm, sunshiny hol-
low with windows facing the south or east
sheltered from wind the wyandotte is
doubtless the best all around fowl known.
For hill top, with its keen piercing winds,
and often exposed situation of the poultry
house, the brown leghorn is the best The
wyandotte is sluggish, slow to move, and
will sit and freeze to DEATH where the more
active brown leghorn would be foraging in
search of food. This rule will be found to
apply to all the larger breeds of fowls, al
though the buff cochin does not appear to he
so badly affected by cold as the wyandotte.
But the rule of psychologists may apply here,
for it is a fact that the mulatto cannot bear
seventies of temperature as well as the white
or negro. The wyandotte is hardly estab-
lished as distinct breed yet, and this may
have something to do with its inability to
withstand the cold of our exposed hill
tops.
Eggs are the great source of profit. Rails
ing poultry formarketis too uncertain to be
reckoned profitable, and eggs must be de-
pended upon to pay a fair profit over ex-
penses, and then if the cockeres can be
sold at good figure, it is SO much clear
gain. In selecting fowls for eggs get some
thing good TO begin with. As far as my OBJ
scryation goes the brown leghorn, or cross
between brown leghorn cock andplymouth
rock hen are the best for eggs. The last
named may be black, brown, or penciled, like
the plymouth rock. On the farm these
fowls will get their own living in the summer
for they are active, always on the alert for
a bug or grasshopper and they will scratch
all day, only to 20 to roost entirely unsatis-
fled with their days work and renew opera
tions by daylight the next morning. How
ever this may be, the eggs produced by such
toraging are mostly profit. Corn at 10 cents
per bushel has not been fed them in quaint
ty for each dozen eggs laid. They have
their own living and pay you something for
the privilege of existing.
If you have no time TO look after your
fowls let the son or daughter do it, A boy
or girl 10 years of age, of ordinary intelli-
gence, is capable of caring for fowls if given
instructions at the start Allow them per
centage of the eggs for their work and they
will suddenly become vastly interested in the
enterprise. But do not, when you sell the
eggs, forget that certain portion does not
belong to you. Deal with them as you
would with man, or you will crush their
enthusiasm and manly spirit of enterprise
in their work.
The time has gone by for selling sittings
of eggs at abnormal prices, but a fair price
can always be obtained for sttings of a good
breed and fresh eggs are always in demand
at the market at wonderfully high prices
too. The demand will not diminish. 1t
grows larger every year. We annually i'm
port millions ofeggs which should be produc-
ed ON American soil. Farmers have the best
convenieDces for keeping fowls profitably,
yet few avail themselves of what might be
made largo increase 10 their yearly income
1t is not uncommon for from 81 90 to So. so
to be made from each hen when properly
cared for, and instances of still larger profit