The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1892-12-14

Not more thanl.5ne half the farmers
treat their poultry with any degree of
consideration. Some member of the
family may start out in the spring with
great expectations. They count on six
dozen eggs from each men, and on an
average of about six chicks To the
brood to grow into marketable birds.
Not every hen will want To set at the
acceptable time, SO that half the flock
may be expected to. enter into the
broiler business. Now this fair figuring
will make each hen yield about So 90.
1t all looks safe and reasonable, and
with suitable conveniences, breed and
care, poultry can be made to pan out
in about that degree of profit. Bat the
stock to begin with is IA mongrel lot
little and big. bantams and buff cochins,
with smart fighting cock as king of
the yard. The big Cochins begin bust
ness under the porch after laying six
eggs, and the Leghorns elude all watch
ing and lay everywhere except i'm the
place desired. A skunk finds all the
lazy Brahma sittings and some of the
others are pulled from under the girt
i'm the barn with the last feeding of hay.
The former will set on hot brick after
the eggs are gone while the latter is
affronted at her exposure, and refuses
any maternity over the eggs after that
A half dozen broods may emerge from
out Of-the-way place to run the gaunt
let of hawks and 'varmints," and reach
a gaunt maturity at a value of twenty
five cents.
The successful poulty raiser, and there
are plenty of them, looks to the select
ing of his pullets. If eggs are to be the
desideratum, then Leghorns or Black
Spanish are the fowls; but if eggs and
six-pound Thanksgiving chicks are de-
sired, get Light Brahma or Plymouth
Rock fowls. Avoid the Camelopard
Brahma, that can eat off the head of a
barrel, even though he has standard
points; the chicks will be straddling
around until Christmas before they are
mature enough to distinguish the sex
Get IA blocky kind and see that the
pullets you start in with are uniform in
size and quality Fix up the hen-house
with tight floor, and door to shut
every night. AS soon as the chicks are
a week or ten days old, drive them in
every night until they will go in of
themselves. If you can't afford the
time to shut up the broods every night.
don't make any attempts at poultry
raising. A providing skunk or vora-
cious cat will surely find and destroy
them if left to shrk for themselves.
Feed the chicks every morning until
the first of July, when the crickets and
grasshoppers will supply their food un-
til frost comes; then feed again regularly
morning and night
Nothing on the farm pays better for
the food consumed than poultry in
tended for the market No danger of
their "eating their heads off," Corn
fed to young poultry gives larger gain
in pounds than if fed to any other
animal. This is no guess work. have
weighed the chicks and the corn in ten
day periods and proved it. Never sell
chicks until they show by their combs
that they are mature, unless it be for
broilers when half grown or less.
Young cockerels for the Thanksgiving
market ought to bring half dollar each,
and the pullets that are sold forty cents
alive at such prices poultry raising is
profitable, but there is a limit to the
number that can be kept on a farm.
Sixteen or twenty pullets will do much
better accordingly than sixty. There
is given amount of insect life and
waste which are essential to the health
of hens, and scant supplies insure scant
returns in poultry and well as in every
thing else. CT.