The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1900-02-20
Poultry Notes.


Those unreasonable hens! Here
some philanthropist has been advising
to allow at least one foot per hen on
the perch, and the hens wont even use
the space when 1t is given them. There
seems to be an unaccountable desire
on the part Of hens to crowd together
in bunch and to roost closely. A hen
seldom takes more than eight inches
of space and no amount of carpenter
work can make her take more. 1t
would be far more reasonable IL the
hen would only decide to occupy
the middle of her allotted foot on the
roost She would no. catch lice from
the other fowls at least. But our ex-
perience is that we cannot get the
hens over to our way of thinking. We
do not say give each hen at least
foot of room on the roost, but give
them all they will occupy. More is
useless.
A poultry writer asserts that 1t has
not been proved that lime, ground
bone and oyster shells help at all in
the formation OF egg shells, public
opinion to the contrary notwith-
standing He may be right, but there
are some things that seem to indicate
that the material thus obtained is
utilized in some way to make egg
shells Hens will run eagerly after an
egg shell unless they have all the
bone meal or ground bone they want.
They will even attack whole eggs to
satisfy their cravings in that direc-
ton. If none of the material goes into
their system it is hard to see why they
should have such cravings for the ma
terial mentioned. The cravings of
fowls for some form of lime is paral-
lelled in the animal world by the crav-
ings of even wild animals for salt AS
is well known salt licks in various
parts of the country. were so called
from the custom of wild animals COM
Ing long distances to lick the salt that
oozed out with the water We know
that salt is needed in the animal
economy and it is to be presumed that
forms Of lime are used in the special
functions of the fowl-that of laying
an egg with a shell composed of lime.
We are not satisfied that the fowl does
not utilize this mineral matter. There
are powerful acids at work in the
bodies of the fowls that are doubtless
able to make even mineral matter SER
viceable. At least we advise to keep
right on feeding lime in some form.
Some of our agricultural colleges
and experiment stations make the mis-
take Of putting inexperienced men at
the head of departments, believing
that they are smart fellows and will
soon learn enough from others to
make up for lack of experience. When
this is done the college or expert
ment station authorities should eau
ton the young men not to talk too
much, and especially not to run into
print 1t is almost as bad when boards
OF trade take up subjects they want
elucidated and hire inexperienced men
to do the work. A report on the Poul-
try Industry of Colorado, issued by the
Denver Chamber OF Commerce is an
example of this. The man that did
the work ON it certainly knows moth
Ing practically about the raising of
poultry and production of eggs. He
devotes a good deal of space to show
ing what a fortune may be made from
S00-hen outfit. 1t is easy. He fig
ures 1t out that the hens will lay
easily 144 eggs each, or 43,2O0 eggs
He says that half are sure to hatch
and this makes 81, 500 chicks, 20 per
cent of which are sure to grow to ma
turity even when cared for only by the
old hen. He thus gets 10000 chicks
to the age of IA weeks and sells them
all at 40 cents apiece, and has an in
come of S4,320. All expenses he puts
at $500, and leaves a net profit Of
$3.50, or S9,40 cents for each of the
800 hens. But this is not all. He sug-
gests that by planting fruit trees in
the hen yards the entire cost of care
and feed could be made from the
fruit, leaving the entire receipts for
the poultry, clear profit, or $14.4O per
hen. The writer. b. L. Winchel, then
asserts that this is not a fancy
alafeh -