The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-07-24
The Poultry Yard.
TO MAKE POULTRY PROFITABLE.

AAV4' SOAASOA makes SOue uSe1u4 DuBkeS-
tibns as to Paying Methods of Poultry
Keeping-Care and Management Of Fowls
the Year Round
Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
The farm, even though devoted
largely to growing corn, cotton or
tobacco, is not complete, is not what
farm should be, is not being utiI-
lied up to it's full capacity, unless it
supports few COWS, a few hogs, and
a flock of hens.
There are forms of materials ac-
cumulating about every country
place which cannot be used to the
best advantage when either of the
three above classes of stock are not
kept. The COW can get most from
the odd patches Of grasses and from
the folders and other coarse matter
with cotton seed and cotton seed
meal. The hog will give good re-
turns for waste vegetables and slops
along with corn and peas which
other animals would not consume SO
readily. The poultry will convert
the table scraps, waste from the
barns and out of the-way places into
articles of food for the family or
sources of pin money for the farmers
wife.
The money value of the poultry in
the South is far greater than one is
prone believe. The income from
that source is perhaps in excess of
that from any like sum invested in
any other legitimate industry. Let
this income be as large as it now is,
it is capable of being very greatly
increased without any perceptible
addition to the cash already in
vested. Expansion in the returns
from the poultry business is one
form of expansion opposed by no.
sane mind. We all favor this form
of expansion.
The question then becomes how to
expand along this line.
It is not generally wise to embark
in one branch of the live stock indus
try to the exclusion of others, even
though the returns from the chosen
branch promise to come much
quicker and be relatively much
greater than from others Neither
is it best for the farmer of average
means and experience to neglect his
staple crop to devote his time and
energies entirely to feeding hens,
running incubators, tending brood
ers and marketing broilers. Many.
a few of whom succeed while more
fail, make just such radical changes.
The most successful poultry keep
ers have grown into the business.
They start with few ordinary fowls
which they study, get acquainted
with, then give better treatment
than usual, in return for which the
fowls give eggs and larger and better
bodies for the table. Tt is then but
a short step to dispose of the COM
mon fowls and the common method
of caring for them to adopt pure
blooded poultry and better ways of
caring for them. The various
branches of poultry keeping viii
gradually unfold themselves to the
keeper who makes habit of getting
thoroughly acquainted with his
fowls, the purposes to which they
are best suited, and the best ways Of
caring for them.
Expand in the poultry business by
looking after the little details which
are so often allowed to go from time
to time without attention The
summer months with their extreme
Iy hot days are hard on the chick
ems. In the absence of shade the
chicks are liable to sunstroke, from
which the death rate is much greater
each year than is usually supposed
While the chicks do not drink very
much water at time, they require
it at short intervals.
The drinking water should be
fresh and free from disease germs,
which live in and multiply very rap
idly about neglected feeding and
watering places. Tt is to just such
places as these that the poultry man
must look to find the source of most
of the more destructive diseases to
which fowls both old and young are
liable. These places then should be
inspected frequently and treated
with disinfectants even before dis
ease makes it's appearance in the
flock. Treat the drinking vessels