The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-06-27
Poultry as a Business.

Very few keep poultry as a busi-
ness. And of those who have large
flocks, not many go at it in a busi-
ness-like manner. Writing on this
subject to the Poultry Standard, Mr..
James Shackleton says:
Heretofore, poultry have not gen.
orally been kept in a business-like
way, except in a sense so by fanciers
and breeders of standard birds for
sale. Generally the rest of poultry
keepers do not in any sense keep
fowls in a business way. 1t is up to
everybody to do this, and it means
the stoppage of all leakages, taking
advantage of every possible improve
ment, working in all ways for the
most there is in fowls. That cannot
be done by considering any hen as
good as any other hen, nor by hap
hazard matings, nor by Matching
every egg because it is an egg, nor by
rearing chicks so half of them die
and the rest are not more than half
the ultimate worth they might be.
But all over the United States men are
taking up poultry, at least as a side
line, men who have learned that to
succeed well in any business needs
strenuously open minds, active minds
and absolute attention to details.
They know well enough that go-as.
you-please poultry keeping must be
about as silly as go-as-you-please in
any business To my mind these
men, or some of them, are likely to
supply striking object lessons that
others cannot well ignore. But these
men are not the kind that will take
any trouble at all to tell others how
they succeed when they succeed;
their point to view is that the other
fellow must struggle up as they have
done. That is the modern way of
finding the men that can and will do
things, and no better. way is possible,
for that they look on such work as
writings like this as a ridiculous
waste of time, for they say the aver
age person is asleep or half asleep
and remains so. Do you want to be
of the class of whom this may prop
erly be said? Do you want to keep
hens so they cannot lay more than
half of what they should? Do you
want to keep hens that cannot be
made to lay as much as others? Do
you want to hatch eggs that, even II
fertile, cannot produce thrifty chicks?
If you wish to get started on the
road to business poultry keeping, you
have to consider the hen as valua-
ble bird nOtentiallv canahle of ralx-
ing more money for you from the
same investment than any other le-
gitimate Investment; there is more
than is possible from any investment
in dairy cows, however well the cows
be kept, however good as mixers the
cows may be. Better than sheep or
hogs, or any crop. This does not
mean that the hen is to displace any
thing, but just that she shall be con-
sldered and treated as valuable as
set that 1t is beneath nobody's dignity
to handle we'll. You will have to get
trap-nests, and use them. You will
have to act inteiligently in all that
trap-nests will show to you. You
will have to learn what constitutes
good bird, male or female, and breed
only from such. There is no other
way than this, there cannot be any
other way
Then you have to revise all your
ideas about housing fowls. They need
fresh air, all there is, and not to be
shut up in tight houses, winter or
summer.