Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1915-01-13
WORKING CHICKENS AT NIGHT.
Electric Lights i'm Hen Houses Keeps
the Chickens Busy all the Time.


an auditor. Figures and statistics
and chickens are his hobbies. Eff
cheney is his watchword.
Back of his residence in Congress
Park there is an Enclosure forty feet
square in which he keeps what he
calls his $50 egg machines" The
machines" belong to the feathered
tribe known as White Leghorns. He
expects and obtains eggs from these
machines" with the same regularity
and accuracy as he does figures from
an adding machine.
And he has reduced the matter of
egg production to such a fine mathe-
NAUTICAL science, in which the forces
Of nature are aided and abetted by
mechanical devices, that he can rec
kon to hair line his daily, weekly,
monthly, and yearly averages in
proportion to the amount of day
light plus candle power over and
above losses due to the melting sea-
son. In other words, Mr.. Newell has
studied and knows his chickens.
He says he has obtained $4,000
eggs from his machines in the last
year, or an average of an egg every
third day for each fowl, and expects
to bring this average UP to an egg
every other day for each hen during
1915. All the hens are laying now
and he sells the eggs for so cents a
dozen. Mr.. Newell attributes his
success to the fact that his chickens
live in two electric lighted coops.
go to roost by electricity, and get
up at the beck of 100 candle power
Il figured the whole problem out
in black and white" said Mr.. New
ell. Il found that my chickens were
not laying much in winter They'd
go to roost earlier in the winter
months and get up later. | figured
they didn't have sufficient daylight
in which to eat the necessary amount
of food and to get the required
amount of exercise for good laying
estimated they got about sixteen
hours of daylight in midsummer and
only about seven hours in midwin-
ter. | decided to strike an average
of their waking hours.
AT cost of about $50 l install
ed 100 candlepower tungsten lamp
and 2 candlepower incandescent
lamp in one chicken house and two
so candlepower tungstens and =
candlepower lamp in the other.
These / connected with switches in
the house
AS soon as the alarm clock goes
off at 6 or little after in the NOR
ming / turn on the switch and the
chickens get up, thinking it is day
light. The lights are turned off at
s or $50, when it is full daylight
and the neighbors fowls are just
arising.
When it begins to get dusk, along
about 4, my daughter, Dorothy, or
my wife turns on the lights and they
are kept going until 9 at night when
turn all out except the candle
power lamps. These give just suffi-
cient amount of light to give the ap-
pearance of dusk, and the chickens
begin going to roost. l leave the
small lamps lit all night, so that if
any Of the chickens get up at night
to eat they can do so.
Average Jumps from 26 to S3.
Eleven days after the lights were
installed the daily average jumped
from twenty-six eggs to eighty-three.
During the molting season under the
old custom, when most of the food
was going to feathers instead of eggs
| got only eleven eggs day. Now
get fifty-two Gay during the mott
ing season.