The Pulaskian., 1915-05-21
FoURcHE MOUNTAIN POULTRY FARM BIGGEST IN THE STATE.

FOURCHE MOUNTAIN POULTRY
 FARM BIGGEST IN THE STATE.
 Two thousand White Leghorn hens on Fourche Mountain Poultry Farm. near title Rock, Ark, the property of Cummins Radcliffe, annually earn a net income of $2 per hen. Mr. Rat cliffe successfully combines the rais- ing of fancy poultry with commercial egg and poultry production. His plant, which covers sixteen acres, is the larg- est in the state. There are from 4.000 to 5000 chickens on the farm. and the average egg production of his flock is above 150 eggs per hen a year. There are hens in the flock which have laid as high as 240 eggs a year. Several hens have made a net cash profit of $350 each. Old fowls, artes a usefulness for egg laying of four to five years, are fattened on buttermilk and sold for ten to fifteen cents above the market price Old roosters are also fattened in the same manner. Young fattened roosters sell for sev- enty-five to eighty cents each.
 For breeding purposes MT. Radcliffe keeps hens from two to five years It has been found by trap nesting that hens will lay profitably four years Many of this age last January aver aged from seventy to seventy-five per f01d Several laid from thirteen to fourteen eggs during twenty-one days. During February a pen of 100 two-yearold Leghorns averaged between thirty and seventy-one eggs a day or total of 1,457 eggs in twenty-eight days In five years of selection of egg lay ing and breeding stock, MT. Radcliffe has increased his egg production a third
 MT. Radcliffe has more than 200 hens which average 200 eggs a year, while the heaviest layer of the flock has a record of 240 eggs in twelve months. This hen has strong vitali- ty and MT Radcliffe is mating her with her son in order to fix high egg production in her daughters and thus transmit it to the entire flock.
 To be profitable, says MT. Radcliffe, a hen must lay nine to 10 dozens of eggs a year. All eggs on the Radcliffe farm which are not sold for breeding pur- poses sell at a premium of ten to tiff teen cents a dozen over market price. During November and December Rat cliffe farm eggs brought fifty cents a dozen, whereas farm eggs only com manded thirty to thirty-five cents.
 One of the big features of the Fourche Mountain Poultry Farm is the sale of day-old chicks, which go all over the country The matches aver age from seventy-five to eighty per cent. MT. Radcliffe uses one continu- our 3,9O0-egg machine and several smaller machines.
 Mating for high egg production, MT. Radcliffe only uses males of vigor and known to be descended from high egg laying mothers, and mates them with hens of high egg laying strain. He then selects the bullets of these hens for his breeding stock another year.
 The laying hens are kept in fiocks of 500 on the Ratcliff farm. They are housed in large houses thirty by sixty feet, two stories in height, with the roosts upstairs, to which a folding ladder leads. Mt. Radcliffe says un- stairs roosts are desirable. as they keep the hens out of trouble when they are not wanted in the yards. All feed is fed through self-feeders.
 The chief green feed is sprouted oats, of which immense quantities are constantly kept on hand. A special house has been built for sprouting the oats, at uniform temperature of eighty degrees.
 The grain ration for laying hens consists of corn chops, wheat, oats and kafir, and pint of this is fed to ten hens twice day, being scat tered in the littr A dry mash of equal parts of corn meal shorts, cot tonseed meal, bran and alfalfa meal with a sprinkling of beef scraps, is kept before the hens all the time. The mash is served wet twice week.
 Cleanliness is on Of the strong