Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1918-08-23
IRl(D[llBY
USES FOR Different FOWLS
Important Place in Increasing
Needed Food Supply.


ment of Agriculture.)
The hen, first and last, is the main
dependence for increasing the supply
Of white meat and eggs, but she re-
auires the aid of turkeys, guiheas,
geese, and ducks, just as, on a dairy
farm, the COW requires the aid of pigs,
sheep, and goats. The setting of the
standard at 100 hens per farm is safe,
but no such arbitrary standard can
be set for the other kinds Of poultry.
The small farm, with grain fields of
neighboring farms in proximity to the
barn and dooryard, would, perhaps, be
better without turkeys. The farm
through which no streams run and
which has no large pond would per-
haps be better without ducks. But
the circumscribed farm ON which tur-
keys would be disadvantage may be
well supplied with streams and ponds
so that ducks would be unusually
profitable, and the farm that has no
streams and ponds may have large
range for turkeys. Each farm family
will have to determine for itself what
poultry can be profitably kept in adj
dition to 100 hens, bearing in mind
always that an adequate number
should be kept of all the kinds for
which free range can be found.
Turkeys, ranging farther afield,
prey upon insect forms that escape
the hens. From the time the young
are old enough to begin foraging for
themselves, perhaps early in June, I'M
til near frost, turkeys take the bulk
Of their food from field insects, de-
vouring millions of .grasshoppers and
other injurious forms in meadow and
pasture. In regions where wooded
areas are still fairly extensive, mast
Is an important item in the diet of
the turkey. When the insect stores be-
gin to fail, the mast larders are be-
ginning to be filled. Feeding on
acOrns, chestnuts, beech nuts, and the
like, turkeys will go long way toward
fattening themselves for the Thanks
giving or Christmas market and will
not require much feeding of corn or
other grain to finish them. Generally
speaking, turkeys will require larger
feeding of grain than chickens to fit
them for market, but, as they utilize
forms of waste that hens and their
broods would not reach, the keeping
of fair number Of turkeys is good
economy.
Guinea fowls utilize still other kinds
of waste that would escape both hens
and turkeys. Taking a wider range
than chickens and yet not quite so
wide as turkeys, keeping largely to
thickets and weed patches, and COM
hitting fewer depredations against
field and garden than either chickens
or turkeys, requiring little feeding at
any time, being prolific layers, during
their season of eggs that are thought
by many to have a richer and finer
flavor even than hen eggs, the guinea
fowl is an economic necessity on any
farm where serious effort is made to
convert all waste into meat and eggs.
Geese hold still another sector in
the line of the poultry army that
makes war against waste. They touch
TANKS with the chickens in utilizing
waste grain about stables and feeding
pens. In larger measure than chick
ems or any other kind of poultry, they
are grazing stock, taking their living
in large part from the ordinary grasses
of the pastures.
The one kind of poultry Of question
able economic status on farms is the
pigeon. Almost exclusively grain
eater, the pigeon renders no notable
service as a conserver Of waste, ex-
cept it might be shattered grain in the
fields, and that in large measure would
be taken up by other poultry and by
pigs. The pigeon has its economic
place in the scheme of urban poultry
production, but, except in isolated in
stances where conditions are peculiar
ly favorable, its production on general
| farms may not be desirable.