Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-03-25
Raising the Chickens

Dear Mrs. Thomas: Please tell us
how to raise our chickens. 1 shall
have fifty pretty soon, shall buy
them, so I feel reasonably sure Of
starting with that many.
1 wish I could get two Of my GUS
toners to tell you just. how they
do things, for I ship each one TWEEN
ty baby chicks late in April, or
early May, and they have never lost
more than two out of the twenty.
1 have raised a hundred and ninety
five out of two hundred. Last year
1 sold so close to the edge that [
only had ninety-three and raised all
but ten. The first thing is to be
on the job all the time L do not
mean that you must watch them all
the time, but at least five times
day you\must see them, and if they
have no mother hen you must see
that they do not get chilled. The
mother hen is hungry creature and
eats her weight in chick feed if you
have no separate place to feed them.
In March and April she must be
kept in the dry coop until the
chicks are at least three weeks old.
T have only one brood. They Matched
the last day of january and the
mother has never been out of
coop made Of wire. 1t is four feet
square, part of it floored and that
part protected from wind, all of it
we'll covered. The chicks were kept
in there until three weeks old, then
I lifted a corner and they come and
go. L feed them. before the other
chickens are fed, consequently they
are never run over or hurt by the
others. I have a regular place for
young chickens and their mothers
are confined in coops so as not to
let them fight, but l do not use that
until the green stuff is large enough
for them and I then have a yard
full and must keep them where the
other chickens will not hurt them.
Just a dozen or SO can be in the
back yard.
If you have mother hens, do not
depend on one busting to keep the
lice off Of them. A great many seem
to succeed with powders, but. L pin
my faith to grease. Usually, scar
bolated vaseline. AS I take the babies
out Of the nest I put little I'M
der their Threats, on their heads,
and on the little spot left where
| the egg yolk slipped into the stom-
| ach. The hen I grease thoroughly
| around her comb, under her bill,
along the wing and just below the
vent. Then the little fellows get it
| we'll scattered. In ten days or two
| weeks do your job over, for there
| may have been eggs in the hens
! feathers.
All this is a lot of trouble, and
one really needs help, but I've seen
i hundreds of little chickens droop
i and die because their owners did not
/ have the time, or the energy to
make a good job of it.
You may fool yourself but you
/ are not fooling a real chicken raiser
when you say that the little three
weeks old chickens, dropping all
Il over the yard, are not infested with
Il lice or being drained at night by
mites. Because you cannot see the
lice don't say there are none. They
| have the swiftness of light. Put
the vaseline on them and if they
| are not too much exhausted they
will repay you. But clean up the
coop. This coop of mine has a sep
arate bottom and is moved at least
once a week. summed in good wealth
err and clean all the time. If one
cannot get an hour a day, some reg
ular time to look after their flock
and other spare time when necessity
arises my advice is to 10 with only
a dozen hens.
Do not feed sloppy food to any