The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-05-18
What the Farmers
Are Doing
Continued from page seven

Continued from page seven
A. C Hale has store at his resi-
dence on the townsite and Is raising
1900 chicks that he got from Lash
ers poultry farm in California. He
was having some deaths" among his
larger chicks the day Of our visit.
An Attractive Poultry Venture
Eugene G. Hale is one of the men
who made an unusual success with
sugar beets for a number OF years,
raising them ,. farther apart than
most growers and making large tom
mage. He has quit raising beets,
but has twenty-five acres of potatoes
besides hay and grain and consider
able fruit in the garden. He Is
planting raspberries and strawber-
ries this spring. He shipped in $500
chicks this spring, the oldest ones
dating from March Z and he is plan
ming to market them in Pocatello
among the restaurant men. He will
take them down in lots of four or
five hundred at a time, packed in
little crates that hold fifty each. He
will carry eggs and friers and make
weekly trips and the cafe men will
know they are getting fresh eggs,
and friers raised in sanitary yards
and houses.
Mr.. Hale has chicken house
20hx10O feet in size and will build
one 26x100 next fall. He has the
sanitary nets and roosts reaching all
along the side of the building and
the nests face the center, but the
hens enter the nests from the rear
by a continuous private entrance. :"
The front of the string of nests
opens by loosening hook or two,
and tips out and down in long Sec
lions revealing the pools of eggs that
come in such numbers these days
that they have to be gathered twice
day. The eggs are all white and
the nests are so clean that the
eggs show no stains. The nests are
padded with straw and chaff, and
once a week the sides are unlocked
and dropped on the hinge and the
bottom is unlocked and dropped on
the hinge and everything falls out.
They are sprayed and hooked up,
fresh straw and chaff go in and it is
ready for business again. The
roosts are adjustable and are
cleaned in similar manner and no
offal nor dust remains. The surfaces
of the landing are all sanded so
that droppings do not stick to the
lumber, and the lumber itself was
we'll oiled and painted when built in.
The little chicks eat and drink
from automatic feeders, buttermilk
and meal and bran and other chop
being their food. At the age when
they use large quantities of butter
milk, they are fed from shallow pans
about like pie pans, but each pan has
has a cover made of a thin board
with inch holes bored for them to
reach thru to get the milk. The
pans are all placed on raised plat
forms so the chicks have to hop up
and thereby make quite an effort to
get to the food. AS they grow larger
the height of the platform Is in
creased SO they still have to make an
effort to get up to it. The chicks
are kept for a while on board floors
in a heated room that is we'll venti-
lated both day and night. Papers
are spread on the floor and these are
taken up every few hours and
burned and fresh ones laid down
while the chicks are out.
Large dry yards are provided for
the larger chicks, and clean bright
straw and chat kept for them to
work in. When load of it is
dumped in on the ground 1t is left in
round pile, perhaps five feet high,
and the chicks begin working at the
bottom. A ring Of chicks form
about it and others crowd in from
behind. The first ones step up
higher and begin to work, but still
the crowding goes on from the rear
and up they 60 little at time un-
til they are on the top and the rest
are ranged in terraces all the way
up the sides all around the pile,
working like an army on q pyramid.
Those on. top are scratching and
pushing It down to the next terrace
and eating little seeds and dainty
specks that suit them. This scratch
ing process continues all the way
down thru the terraces to the bot
tom and the last ones throw 1t back
on the ground. This process goes on
until the pile is leveled down and
spread over most of the yard. It is
great sport for the chicks and they
get exercise recreation and food
from 1t beside working up an appe-
tite for another drink Of buttermilk
and few gobs of chop feed. There
is always q string Of them promen-
aiding to the automatic milk feeders
and to the automatic chop feeders
and back again.
Mr.. Hale goes to the feed yards,
where alfalfa ia being fed tn stock