CHAPTER VMANAGEMENT OF FOWLS

[5]Photograph from Tienken and Case, Rochester, Michigan.

Fig. 40.Dark Brahma hen

Chinese races.In China a type of fowl in some ways much like the Malay, in others quite different, had been developed as the common stock of the country. They were about as tall as the Malays, much heavier, and very quiet and docile. They were of various colors, had feathers on the shanks and feet, and laid brown eggs. Some of these fowls were brought to America in sailing vessels very early in the last century and occasionally after that until the middle of the century, but attracted no attention, for the birds were brought in small numbers for friends of sailors or for persons particularly interested in poultry, and at that time there was no means of communication between fanciers in different localities.

Fig. 41.Dark Brahma cockerel

Japanese races.Although the Japanese races of fowls had no particular influence on the development of poultry culture in America, they are of great interest in a study of poultry types, because, whenintercourse between Japan and Western nations began, it was found that the ordinary fowls of Japan were much like the ordinary fowls of Europe and America, and not, as would be expected, like the fowls of China. This indicated that there had been no exchange of fowls between China and Japan after the type in China became changed. It also affords strong evidence that the fowls of India and China, although so changed, were originally like the European and Japanese common fowls. The special races developed in Japan were Game Fowls, more like the European than the Malay type; a long-tailed fowl, very much like the Leghorn in other respects; and the very short-legged Japanese Bantam.

Fig. 42.Long-Tailed Japanese Phœnix cockerel. (Photograph from Urban Farms, Buffalo, New York)

The "hen-fever" period.We are all familiar with the phrase "the hen fever" and with its application to persons intensely interested in poultry, but few know how it originated. The interest in better poultry that had been slowly growing in the Eastern states culminated in 1849 in an exhibition in the Public Garden in Boston, to which fanciers from eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and eastern Connecticut brought their choicest and rarest specimens. This was the first poultry show held in America. Nearly fifteen hundred birds were exhibited, and the exhibitors numbered over two hundred. There werea few birds of other kinds, but fowls made by far the greater part of the show. All the principal races of Europe and Asia were represented. Most of the exhibitors lived in the immediate vicinity of Boston. About ten thousand people attended this exhibition.

Such an event created a great sensation. Newspaper reports of it reached all parts of the country. The Chinese fowls, so large when compared with others, were most noticed. At once a great demand for these fowls and for their eggs arose, and prices for fancy poultry, which previously had been but little higher than prices for common poultry, rose so high that those who paid such prices for fowls were commonly regarded as monomaniacs. While the interest was not as great in other kinds of fowls as in the Shanghais, Cochin Chinas, and "Brahmaputras," as they were then called, all shared in the boom, and within a few years there was hardly a community in the northeastern part of the United States where there was not some one keeping highly bred fowls. When the interest became general, the famous showman, P. T. Barnum, promoted a show of poultry in the American Museum in New York City. Many celebrated men became interested in fine poultry. Daniel Webster had been one of the exhibitors at the first show in 1849. The noted temperance lecturer, John B. Gough, was a very enthusiastic fancier.

After a few years the excitement began to subside, and most people supposed that it was about to die, never to revive. A Mr. Burnham, who had been one of the most energetic promoters of Asiatic fowls, and had made a small fortune while the boom lasted, had so little confidence in the permanence of the poultry fancy that he published a book called "The History of the Hen Fever," which presented the whole movement as a humbug skillfully engineered by himself. This book was very widely read, and the phrase "the hen fever," applying to enthusiastic amateur poultry keepers, came into common use.

Subsequent developments showed that those who had supposed that the interest in fine poultry was only a passing fad were wrong. The true reason for its decline at that time was that the nation was approaching a crisis in its history and a civil war. When the war was over, the interest in poultry revived at once, and has steadily increased ever since. The prices for fine specimens, which were considered absurd in the days of the hen fever, are now ordinary prices for stock of high quality.

Fig. 43.Barred Plymouth Rock cock. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

How the American breeds arose.It is natural to suppose that with such a variety of types of fowls, from so many lands, there was no occasion for Americans to make any new breeds. If, however, you look critically at the foreign breeds, you may notice that not one of them had been developed with reference to the simple requirements of the ordinary farmer and poultry keeper. It was the increasing demand for eggs and poultry for market that had given the first impulse to the interest in special breeds. The first claim made for each of these was that it was a better layer than the ordinary fowl. In general, these claims were true, but farmers and others who were interested primarily in producing eggs and poultry for the table were rather indifferent to the foreign breeds, because, among them all, there was not one as well adapted to the ordinary American poultry keeper's needsas the old Dominique or as the occasional flocks of the old native stock that had been bred with some attention to size and to uniformity in other characters.

To every foreign breed these practical poultry keepers found some objection. The Dorking was too delicate, and its five-toed feet made it clumsy. The Hamburgs, too, were delicate, and the most skillful breeding was required to preserve their beautiful color markings. The superfluous feathers on the heads of the crested breeds and on the feet of the Asiatics were equally objectionable. All the European races except the Leghorns had white skin and flesh-colored or slate-colored feet, while in America there was a very decided popular preference for fowls with yellow skin and legs. The Leghorns and the Asiatics met this requirement, but the former were too small and their combs were unnecessarily large, while the latter were larger fowls than were desired for general use, and their foot feathering was a handicap in barnyards and on heavy, wet soils.

Fig. 44.Barred Plymouth Rock hen. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

So, while fanciers and those who were willing to give their poultry special attention, or who kept fowls for some special purpose which one of the foreign breeds suited, took these breeds up eagerly, farmers and other poultry keepers usually became interested in them only to the extent of using male birds of different breeds to cross with flocks of native and grade hens. In consequence of this promiscuous crossing, the stock in the country rapidly changed, a new type of mongrel replacing the old native stock.

While the masses of poultry keepers were thus crossing new and old stock at random, many breeders were trying systematically to produce a new breed that would meet all the popular requirements. Even before the days of the hen fever two local breeds had arisen, probably by accident. These were the Jersey Blue and the Bucks County Fowl, both of which continued down to our own time but never became popular. At the first exhibition in Boston a class had been provided for crossbred fowls, and in this was shown a new variety called the Plymouth Rock. From the descriptions of these birds now in existence it appears that they looked much like the modern Partridge Plymouth Rock. Those who brought them out hoped that they would meet the popular demand, and for a short time it seemed that this hope might be realized, but interest in them soon waned, and in a few years they were almost forgotten.

Fig. 45.White Plymouth Rock hen (Photograph from C. E. Hodgkins, Northampton, Massachusetts)

In the light of the history of American breeds which did afterwards become popular we can see now that the ideas of the masses of American poultry keepers were not as strictly practical as their objections to the various foreign breeds appeared to show. The three varieties that have just been mentioned, and many others arising from time to time, met all the expressed requirements of the practical poultry keeper quite as well as those which subsequently caught his fancy. Indeed, as will be shown farther on, some of the productions of this period, after being neglected for a long time, finally became very popular. Usually this happened when their color became fashionable.

The modern Barred Plymouth Rock.Shortly after our Civil War two poultrymen in Connecticut—one a fancier, the other a farmer—engaged in a joint effort to produce the business type of fowl that would meet the favor of American farmers. A male of the old Dominique type was crossed with some Black Cochin hens. This mating produced some chickens having the color of the sire, but larger and more robust. Another and more skillful fancier saw these chickens and persuaded the farmer to sell him a few of the best. A few years later, when, by careful breeding and selection, he had fixed the type and had specimens enough to supply eggs to other fanciers, he took some of his new breed to a show at Worcester, Massachusetts. Up to this time he had not thought of a name for them, but as people who saw them would want to know what they were called, a name was now necessary. It occurred to this man that the name "Plymouth Rock," having once been given to a promising American breed, would be appropriate. So the birds were exhibited as Plymouth Rocks.

Fig. 46.Buff Plymouth Rock cock

This new breed caught the popular fancy at once, for it had the color which throughout this country was supposed always to be associated with exceptional vigor and productiveness, and it had greater size than the Dominique. The fame of the newbreed spread rapidly. It was impossible to supply the demand from the original stock, and, as there is usually more than one way of producing a type by crossing, good imitations of the original were soon abundant. Farmers and market poultrymen by thousands took up the Plymouth Rock, while all over the land fanciers were trying to perfect the color which their critical taste found very poor.

Fig. 47.Silver-Penciled Plymouth Rock hen

Other varieties of the Plymouth Rock.The success of the Plymouth Rock gave fresh impetus to efforts to make new breeds and varieties of the same general character. Great as was its popularity, the new breed did not suit all. Some did not like the color; some objected to the single comb, thinking that a rose comb or a pea comb had advantages; some preferred a shorter, blockier body; others wanted a larger, longer body. The off-colored birds which new races usually produce in considerable numbers, even when the greater number come quite true, also suggested to some who obtained them new varieties of the Plymouth Rock, while to others it seemed better policy to give them new names and exploit them as new and distinct breeds.

Both black and white specimens came often in the early flocks of Barred Plymouth Rocks. The black ones were developed as a distinct breed, called the Black Java. The white ones, after going for a while under various names, and after strong opposition from those who claimed that the name "Plymouth Rock" belonged exclusively to birds of the color with which the name had become identified, finally secured recognition as WhitePlymouth Rocks. Almost immediately Buff Plymouth Rocks appeared. For reasons which will appear later, the origin of these will be given in another connection. Then came in rapid succession the Silver-Penciled, the Partridge, or Golden-Penciled (which, as has been said, is probably quite a close duplicate of the type to which the name "Plymouth Rock" was originally given), and the Columbian, or Ermine, Plymouth Rock. These were all of the general type of the Barred variety, but because in most cases they were made by different combinations, and because fanciers are much more particular to breed for color than to breed for typical form, the several varieties of the Plymouth Rock are slightly different in form.

Fig. 48.Silver-Laced Wyandotte pullet. Photographed in position showing lacing on back

Fig. 49.Silver-Laced Wyandotte cockerel

The Wyandottes.Closely following the appearance of the Barred Plymouth Rock came the Silver-Laced Wyandotte, called at first simply the Wyandotte. The original type was quite different in color from the modern type. It had on each feather a small white centersurrounded by a heavy black lacing. This has been gradually changed until now the white center is large and the black edging narrow. At first some of these Wyandottes had rose combs and some had single combs. The rose comb was preferred and the single-combed birds were discarded as culls.

Strange as it seems in the case of an event so recent, no one knows where the first Wyandottes came from. It is supposed that they were one of the many varieties developed either by chance or in an effort to meet the demand for a general-purpose fowl. They appear to have come into the hands of those who first exploited them in some way that left no trace of their source. They went under several different names until 1883, when the name "Wyandotte" was given them as an appropriate and euphonious name for an American breed.

Fig. 50.White Wyandotte cockerel. (Photograph from W. E. Mack, Woodstock, Vermont)

Next appeared a Golden-Laced Wyandotte, marked like the Silver-Laced variety but having golden bay where that had white. This variety was developed from an earlier variety of unknown origin, known in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois (about 1870 and earlier) under the name of "Winnebago."

The Silver-Laced Wyandottes, like the Barred Plymouth Rocks, produced some black and some white specimens. From these were made the Black Wyandottes and the White Wyandottes. Thencame the Buff Wyandottes (from the same original source as the Buff Plymouth Rocks), and after them Partridge Wyandottes, Silver-Penciled Wyandottes, and Columbian, or Ermine, Wyandottes. From the three last-named varieties came the Plymouth Rock varieties of the corresponding colors, the first stocks of these being the single-combed specimens from the flocks of breeders of these varieties of Wyandottes.

Fig. 51.Silver-Penciled Wyandotte cockerel. (Photograph from James S. Wason, Grand Rapids, Michigan)

Fig. 52.Partridge Wyandotte pullet

The Rhode Island Red.Among the earliest of the local types developed in America was a red fowl which soon became the prevalent type in the egg-farming section of Rhode Island and quite popular in the adjacent part of Massachusetts. Most of the stock of this race was produced by a continuous process of grading and crossing which was systematic only in that it was the common practice to preserve none but the red males after introducing a cross of another color. A few breeders in the district bred their flocks more carefully than others, but the race as a whole was not really thoroughbred until after it became more widely popular.

Although the formation of this race began about 1850 (perhaps earlier), it was fifty years before it became known outside of the limited area in which it was almost the only type to be seen. Indeed, the first birds of this race to attract the attention of the public were exhibited about 1890 as Buff Plymouth Rocks and Buff Wyandottes. At that time very few of the Rhode Island Reds were as dark in color as the average specimen now seen in the showroom, and buff specimens were numerous. Birds with rose combs, birds with single combs, birds with pea combs, and birds with intermediate types of comb could often be found in the same flock. So it was not a very difficult matter, among many thousands of birds, to pick out some that would pass for Buff Plymouth Rocks and some that would pass for Buff Wyandottes. These varieties were also made in other ways, mostly by various crosses with the Buff Cochin, but for some years breeders continued to draw on the Rhode Island supply.

Fig. 53.Columbian Wyandottes. (Photograph from R. G. Richardson, Lowell, Massachusetts)

Some people in the Rhode Island district thought that a breed which could thus furnish the foundation for varieties of two other breeds ought to win popularity on its own merits. So they began to exhibit and advertise Rhode Island Reds. At first they made little progress, but as the breed improved, many more people became interested in it, and soon it was one of the most popular breeds in the country. The modern exhibition Rhode Island Red is of a dark brownish red in color.

The American idea in England; the Orpington.At the time that the Chinese fowls were attracting wide attention in America and England some were taken to other countries of Europe. In almost every country they had some influence upon the native stock, but as each of the old countries had one or more improved races that suited most of those giving special attention to poultry culture, the influence of the Asiatics was less marked than in our country.

When the Plymouth Rock and the Wyandotte became popular in America, they were taken to England, where, in spite of the preference for white skin and flesh-colored legs, they were soon in such favor that a shrewd English breeder saw the advantage of making another breed of the same general type but with skin and legs of the colors preferred in England. He called his new breed the Orpington, giving it the name of the town in which he lived. The first Orpingtons were black and were made by crossing the black progeny of Plymouth Rocks (which in America had been used to make the Black Java), Black Minorcas, and Black Langshans. Then the originator of the Orpingtons put out a buff variety, which he claimed was made by another particular combination of crosses, but which others said was only an improvement of a local breed known as the Lincolnshire Buff. Later White Orpingtons and Spangled Orpingtons appeared.

Present distribution of improved races.Having briefly traced the distribution of the fowl in ancient times, and the movements which in modern times brought long-separated branches of the species together, let us look at the present situation.

The Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, and Orpingtons, which are essentially one type, the differences between them being superficial, constitute the greater part of the improved fowls of America and England and are favorites with progressive poultry keepers in many other lands. In many parts of this country one rarely sees a fowl that is not of this type,either of one of the breeds named or a grade of the same type. After the general-purpose type, the laying type, which includes the Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch races, is the most popular, but in this type popularity is limited in most places to the Leghorns and to a few breeds which, though classed as distinct breeds, are essentially the same. The Ancona is really a Leghorn, and the Andalusian, although it comes from Spain, is, like other races in that land, distinctly of the same type as the fowls of Italy.

Fig. 54.Single-Combed Buff Orpington cock. (Photograph from Miss Henrietta E. Hooker, South Hadley, Massachusetts)

With the growth of a general-purpose class, interest in the Asiatic fowls rapidly declined. They are now kept principally by fanciers and by market poultry growers who produce extra large fowls for the table.

Deformed and dwarf races.Although some of the races of fowls that have been considered have odd characters which, when greatly exaggerated, are detrimental and bring the race to decay, such characters as large combs, crests, feathered legs, and the peculiar development of the face in the Black Spanish fowl, when moderately developed, do not seriously affect the usefulness of fowls possessing them. With a little extra care they usually do as well as fowls of corresponding plain types. Poultry keepers who admire such decorations and keep only a few birds do not find the extra care that they require burdensome, andconsequently all these races have become well established and at times popular. It is notable that in all fowls of this class the odd character is added to the others or is an exaggeration of a regular character. There are two other classes of odd types of fowls. The first of these is made up of a small group of varieties defective in one character; the second comprises the dwarf varieties, most of which are miniatures of larger varieties.

Silky fowls.In all races of fowls individuals sometimes appear in which the web of the feathers is of a peculiar formation, resembling hair. Such fowls are called silkies. They are occasionally exhibited as curiosities but are not often bred to reproduce this character. There is one distinct race of white fowls, so small that it is usually classed as a bantam, having feathers of this kind.

Fig. 55.Single-Combed White Orpington hen. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

Frizzled fowls.The feathers of a fowl are sometimes curled at the tips, like the short curls in the feathers which indicate the sex of a drake. Such birds are called frizzles or frizzled fowls. True frizzles, like true silkies from races having normal plumage, are very rare. Many of the fowls exhibited at poultry shows as Frizzles are ordinary birds the feathers of which have been curled artificially.

Rumpless fowls.The tail feathers of a fowl are borne on a fleshy protuberance at the lower end of the spine. It sometimes happens that one or more of the lower vertebræ are missing. In that case the fowl has no tail and the feathers on the back, which in a normal fowl divide and hang down at eachside, fall smoothly all around. True rumpless fowls are rare. Many of the specimens exhibited are birds from which the rump was removed when they were very young.

Bantams.Dwarf, or bantam, fowls, on account of their diminutive size and pert ways, are especially attractive to children. Breeding them to secure the minimum size, the desired type, and fine quality in plumage color has the same fascination for a fancier as the breeding of large fowls, and as the small birds are better adapted to small spaces, fanciers who have little room often devote themselves to the breeding of bantams. The larger and hardier varieties of bantams are good for eggs and poultry for home use, but are not often kept primarily for these products. Most people who keep bantams keep only a few for pleasure, and the eggs and poultry they furnish are but a small part of what the family consumes. Bantam keepers who have a surplus of such products can usually find customers in their own neighborhood. The very small bantams and the very rare varieties are usually delicate and so hard to rear that amateurs who try them soon become discouraged and either give up bantams or take one of the hardy kinds. It is better to begin with one of the popular varieties, which are as interesting as any and, on the whole, are the most satisfactory.

Fig. 56.White Cochin Bantam cockerel

Origin of bantams.After the explanation of the origin of varieties given inChapter III, and the description of the evolution of the different races of fowls in the present chapter, itis perhaps not really necessary to tell how dwarf races of fowls originated; but the belief that such races were unknown until brought to Europe from the city of Bantam, in the Island of Java, is so widespread that it can do no harm to give the facts which disprove this and in doing so to show again how easily artificial varieties are made by skillful poultry fanciers.

Fig. 57.Bantams make good pets

As has been stated, people who do not understand the close relations of the different races of fowls, and do not know how quickly new types may be established by careful breeding, attach a great deal of importance to purity of breed. Hence, unscrupulous promoters of new breeds have often claimed that they received their original stock direct from some remote place or from some one who had long bred it pure. The idea of assigning thetown of Bantam as the home of a true species of dwarf domestic fowl seems to have occurred to some one in England more than a hundred years ago, and to have been suggested because of the resemblance of the name of this Asiatic city to the English word "banty," the popular name for a dwarf fowl. It seems strange that such a fiction should be accepted as accounting for dwarf varieties of European races, but it was published by some of the early writers, used by lexicographers, and, having found a place in the dictionaries, was accepted as authoritative by the majority of later writers on poultry, even after some of the highest authorities had shown conclusively that this view of the origin of dwarf races was erroneous.

Fig. 58.Black-Tailed White Japanese Bantams. (Photograph from Frederick W. Otte, Peekskill, New York)

Fig. 59.White Polish Bantam hen

Fig. 60.White Polish Bantam cock

No evidence of the existence of a dwarf race of fowls in Java has ever been produced. The Chinese and Japanese bantams did not come to Europe and America until long after the name "bantam" came into use. Dwarfs occur and undoubtedly have occurred frequently in every race of fowls. Usually they areunsymmetrical and weakly, and are called runts and put out of the way as soon as possible. But occasionally an undersized individual is finely formed, active, and hardy. By mating such a specimen with the smallest specimen of the other sex that can be found (even though the latter is much larger), and by repeated selection of the smallest specimens, a dwarf race may be obtained. It could be made, though not so rapidly, by systematic selection of the smallest ordinary specimens and by keeping the growing chicks so short of food that they would be stunted. The latter process, however, is so tedious that no one is likely to adopt it. Usually the idea of making a new variety of bantams does not occur to a breeder until he sees a good dwarf specimen of a race of which there is no dwarf variety. Then, if he undertakes to make such a variety, he is likely to use in the process both small specimens of large races and birds of long-established dwarf races.

Fig. 61.Black Cochin Bantam pullet[6]

Fig. 62.Black Cochin Bantam cockerel[6]

[6]Photograph from Dr. J. N. MacRae, Galt, Ontario.

Fig. 63.Rose-Comb Black Bantam cock

Fig. 64.Rose-Comb Black Bantam hen[7]

[7]Photograph from Grove Hill Poultry Yards, Waltham, Massachusetts.

Dwarf types of most of the popular breeds have been made here and exhibited, but the originators were given very little encouragement to perfect them.

Fig. 65.Silver Sebright Bantam cockerel

Fig. 66.Silver Sebright Bantam pullet

Fig. 67.Dark Brahma Bantam cockerel

Fig. 68.Light Brahma Bantam hen with brood[8]

[8]Photograph from Brook View Farm, Newbury, Massachusetts.

Varieties of bantams.The most popular bantams in this country to-day are the Cochin Bantams, formerly called Pekin Bantams because the first that were seen in Europe and America had come from Peking. Only the self-colored varieties—buff, black, and white—are natives of China. The Partridge variety was made in England, where there are several other color varieties not known in this country. The Common Game Bantam is a dwarf Pit Game fowl; the Exhibition Game Bantam is a dwarf type resembling the Exhibition Game, developed from the Common Game Bantam. Rose-Comb Black and Rose-Comb White Bantams are diminutive Hamburg fowls; Polish Bantams are diminutive Polish. The Sebright Bantams are of the same general type as the Rose-Combs, but in color they are laced like the large varieties of Polish, not spangled like the party-colored Hamburgs. They are further distinguished by being "hen-tailed," that is, the males having tails like hens. Sebright Bantams were made inEngland about a hundred years ago, by Sir John Sebright, for whom they were named. Although the large Brahmas and Cochins are originally of the same stock, no bantams of the colors of the Brahmas have come from China. The Light and Dark Brahma Bantams were made in England and America in very recent times. From Japan has come a peculiar type of bantam with very short legs, a large tail carried very high, and a large single comb. In their native country the Japanese Bantams are not separated into distinct color varieties. In England and America there are black, white, gray, black-tailed white, and buff varieties.

The methods of managing fowls vary according to the conditions under which they are kept and the time that the keeper can give them. Fowls ought to have an outdoor run, and it is desirable that this should be large enough to be kept in sod; but very few people in towns can give their fowls grass yards, and the advantages of an outdoor run will not in themselves compensate for neglect in other matters. Hence we often see fowls under poor conditions, with good care, doing better than fowls, in a much more favorable environment, that are given indifferent care. No absolute rules for keeping fowls under any given conditions can be made. In general, small flocks of fowls that have free range or large, grassy yards need very little attention, while those that are closely confined require a great deal.

With good care the egg production of fowls in close confinement is often better than that from fowls at liberty, but if the cost of caring for the fowls is computed at current rates for common labor, the rate of compensation is often higher on fowls running at large than on fowls in confinement which are producing many more eggs. The question of profits from amateur poultry keeping, however, should not be considered solely with reference to the compensation for time used, nor should such work be adjusted wholly with reference to economic results, for it combines recreation, education, and money compensation, and the first two results should have as much consideration as the last.

In this chapter the methods adapted to small flocks are first described for the instruction of the pupil, and then descriptions of operations on a larger scale are given for his information.

Numbers in flocks.The average number of fowls kept by a town family for its own use is about one dozen. Very few who keep hens have less than half a dozen, and not many who plan only to supply their own tables have more than a dozen and a half. Six fowls, if well cared for, will produce all the eggs used by an average family of two or three persons during the greater part of the year.

Houses and yards.For a dozen medium-sized fowls the house should be about 8 ft. × 8 ft. on the ground, with the highest point of the roof about 6 or 7 feet from the floor. The general rule is to make the poultry house face the sun, and have the windows and the outside doors in or near the front. The object of this is to get as much sunlight in the house as possible in winter, when the sun is low, and to have the walls tight that are exposed to the prevailing cold winds. In the Northern Hemisphere the front of the house is toward the south; in the Southern Hemisphere it is toward the north. In tropical and subtropical countries houses are often so constructed that they can be kept open on all sides in summer and closed tightly, except in front, during cool weather.

Fig. 69.Small house used for fowls and pigeons

If the land on which a house stands is sandy and well drained, the floor may be of earth. The common practice where earth floors are used is to fill the earth level with the top of the silland renew it once a year by removing the soil that has become mixed with droppings of the fowls and putting in fresh earth. When a house stands on wet land or on clay soil, it is better to have a floor of boards or of cement.

Fowls may be confined to a house for a year or more and lay well and be in apparently good condition at the end of such a period, but as the chickens hatched from the eggs of fowls that have been so closely confined for even a few months are almost invariably less vigorous than those produced from fowls that live a more natural life, this plan is not much used except by those who keep a few fowls for their eggs only and renew the stock by purchase as often as necessary.

Fig. 70.An old-style small poultry house and yard

To give a flock of a dozen fowls outdoor air and exercise enough to keep them in good condition, a yard containing about 300 sq. ft. is necessary. There is no perceptible advantage in giving more yard room than this, unless the yard can be made so large that grass will grow continuously in the greater partof it. On most soils this would require a yard containing from 750 to 1000 sq. ft. in sod before being used for poultry.

Fig. 71.Coop and shade for flock of Bantams[9]

[9]The coop is an old dry-goods box; the shade is a burlap bag. Makeshift arrangements are not always nice looking, but some of the finest chickens are kept in very poor quarters.

When fowls are confined to their houses, or to the houses and small yards, the droppings must be removed at frequent, regular intervals. To facilitate this it is customary to have a wide board, called the droppings board, under the roost at a distance of eight or ten inches. All the droppings made while the birds are on the roost fall on this board and are easily collected and removed. It is a good plan to keep a supply of dry earth in a convenient place, and strew a little of this over the droppings board after each cleaning. Sifted coal ashes, land plaster, and dry sawdust are sometimes used instead of earth on the droppings boards. The droppings of fowls, when not mixed with other matter, are often salable for use in tanning leather, but in most cases the difference in their value for this purpose and for use asplant fertilizer is not great enough to pay for the extra trouble which is made by saving them for the tanners. Poultry manure is one of the most valuable fertilizers and can always be used to good advantage on lawns and gardens.

Fig. 72.Neat house for six hens

If the floor is of wood or of cement, a thin layer of earth or sand spread upon it makes it more comfortable for the fowls. On all kinds of floors the modern practice is to use a few inches of litter of some kind. There is a great variety of materials that will serve this purpose. Lawn clippings raked up after they are dry, dried weeds and grass from the garden, leaves collected when dry and stored to be used as wanted, straw, hay, cornstalks cut into short lengths, and shavings, such as are sold baled for bedding horses and cattle, are all good. Fresh litter should be added in small quantities about once a week. About once a month the coarse litter on top should be raked aside, and the fine litter mixed with droppings underneath removed. Once or twice a year all the material should be taken out and a fresh start made.

Fig. 73.House for a dozen fowls. Floor, 8 ft. × 8 ft.; height at sides, 4 ft.; height in middle, 7 ft.

When kept in a house having an earth floor, fowls will scratch aside the litter from small spaces and wallow and dust themselves. In houses having hard floors, shallow boxes about 2 ft. square,containing several inches of dry earth, are placed for the birds' dust baths. Fresh earth must be provided frequently or they will not use the bath as freely as is desirable. For use in winter the earth must be so dry that it will not freeze, but the birds prefer earth that is slightly moist. The first function of the dust bath is to clean the feathers, and damp earth does this much better than earth that is very dry. In wallowing to clean their plumage fowls also rid themselves of lice. When it is not convenient to store much earth, the same material may do double service—first in the dust bath, then on the droppings board.

Fig. 74.Small houses in back yard

In a bare yard the soil should be turned over often, all the matter that can be raked up with a fine rake having first been removed. A yard that is in grass requires little care except near the house, where the ground may be bare. Here it should be forked over occasionally.

Feeding.The feeding of a small flock of fowls is a very simple process. The table and kitchen waste of an ordinary family will furnish all the soft food that they need, and usually enough green food to prevent their suffering for lack of such foods if no other provision is made for supplying them. This waste should not be carried from the house as it is made, and thrown on the ground for the fowls to pick out of the dirt. A better way is to provide a covered jar large enough to hold the accumulation of this material for a day. Into this may be put all the leavings from the table, except such things as orange andbanana peelings, large bones, and pieces of fat meat. Once a day, at whatever time is most convenient, the contents of the jar should be mixed with as much corn meal and bran (equal parts by measure) as will take up the water in them and make a moist but not sloppy mash. This should be fed in a clean trough. If the trough stands high enough from the floor to keep the contents clean, it will do no harm if more food is given than the birds will eat up at once, but the quantity given should never be so great that it will not be eaten before the next feeding time.

Most people find the morning the most convenient time to give the mash. If the mash is fed in the morning, a small feed of hard grain should be given about noon, and a more liberal one an hour or two before sunset. Some poultry keepers feed the different grains separately; others mix them before feeding. Advocates of different practices often imagine advantages for that which they favor, but no advantage can be demonstrated for either. Wheat and cracked corn are the grains most used in this country; they are about equal in feeding value. As corn is nearly always cheaper than wheat, the usual practice is to feed about twice as much corn. When the grains are mixed, one part (by measure) of wheat is used to two parts of cracked corn. When they are fed separately, it is usual to feed the wheat at noon, as the light feed, and the corn in the evening, as the heavy feed. All the common grains except rye make good poultry foods. Why fowls do not like rye is one of the puzzles of poultry keeping. In some countries it is used for poultry to a greater extent than in the United States, and fowls forced to eat it here have done very well for short periods, but will not eat it readily if they are accustomed to other grains and can get enough to sustain life without it. Fowls do not like dry oats so well as corn and wheat, but have not such a dislike for them as for rye. They are very fond of oats soaked in water and partly sprouted.

Fig. 75.With curtains closed

Fig. 76.With one curtain open

Fig. 77.As an open-front house

POULTRY HOUSE USED AT THE CENTRAL EXPERIMENT STATION, OTTAWA, CANADA. (Photograph from the station)

The quantity of grain to be given any flock of fowls must be determined by trial and observation. The grain should not be fed in troughs from which the birds can eat it very quickly, but scattered in the litter on the floor, so that the fowls will take exercise scratching it out, and eat slowly. There is an advantage in giving some soft and quickly digested food, but if too much of the food can be eaten quickly, the birds do not take exercise enough. When there is grass in the poultry yard, it is a good plan to scatter the grain in the grass sometimes in fine weather. The hens will find it all, and in scratching it out will bring up the dead grass, and a better sod will grow afterward.

Fig. 78.Flock of Barred Plymouth Rocks

A dozen medium-sized fowls, if fed in the morning with the mash described above, would probably need a little over a pint of grain in the middle of the day and about a quart toward evening. An experienced feeder can usually tell by the eagerness of the fowls for their food whether to increase or diminish the quantity; but the most expert poultry keeper does not rely upon this kind of observation alone. Occasionally, before giving food, he looks in the litter to see if there is grain leftthere from previous feedings, and if he finds much, gives no more until the birds have eaten this all up clean.

Water should be given as often as is necessary to keep the supply quite fresh. In cool (but not freezing) weather, once a day is usually sufficient. In hot weather the water should be fresh two or three times a day, in order that the birds may have cool drinks. In freezing weather many poultry keepers give the water warm, because then it does not freeze so quickly. The advantage of this is very slight, and wattles that are wet with warm water in extreme cold weather become especially susceptible to frost. It is not really necessary to give fowls water when they can get snow or ice in a form in which they can eat it.

Fig. 79.Flock of Single-Comb White Leghorns

Hens that are laying must be well supplied with oyster shells or lime in some form for the shells of the eggs. They can get a part of the lime required for this purpose from the lime in foodstuffs, but not nearly enough to make good thick shells for all their eggs when they are laying well. Ground oyster shells are sold by all dealers in poultry supplies.

Fig. 80.White Wyandotte hen and chicks

Growing chickens.Where old fowls have to be kept in close confinement, very little can be done in growing chickens. Some amateur poultry keepers raise in small, bare yards birds that are as good as the average chickens grown under more favorable conditions, but where one succeeds in doing this a hundred fail. Most of the chickens grown in close quarters are very poor indeed in comparison with farm-grown chickens, and quite unfit to be kept for laying or breeding purposes. Those who succeed in growing good chickens in a small place usually give a great deal more time to the work than the chickens produced are worth. The best way for a poultry keeper so situated to get as much as possible of the pleasure of this interesting line of work is to hatch a few broods and, when the chicks are large enough, broil, eat, or sell all but a few of the best pulletsand one or two cockerels. If these thrive, they may be worth keeping for a year; but if, as they mature, they do not seem rugged, it is not wise to use them for laying stock.

Where there is room to give young chickens a good grass yard, a limited number can be grown to maturity year after year on a town lot and used for laying and breeding purposes. Many town poultry keepers who might grow a few very good chickens never grow a good one because they always try to raise too many for the space at their disposal. Fifty or a hundred chickens may be kept until two months old on a plot of land only large enough to carry twelve or fifteen to maturity. So people start out with a great many more chickens than they ought to have on their land, never thinking that the better their chickens do at the start the sooner they will begin to overcrowd their quarters, and that when that stage is reached, the promising results of several months' work may in a few days be ruined beyond remedy. After they are two or three months old, young chickens will not make the best growth of which they are capable unless they have either a great deal of room or a great deal more care than most people who raise only a few, and have other work to do, can afford to give them.

Numbers in flocks.The ordinary farm flock consists of from fifty to one hundred adult fowls and, during the growing season, from one hundred to two hundred chickens. The old stock is usually kept in one or more small houses located among the other outbuildings, and all run together during the day. If the farmer wants to keep the fowls out of the dooryard and the kitchen garden, he does not make yards for the fowls, but incloses the dooryard and garden. Outside of these the birds go where they please. The coops for the young chickens are often kept in the dooryard or the garden until the chickensare weaned, but after that the young birds are nearly always turned out to take their chances with the old ones.

Fig. 81.A small farm stock of fowls, ducks, and turkeys

Under such conditions a farm flock is not often very productive, yet, as the birds secure a large part of their food by foraging, the flock may be more profitable than a more productive flock for which all food is bought and upon which a great deal of labor is expended. While this way of keeping fowls on farms is not in itself commendable, it is not to be altogether condemned, because circumstances often compel the farmer to treat his fowls as a sort of volunteer or self-producing crop. The conditions on a farm admit of this, and as a matter of fact the greater part of our enormous total production of eggs and poultry comes from the half-neglected flocks on the ordinary farms. Hence the conditions are tolerable where they are necessary, but whenever it is possible to give farm fowls enough attention to obviate the faults of common practice, the product and the profits can be greatly increased with very little increase in thecost of production. In this section we consider the best methods of securing this result when all the old stock is to be kept as one flock. Old stock and young ought always to be separated unless the old birds constitute an insignificant portion of the flock.

Fig. 82.Good poultry house on Texas farm. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

Single houses for farm flocks.It is as true on a farm as elsewhere that the greatest yields of eggs and the best growth in young birds are secured when the flock is divided into small groups. But a farm flock of the class under consideration, while it makes its headquarters in such buildings as may be provided, will forage a considerable distance in every direction, going among growing crops from which the larger farm animals must be excluded, and also following the larger animals in their stables, yards, and pastures and picking up food left by them. As fowls also eat many weeds and seeds of weeds, and all kinds of destructive insects, the advantages of letting them run at large more than make up for lower production. Also the production is normal and can be easily maintained from year to year in the same line of stock, while high production secured by extra care is forced and can be maintainedin the same line of stock for only a few generations. A flock of one hundred fowls or less, that run together, may all be kept in one house just as well as in several, if the size of the house and the equipment are in proportion to the size of the flock.

Fig. 83.Rude poultry house on a Kansas farm. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

If the snow lies long on the ground, so that the fowls are confined to the house much of the time in winter, the allowance of floor space should be about 5 sq. ft. per bird. Where the snow rarely lies more than a day or two at a time, less space may be given, because the birds will not occupy the house much of the time during the day. Under such conditions the allowance of floor space may be as low as 3 sq. ft. per bird. Those who go to this limit, however, should consider that, in the unusual case of a snowstorm keeping the hens confined to the house for more than a very few days, overcrowding may cause losses that more than offset what was gained by using the highest capacity of the house.

Usually a flock of fifty hens needs a house with a floor surface of about 250 sq. ft. This is obtained in a house 16 ft. square or in a house 12 ft. × 24 ft. A house 20 ft. square is about right for seventy-five or eighty hens, and is not badly overcrowded if one hundred medium-sized birds are put into it. If an oblong building is preferred, a house 12 ft. wide by 42 ft. long gives one hundred birds 5 sq. ft. of floor space per bird. Houses of such size should be from 4 ft. to 7 ft. high at the sides, and from 7 ft. to 10 ft. high at the highest point of the roof, according to the style of construction.

Fig. 84.Good poultry house on a Kansas farm. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)

Feeding.In the feeding of a farm flock the first thing to consider is what the birds can pick up by foraging. The poultry keeper on a farm, even more than the poultry keeper elsewhere, should make it a rule to do nothing for poultry that they can do for themselves. Fowls can do more for themselvesat some seasons than at others, because natural food is more abundant. As fowls do not usually go very far from their house, the larger the flock the less food each bird will secure. On some farms quite a large flock of fowls can get all the food they need about the barns and stockyards and in orchards and fields near the homestead.

Fig. 85.Poultry house at Mississippi Agricultural College.[10](Photograph from the college)

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