Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1891 — THE POULTRY YARD. [ARTICLE]

THE POULTRY YARD.

Poultry Profit*. Give a hen proper care and a good market for her products and the possibilities of her increased usefulness will bo marvelously surprising to those who - have scarcely credited her with earning her food and shelter. In a flock selected and cared for so as to produce 160 eggs per year, one-half of these during the cold season, setting the average winter price at 30 cents and summer price at 12% cents, tho income ought to be about $2 per hen per year. To secure winter eggs hens must be carefully sheltered, which reliable authority states can be done at an expense of 81 per hen. The interest on this will bo about 6 cents per hen for the first year. If we are genorous and allow 81 per year for foed, interest on shelter, wear and tear and risk, we still have 81 per year not profit per hen. This certainly ought to satisfy any ono for the necessary trouble of looking after a flock ofjfifty to 100,and addition of this amount to the annual income would add many comforts to tho home and ought not to be neglected. »•« Laying Type. And now we have tho egg-laying type of hens. We have had a full discussion of the milk and typo of cows, tho trotting and draft typo of horses and different types of othor animals. The long and short of the whole thing is that "an animal taking after a given type is supposed to be better adapted for tho purpose which that type is supposod to represent J. D. Tompkins, a well-known breeder of Silver Wyandots, tolls in the Fanciers' Journal what ho thinks should be the shape of the Idoal laying hen. He says to avoid long necks and legs, for they are not as good for laying or for the tablo as those having shorter necks and logs. The ideal hen should havo a broad, deep, round body of moderate length, but should not bo too chunky. The thoroughbred poultry industry is beginning to receive a good deal of morlted attention and in a few years American poultry will be sought for the sanjp as are American trotting horses. If breeders will select a type and stick to it, they will greatly improve the breed and get a class of birds that will bring 810 to 835 where they now sell for 83 a mongrel thoroughbred of unknown brooding. Feed for Egg*. An egg is largely nitrogenous. Tne white is albumen, tho yolk contains phosphoric acid and mineral substance and the shell is composed mostly of lime. Tho hen Is a small animal. Eggs are not a mlraculoUfe dispensation, as they come from the food a hen gets and converts into egg, the same as any atiimal converts its food into products. Corn alone is not a suitable food for tho production of eggs, as it does not possess enough of tho constituents to make eggs. Hens fed on such food will got fat Hons, like every other animal, must have coarse food to distend the stomach and bowels and for this purpose cut clovor bay and cabbage are largely fed by many. These also contain material to make eggs. Sklmmilk is also just the thing for an egg food. To got eggs, food hens to produce eggs.—[Col. F. D. Curtis, Kirby Homestead, N. Y.