Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1913 — IN FAVOR OF SUBURBAN CHICKEN RAISER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN FAVOR OF SUBURBAN CHICKEN RAISER

(By ISAAC MOTES.) While the farmer-poultryman at a distance from the city has some advantages over the near-city poultryman, the latter is not as badly handicapped on his home acre as you might think. The farmer can, of course, raise most of his feed, and his chickens have plenty of room to rustle their food in the fields, orchards, pasture and barnyard, but on the other hand, the suburban poultryman is much closer to market and can take advantage of rush orders from merchants either for eggs or dressed poultry, and he is thus in a position to get top market prices for the product of his flocks. And the near-city poultryman can get cheap feed if he knows how, for there is so much waßte in cities in the form of garbage, stale bread, buttermilk and skim milk. In a city containing a number of bakeries a poultryman can get large quantities of stale bread merely for hauling It away; or, if he pays for it, It will be only a nominal sum. All first-class bakeries sell only fresh bread, so If they bake more than they can sell each day they get rid of it tbe following day in whatever way they can. Each bakery has a box located In front of grocery stores which sell- its bread, and before closing their doorß each evening these growers put. all the bread on hand which they fpiled to sell into these boxes, &nfl next morning, before th? stores are opened, bakers’ carts come Abound and the drivers open the boxes and take out the yesterday’s bread, if any, and leave fresh bread. Then, after making the rounds of all the groceries, they tf:ke the old bread back to the bakers, and it is gotten rid of in different ways. Some bakers give away quantities of bread to the Salvation Army and other poor, charitable or religious organizations and institutions. In baking Borne kinds of bread, rolls or pastry, a portion of this old bread may be used again by drying it in an oven, grinding it in a mill, mixing it up and baking it again in some other form. But they can use only a small por-' tion of it in this way, so the most of it Is either given away to poor people, or else for chicken feed, hog feed or cattle feed. A chicken raiser near a city can easily make arrangements to get so many hundred pounds of it each week for his fowls, perhaps free, or, any

way at a price absurdly low when It* food value is considered. I have in mind now a woman in my" city who owns a restaurant, not a very large one, either. She also has a. chicken farm about twelve miles from the city, and she sends out to th* farm once a week from Bix to ten potato sacks of waste bread for her chickwhlcfc but for utilizing it thus would be thrown away. The result is that she makes a big profit oa the chickens and eggs she sells. Another kind of chicken feed which, the near-city poultryman can get in large quantities Is fresh buttermilk in cities where there are creameries or’ butter companies. Such companies sell a great deal of buttermilk, but nothing like as much as they could sell, and a jfreat deal of It is turned Into the sewer; so, if & poultryman with two or three hundred chickens wished to buy it in, say fivegallon lots, he would be able to get It very cheaply—-perhaps for five cents a gallon, for the butter maker would surely prefer selling It, even at this price, to throwing it away. This buttermilk Is especially good for chickens cooped up to fatten formarket, for the acid in the milk is good for their digestion In the winter when they cannot get green stuff, and also while they are cooped up wher* they cannot take exercise. Very few things are as fattening a* slightly sour milk curds, sweetened, heated to blood heat and with som* refuse grease or meat drippings from the kitchen added. Such fat makings food Is better for fattening chickens,, however, than for hens with broods. Put two or three gallons of this milk In a large pot, sweeten it with cheapbrown. sugar and add the meat drippings, stir while It is heating, and pour into a small flour sack or other thin sack, and hang up In a warm place to drip. Put a pan under it to catch the whey, which is good, for making bran or corn meal mashes. When the curds are reasonably dry, dip them out as needed, and put them in little troughs alongside the coops, where the chickens can reach th* food through the wires without getting into it with their feet. Pjit in only what they will eat up clean each time. Another advantage the small poultryman has near the city is that h» is accessible to dairies where he can get skim milk from separators, which, is also exceedingly good for fattening chickens, In making up mashes of different kinds. (Copyright, 1913. by C. M. Shultz.)

This New York Woman Raises Nearly 1,000 Chickens on Stale Bread From Her City Restaurant.