People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — Keeping a Thousand Hens. [ARTICLE]

Keeping a Thousand Hens.

To keep a thousand hens is a task that requires experience. No one should attempt it except by first beginning with a few, and gradually extending, says the Poultry Keeper, One who has never ventured into the keeping of so large a number is incurring as much risk as if he attempted the banking business without experience. A subscriber sends us a diagram of a single, square house, with yards diverging in every direction, and asks if it is practicable. We are not favorable to such a plan. In the first place, a thousand hens in one house renders the whole liable to be swept away by disease, and some of them never have the sunlight in their quarters, especially in winter when the warm rays of the sun are so essential to thrift.

To keep large numbers, they should be divided into flocks not more than twenty-five, and each as though it was the only flock to be cared for, and not subject to any drawbacks that may occur with any adjoining flock. Should disease occur, it should be confined to the yard where it first appeared. When a few hens only kept, no consideration is given the cost of labor, but for a thousand hens labor is an

item of expense. There is much to learn regarding the characteristics of each breed, and the matter of feeding for eggs and for market must be made a study. There are hundreds of obstacles in the way, and we doubt if there are but few farms in this country where so large a number is kept. As experience is the key to success, the keeping of large numbers should only be attempted after smaller flocks have been managed, and record kept of the mode of mangeihent, receipts, expenditures, breeds used, and the treatment of diseases. The roup or cholera may scatter the whole flock to the wind in a week. Only those who have begun at the bottom and worked up to each round of the ladder can succeed with large numbers.