Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1887 — THE POULTRY-YARD. [ARTICLE]

THE POULTRY-YARD.

Hah n'i tjliirj/enn Naluralli/. Of all the work connected with poultry, writes Harry Hales in the Rural New Yorker, none is more troublesome or tedious than the looking after sitting hens and their nests while incubating. If the hens are allowed to sit in the poultry-house where they laid, and where other hens are laying, a great many vexatious annoyances occur. Two hens will sometimes tight for one nest and so break some of the eggs, or the sitting hen goes off, and on returning finds the nest occupied by an intruder This slate of affairs is fully set forth by persons who strongly recommend incubators; but as every farmer has not time to attend to an incubator, I will give a little of my own experience in raising chickens by the natural method, aided by a plan which most farmers can follow. I have a small building divided by a wire partition into two parts, with a door from one to the other, and a small yard made with wire netting, also divided. I have a slide from each compartment into each yard. The size of the house will depend on the number of chickens desired. Two rooms 4x6 feet, with yards twice that size, will be large enough for fourteen hens to sit in, and if these sit twice it will be equal to fifty-six sitting hens. In most cases the houses may be used a third time, raising several hundred chicks. When my hens get broody I set a lot together in one house, using small, shallow boxes for nests—not over eleven or twelve inches square—so that two hehs can not crowd into one nest. I set these on the floor all around the sides and a few inches apart, so that a greedy hen can not reach the eggs from the next nest, as such hens are very apt to break the tenth commandment. I leave water and food in the house, so that the hens can eat or drink at anytime when they come off the nests. There are no perches in the houses or anything they can get on above the nests. A dust box sunk level with the floor, with sand and ashes, and with a little carbolate of lime or carbolic acid sprinkled in from time to time, placed where tne sun shines on it through' the windows on clear days, will keep the hens clear of parasites. A little sod or grass in the yards is good for their health. I don’t have trouble once in fifty times in

removing a sitting hen. I let her sit a few days in the nest she has been laying in, to see that she is in earnest, then I remove her one evening to the sitting-house, place her nest on the floor (as above) and if a number of others can be removed at the same time, so much the better. Then I hang something up over the window to shade the light a little. This may remain for a few days until one learns that all means business, and as soon ns they settle down the shade should be removed, and the slides into the yards may be left open that hens may get frosh air whenever they please. " ‘ .■ 4 The advantage of this system may be easily seen by those who have had to spend a large portion on their valuable time in spring watching the sitting hens or lifting them off and driving them back to their nests every day. As many as possible should be set at or about the same time—a few days are not of much consequence—so that if the hens change nests it would be of no importance, and if there are no more nests than hens and the nests are a little way from each other, so that the hens can not quarrel, things will go on very smoothly, and much loss of time and Vexation will be avoided. The second batch of sitting hens should be set in the next compartment so that they all come ont together in the some way as the first. The house should be well ventilated every dny and never be tightly closed. As the hens hatch they should be removed with the chicks so their coops where it is intended to raise them. The outlay of money for such a building to those who raise any number of chickens is trifling compared with the outlay of time required by the old-fashioned way, and much is saved, as the hens do not break so many eggs. Of course, the nests should be looked to and kept clean, but if a little sulphur be sprinkled in them, or, what is better. some tobacco stems be used with the straw in making them up, few will be troubled with vermin. The hens should be lifted off at times if they do not get off of their own accord to see that no broken eggs foul the nests. If only a few chickens are wanted, a place 4xß feet, with a low roof and a door opening outward in each room, if divided, will answer well.