Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1869 — Early Chickens. [ARTICLE]

Early Chickens.

For this latitude and with the necessary facilities for protecting the young broods against the storms and inclemencies incident to the season, I esteem the months of April and May as the best for having them come forward; while in regions farther south I should prefer to have them hatched out at least a month earlier. Now, this preference for early hatching is predicated in part upon the supposition that somebody will look after, the welfare of young birds, and not allow them to be given over entirely to the mother’s care. Where they are to be abandoned entirely to their mother, and to straggle and scratch their way np as best they may be able, 1 think the better plan will be to allow the bens themselves to determine the time and season when they will bring forth their broods. Chickens hatched in the early spring, where properly protected and tended, are generally more vigorous and healthy, grow more rapidly through the summer months, and make larger fowls than those arriving in latter portions of the breeding seasons. And, furthermore, pullets which come in the early ipriiig are so well matured that

they will commence laying in the ensuing fall, and Uy through the winter, if they are duly fed and protected. From my own observation, I am satisfied that chickens coming in early spring are less liable to that pestiferous affection called gapes (a disease which destroys thousands Manually and. which Is caused by * little red and threadlike worm, which u supposed to be produced through the spring rains or night dew, and finds its way, through the food or drink of the young chick, into its windpipe, and there remains and feeds till the lungs of the little birds are perforated, and life is destroyed) than those which come at a later period, when the chilly nightdews hang heavv upon the rank grass, and .the genial sunshine of May uubars the •prison doors of that insect world, evoked from its long torpor, U vitalized into an j afctivc ministry of evil as well as good.— American Stock Journal.