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    A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner
    A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner
    A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner
    Ebook267 pages2 hours

    A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner

    By Roy Jones

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    About this ebook

    This early work on poultry husbandry is a fascinating read for any poultry enthusiast, but also contains much information that is still useful and practical today. It will prove of much interest to the amateur poultry keeper as well as those in the field of agriculture. Extensively illustrated with text and full page photographs. Contents Include: Should I Keep Poultry?; What Size Flock?; Poultry Houses and Fixtures; Selecting High Quality Stock; When and How to Start; Brooding Chicks; Rearing; Management and Selection of Growing Stock; Laying Flock Management; Culling and Selection; Candling, Grading and Preserving Eggs; Growing Meat Chickens; Killing and Dressing Poultry; Marketing Poultry; Cleaning and Sanitation; Poultry Diseases; Poultry Breeding; Keep Poultry Accounts; Home-Grown Crops for Poultry; Basic Ways to Cook Poultry and Eggs; and an Index. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSastri Press
    Release dateJan 8, 2021
    ISBN9781528762731
    A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner

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      Book preview

      A Basic Chicken Guide For The Small Flock Owner - Roy Jones

      1.

      Should I keep Poultry?

      NEARLY everyone who is at all acquainted with outdoor life and agricultural activity, particularly livestock, has had at sometime an attack of poultry fever when they longed to have a flock of poultry to take care of. Our present national emergency and the extreme food shortage bring this feeling back to life and the question of poultry keeping as an attractive help, if not an actual necessity, in feeding the family.

      Poultry keeping fits well into our live-at-home program because it is a pleasant and profitable method of using spare time. Poultry work is not hard but it is exacting. Poultry, like other livestock, must have feed, water and shelter every day in the year. This does not mean that someone must be on hand to feed the chickens two or three times each day because there are different feeding and management programs that make it possible to fit the poultry work schedule into almost any type of family life. It does mean that someone must be keenly interested in poultry; that someone must make it his or her business to see and do the many little things that make the difference between good and poor poultry management. The old saying, The eye of the feeder fattens the cattle, applies equally well to poultry. The real poultryman must become acquainted with his flock. He must learn to recognize their needs and get a world of satisfaction out of their response in growth and egg production.

      Are Surroundings Favorable?

      Poultry can be kept in almost any climate under a great variety of conditions. Poultry can be brooded, reared, and kept for egg production entirely indoors without ever setting a foot on the ground. In fact, poultry can be brooded and reared in batteries and will produce profitably in laying cages under artificial conditions without ever seeing the light of day, but these methods are not suggested for the beginner.

      FIGURE 1. A backyard flock can be a real pleasure, a source of excellent food and a financial help.

      Ideal surroundings for a backyard flock would be where the building lots are at least 200 feet square or approximately an acre. This would allow placing the backyard poultry enterprise a sufficient distance from the owner’s and the neighbor’s house to avoid the usual objection which is noise and dust. The neighbor’s poultry is seldom looked on with favor, but the backyard flock need not be a nuisance.

      A backyard poultry house, well built and painted, can be attractive. A yard for young stock or laying hens, well fenced and large enough to maintain a permanent sod, presents no objection. If desired, a backyard poultry enterprise may be entirely screened from view by a hedge or by trees.

      Is Venture Temporary or Permanent?

      Because of conditions, the backyard flock may have to be of a temporary nature, in which case existing buildings should be remodeled and used if possible. An empty garage stall or a part of the woodshed may be partitioned off and used to advantage.

      FIGURE 2. A small flock of chicks and a laying house can be an addition to the backyard if the buildings are well built and painted, and the grass is kept green.

      If new houses must be built, they can be small enough to be portable or built in sections. A well-built, well-proportioned, backyard poultry house can be used later as a child’s playhouse, a bicycle house or a tool shed.

      The backyard poultry venture that is to be carried over a period of years should be carefully thought out with provision for changing needs and eventual size and capacity. Growing pains in such a venture are always expensive. How often we say, If I had only known, I would have done differently. For instance, a small poultry house, a brooder, and a flock of chicks are only the beginning.

      Feeders and fountains must be provided for the chicks of different ages; the house and yard must be large enough to carry the chicks through until they are consumed for food or kept for egg production. If the brooder house is used as a laying house through the coming year additional brooding facilities must be provided the following spring. Storage space must be provided for feed, litter and equipment, which means that it may be desirable to build a laying house with a small feed room attached. When planning for the future, it is always better business to plan on maximum needs rather than minimum needs.

      FIGURE 3. A few chickens can well be used to teach a youngster the pleasure, responsibility, and business training that goes with ownership.

      Experience and Training for Youngsters

      The backyard flock should be considered as valuable experience and training for a youngster. It was a happy experience for the writer to own six hens when he was six years old. It was not a case of Johnny’s hens and Mother’s eggs for I well remember the thrill obtained from taking six eggs to a grocery store and getting 6¢ in return. That was a good many years ago and prices have changed since then, but children have not. It is quite probable that those first six hens had much to do with my choosing poultry as a life work. Every youngster delights in ownership; he likes to do things with his hands, he likes to do things that show results and he likes to make money.

      A small flock of poultry will provide all of these likes and give the youngster a business training that will stand him well throughout his entire life. A backyard poultry flock is a very attractive enterprise for youngsters in 4-H Club work which branches out into broader education and leadership.

      A Dollars and Cents Venture

      Backyard poultry keeping should be a dollars and cents venture, particularly under present conditions when the national stock pile of food is low and nothing can be wasted. Backyard poultry keepers must inform and equip themselves to make sure that chick mortality will be kept at a minimum and that a maximum rate of growth and egg production will be obtained.

      Commercial poultrymen are threatened with a shortage of feed and there is the possibility that they may be obliged to curtail poultry activity. Consequently, the only justification for a backyard flock is the fact that the backyard flock may utilize table scraps and garden refuse to advantage and produce eggs and meat on less purchased feed than the commercial flock. Economic production requires purchasing the best stock available, free from disease and bred for rapid growth and production. Waste, such as improper feeding, feed loss from poorly constructed hoppers, failure to utilize by-products, and losses due to rats and mice must be strictly

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