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For the Rural Southerner and Plantation.
BROWN LEGHORNS.
As far as can be learned, Brown Leghorns
were first introduced into the United States by
Captain Isaac Gates, of the brig Asa Fish, land
ing at Mystic River, Connecticut, in 1859; oth
ers affirm they were not known in this country
until 1853, when a trio was bought from a ship
at Boston, Massachusetts, on her return from
Leghorn, Italy. However this may be, very
little was known of them until 1865, when they
were exhibited at the first poultry show ever
held in the United States, that of the Worcester
(Mass.) Poultry Club. The exhibitors entered
the birds as Brown Leghorns, but, owing to the
ignorance of the managers of the exhibition,
were obliged to change the entry and call them
Spanish, which they did, at the same time en
tering a protest against it; and it was not until
the following exhibition that they were recog
nized as Leghorns, and altogether distinct from
Spanish.
They are very handsome birds
—the large, red combs, delicate
wattles, erect, proud carriage,
brilliant plumage and quick
movements, render them high
ly attractive. The cock in plu
mage is very much like the
black-breasted red game, but
has yellow legs and white ear
lobes; the hens are like the
game hen, but shorter in the
leg, and the breast feathers go
from a gray to a light salmon
color. The combs are some
times immense. An instance
is related where a Brown Leg
horn cock weighed three and a
half pounds, and when the
head was cut off, it, with the
wattles, weighed one pound
and three ounces. Though
comparatively small—the cock
weighing four and a half to six
pounds, an<l the hen three and
a half to four and a half pounds
—they make excellent table
birds, the skin and fat being
of a rich, clear yellow. But
their great point of attraction
is their laying qualities, in
which they are not equaled by
any fowls known. On an av
erage, the Brown Leghorn hen,
with generous food, plenty of
ground bone anti a dry roost,
will lay two hundred and fifty eggs in a year,
and in nine cases out of ten will not want to set
more than once in the year; and it may be set
down as pretty certain that two-thirds of the
hens will not want to set as often as that. The
chirks mature earlier than those of any other
variety, frequently being known to begin laying
three months after they were hatched, so that
in the year three generations can be produced.
When such birds can be raised, why is it that
farmers—parties interested in such matters —
will persist in keeping the miserable “dung
hills" around their yards, giving returns of only
about twenty-five per cent, of the cost of the
food consumed ?
K.
Special Notice.
Poultry raisers, breeders, and importers,
should remember that a specialty is made of all
matters touching Lheir interests in this journal,
and that not less than seventy leading poulterers
in the country have just sen' us their advertise
ments in view of the large and increasing de
mand for the best breeds of fowls coming from
the South. Advertise without delay.
the mui. so mm & mm
For the Rural Southerner and Plantation.
POULTRY RAISING.
As I have made poultry raising a specialty
for a few years past, I will give you some of
my experience in the business. I have raised
from one to three hundred chicks a year, and
wintered from fifty to one hundred in different
years. My success has been such that I shall
tax my time and yards to their full capacity.
Brahmas, especially the light variety, have been
my favorites, although I have had good success
with the Cochins, Plymouth Rocks, and other
varieties. For summer layers, the non-setters
are superior, but in winter, when eggs bring
the highest prices, my Brahmas have invariably
outlaid them.
In regard to profits, I find with eggs and
fowls, sold at market prices, an income of $2.50
to each hen wintered ; and here let me say, in
my locality (Central New Hampshire) dressed
poultry ranges from fifteen to thirty cents per
pound, according to season and quality of the
poultry, and eggs from twenty to forty cents per
dozen ; eggs being highest from November to
February, and poultry from March to Septem
ber. The price of corn averages one dollar per
SS& SMC • jMHEynir£« ■ *
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LIGHTVBRAHMAS—PROPERTY OF WM. McNAUGHT, Jr., ATLANTA, GEORGIA.
bushel, and the prices of other grain is in pro-1
portion. By actual experiment, I find I can
raise a Brahma chick to the age of six months for
forty cents. It will then bring, if an early
Spring chick, one dollar or more. A friend
made the same experiment, and came three
cents below me. I have made no account of the
manure, except as an offset to the interest on
money invested. In rearing a large flock it will j
not do to crowd them at night ; and if more than
one hundred chicks are reared, they will do
better if separated by a partition or fence, or
what is better, if you have plenty of land, have
your coops far enough apart that they will not
get together. Keep the chicks away from the
old fowls ; select out the weak ones and give them
a better chance, and as soon as they are fit for
market kill them off, as you need to breed from
your most robust stock.
Keep your breeding stock yarded, and from
eight to ten hens only with each cock to insure
the fertility of the eggs. In winter, keep in
small flocks, say twenty-five in each coop or
apartment, and if a fowl should show signs of
disease take it out, and if a little extra cat e and
treatment does not bring it round, it had better
be consigned to the compost heap. Have the
coops dry and warm, and keep free of vermin
by sprinkling a decoction of tobacco on the
nests and roosts. Provide a dust bath for the
fowls; give a variety of food, with a plenty of
raw, broken bone, oyster shells, and fine rouen
or clover hay. One hundred hens will eat five
hundred pounds of fine clover hay in one winter,
saving more than its value in other food, and
give you more eggs than if deprived of it. Have
a supply of pure water and clean gravel to which
they can have free access.
These directions followed, there is no trouble
in raising a large flock of chicks. Ten men,
occupying as many contiguous acres, would not
hesitate to keep fifty adult fowls and rear one
hundred chicks each. One man can just as well
keep five hundred adult fowls and rear one
thousand chicks on the same amount of land, if
he gives the same care and attention to each in
dividual flock that each individual would give
to his one flock. Calvin P. Couch.
Concord, N. H.
The Exhibition of the Rhode Island Poultry
and Columbarian Society last month, in Howard
Hall, Providence, R. 1., was very successful. It
was in the hands of active, enthusiastic, and in
every way, competent managers, who understood
the requisites for an attractive show and the
value of judicious advertising.
For the Rural Southerner and Plantation.
Combs Changing Color.
A Reader desires to know the cause of, and
remedy for, a Leghorn's comb changing color—
turning black and purple at the back end ami
on the tips, and in a few hours resuming its nat
ural color again.
I will attempt to point out the probable cause.
Fowls while going through the moulting season,
if confined to a small yard or run, though they
may have an abundance of other food, rarely ev
er get a sufficient supply of animal food of that
peculiar nourishing character necessary to sup
ply the demand then made upon them, r»--, per
haps, by moulting alone, but by lict^J 0 .* £he
result is a loss of vitality to a certain extent.—
Hence, this changing in color denotes the amount
of vitality, being increased or diminished at cer
tain periods, as the case may be. Consequently,
if I could not give them liberty, so they could
secure a good supply of insect food, I should
give them daily some fresh meat, or liver, chop
ped fine, an abundance of green food, and stale
bread soaked in ale, for a few days only. If
fresh meat could not be obtained conveniently,
taking a few bones or stale meat and covering it
an inch or two with ground will soon produce
insect food in abundance for them.
Portland, Pa. A. C. Hunsbxrgir.
Preparing Chicken Feed.
Poultry dough should not be made too thin.
Many young chickens die by being forced to take
too much water with their food, whereas, if fed
properly, they might live. Giving meal too wet
will not prove fatal in the case of fowls, but they
thrive better if the food is mixed stiff enough to
crumble. The food is moistened while in the
crop by secretions from glands. It next passes,
a little at a time, into a pouch formed by the ex
pansion of a part of the passage between the crop
and gizzard. Here other digestive juices are se
creted, also in the gizzard, and still further on.
Now, if the food contains too much water before
it is fed, these digestive juices are diluted and
impaired. All healthy animals regulate their
thirst by the needs of the system ; therefore, if
they are always kept well supplied with water,
separate from the food, they will drink only
what is necessary, and in mixing food it is best
to be on the safe side.
Helping to Hatch.
“ Can you render the chick advantageous as
sistance during its hatching ?” Yes, most assur
edly. The eggs of some varieties, particularly
the Asiatic, are sometimes ex
ceedingly thick-shelled ; the
shell “pips,” and here the
little bird breathes his last if
help is not given. The fine
membrane becomes glued to
him and contracts, and it, with
his downy covering, becomes,
as it were, a coat of mail, to
crush out its life. Notice, and
if the hatching is slow, have
an eye to your nest until the
business is through with ; for
sometimes it appears as if ep
idemic. Many chicks go by
the board in this way; help
should be rendered ; so take a
small-sized bodkin, and care
fully thrusting its point a short
distance under the membrane
and shell, gently tear the first
and crack the latter as you pro
ceed around the circumference
of the egg. If the shell is dry,
drop a few drops of tepid wa
ter at the point of pressure.
Having taken off the top of
of the shell, drop about ten
drops of warm water around
the body of the chick, and put
the egg, as it now stands, un
der the hen, the open side up
permost ; behind or under the
fluff is the best situation. This
done, the chick is nine times
out of ten safe, and will hatch vigorously. I
have had wonderful experience in this lino.—
Poultry Bulletin.
Another Chicken Cholera Remedy.
B. Agee, Geary City, Kan., writes the Ameri
can Poultry Journal:—“ I will here give what I
have found to be an infallible remedy for the
so-called chicken cholera :—Make a mixture of
two ounces each of red pepper, alum, rosin, and
flowers of sulphur, and put it in their food in
proportions of one tablespoonful to three pints
of seabled meal. In severe cases, give about
one-third of a teaspoonful in a mea! pellet once
a day to each fowl, putting a smell lump of
alum in their drinking water. I have tried the
above ingredients with marked success ; have
cured fowls in the last stage of the disease. I
make it a practice now to give my fowls some of
it once or twice a week, and have no symptoms
of any disease among them.”
A Young Lady in Concord, Mass., says there
is profit in the poultry business. She commenc
ed with about sixty fowls in the Spring. From
these she raised four hundred and fifty chickens.
During the season she sold eggs to the amount
of S9O, and from September 20th to January
27th she got ready for market one hundred and
fifty pairs of chickens, which she sold for $260,
making in all $350.
A Farmer in Chester county, Penn., sold last
year, from thirty hens, eggs and chickens at a
net profit of $268.94.