The houses must be kept clean and dry. In order to keep them dry they must be kept clean, and the health and profit of your flock depends much upon these two important things.
First they must be well ventilated, have plenty of fresh air circulating, this helping to keep the straw litter dry, and at the same time allowing the condensed moisture which comes from the natural bodily heat of the birds and which, in closely shut houses, will form in drops upon the roof boards to evaporate. Your birds, too, will keep healthier and busier if plenty of fresh air is given them.
If cloth covered windows are used, it is comparatively easy to ventilate, the cloth windows being removed during the day and replaced after the air becomes chilled by the sun going down. The day is never too cold for the windows to be changed for a while, unless the storm comes directly into the house through the open windows. There will be very little trouble with colds or illness if this system is tried.
The droppings should be removed at least once every few days. A good plan is to do this every day, but with little help it can be managed every few days. This keeps lots of dampness out of the house and the straw litter will not require changing as often. While we are working in the houses so much of the time, it will be easy to select our breeders for this season’s incubating. To most breeders this is one of the most interesting parts of the year’s work. We have all found where we have made mistakes in breeding before, so have decided to overcome this mistake this season, and it is interesting to select the birds which we believe are going to give us better results than we have ever had before.
The true breeder become so well acquainted with each individual specimen which is at all likely to go into a breeding pen, that he can easily trace its progeny through the flock of chicks, during the coming summer. Whether you are keeping them entirely for utility requirements or not, try to have them conform as near to the standard requirements as is possible. There is a great deal more pleasure in a standard bred flock than in an ordinary flock where these requirements are not catered to, even though as layers they may be perfectly satisfactory. It costs no more to feed a well bred bird than it does a heinz 57, and there is a certain pride, which every breeder who makes a success, in ever so small a way, knows, when he or she can point to a certain bird and say, ‘He is a standard bred bird.”
The birds which did the early fall laying will by February be taking a short rest. When they resume operation, their eggs will be good, strong eggs for incubation. A bird which has been forced since the first winter days does not give us our strongest germs, naturally she has become somewhat exhausted and her weakened vitality is quite apt to show itself in poor fertility, or germs which die in the first few days of incubation. The hen which was the fall boarder will give us strong chicks.
Our real breeding pen consists of fifteen hens and a good strong breeding cockerel, and as a rule, the fertility is better than in larger flocks with more males. If it is necessary to use pullets for breeders, which we would not do, unless forced to, be sure that they are early hatched and well matured and breed them to an exceptionally strong yearling cock bird. If you have only late matched pullets to use as breeder, it would be better and more economical to buy your eggs for hatching from some breeder who has yearling hens. It is a loss and disappointment to use any but the best and strongest birds for breeders, as the result are weak chicks which demand a vast amount of care, and with whom, even with the best of care, the mortality, is sure to be great, even if they do hatch, and usually the loss accruing from eggs which do not go through the period of incubation, will more than pay for dependable eggs from good stock.
The fertility of eggs depends nearly as much upon the care and food given the breeding stock as upon the individuals themselves. They should be liberally fed and watered at all times, greed food must be supplied in some form or other, either by feeding cabbages of mangel wurtzels or by using Alfalfa meal in mash. Sprouted oats cannot be improved upon, but the labor is a drawback to this in large flocks.
In places where the hens can enjoy outdoor the year around, all greed food must be supplied, and for this purpose fields of Brussels sprouts, kale and Swiss chard are grown, as these can be picked continually. A good many flocks are fed fresh green alfalfa, but without exception, the yards were entirely void of any green food whatever. One man said the hens were so crazy for green leaf which grew upon some apple trees in their runs. They must supply green food the year around and we are not troubled only during the winter months, so we have one thing to be thankful for.
