III RAISING DOMESTIC ANIMALS (continued 2)

Farm boys and girls all over the country are familiar with the strident squawk and the furtive, hunching trot of the speckled guinea fowl. I doubt if any farmer could tell why he harbours one on the premises, unless it is to warn his chickens of the presence of danger. I know of very few people in the North who eat either eggs or birds (if they know it), and the young are very seldom seen. Here is a really valuable game bird which silly prejudice is depriving of its fair share of attention.

If farm boys realized that there is a good and growing market for guinea fowls, eggs, and birds, they would read this: A fashionable New York hotel served three thousand of these birds between January first and April thirteenth, nineteen hundred and five. Listen to the prices: from one dollar to one dollar and a half per pair for young broilers in midwinter in the large Northern cities. Eggs twice the price of hens' eggs. Taking into consideration the fact that they are hardier even as chicks than ordinary poultry and that the market is strictly fancy and not oversupplied, the chances for success in guinea raising are good.

In beginning this branch of business it is not best to buy old fowls. They are swift of wing, and they are extremely likely to take "French leave" unless closely confined for a week or more to their new quarters. This confinement is not very good for them. My advice is to begin with a setting of fifteen eggs under a common hen in May or June. The eggs are smaller than hens' eggs and have good, strong shells. They take from twenty-six to thirty days to hatch. The treatment and care of young guinea fowls varies from that given to young chickens in a few particulars only, e. g., the chicks should be fed very soon after hatching and need a large percentage of animal food when first hatched. Dry bread crumbs and hard-boiled eggs minced finely or pieces of cooked meat cut very fine are a good first meal. Bread and milk and finely chopped lettuce, cress, or other vegetation should be given a day or two later. They will pick up innumerable insects if allowed the privileges of the garden or fruit plantation. Little guineas should have access to feed all the time as a few hours without food is very likely to prove fatal. Like little pheasants they require a greater percentage of animal food than chickens because if in the wild they would eat little else. Soft grains should follow the earlier rations, and the mixtures given to ordinary poultry should gradually take the place of these.

Old guinea fowls have the reputation for making very tough meat. For this reason it is better to market them while the breast bone is still tender, the claws still short and sharp, and before the crest or helmet has reached its full size or changed colour. In young birds the helmet is nearly black, growing lighter with age.

Ordinarily it is more economical when raising a few guinea fowls not to confine them to runs, in which they are less hardy. Partial confinement, such as coming to the barn yard to roost and appearing regularly to be fed, is more practical. If kept in runs it is necessary to cover the pens. High roosts should be provided. During the laying season the hens are almost certain to hide their nests and need close watching. They may lay in nest boxes if these are in dim, secluded corners. Guinea hens are very wary and may resent having their nests visited, by quitting. Also, the hens seem to be able to count and will usually desert their own nests if all but one or two eggs are taken away. They are rather impatient sitters, often leaving the nest when the eggs are half incubated or when the first chick is ready to go, even though they have a dozen pipped eggs. The little ones are, like little turkeys, susceptible to dampness and cold. Very early and very late hatchings are undesirable.

RAISING TURKEYS

Among the pictures which my memory calls up is that of an old bushel basket by the kitchen stove on a damp spring morning. From the comforting folds of an old flannel petticoat in the depths of the basket came the feeble "peep-peawp" of a dozen or more miserable little turkey chicks rescued from the shower. What a chase they had given us through the wet tangles of grass, weeds, and bushes, scooting to cover like partridges, hidden by their colouring almost as effectually as their wild cousins. We shall never be quite sure that we got them all, for we weren't certain how many there were originally. If the chill had not penetrated to their vitals, and these important organs lie disastrously near the pin-feathers, we had been in time to save them.

Experiences like these impress upon the minds of farm children much that is characteristic of the turkey. As grown-ups we read of the precautions necessary in raising turkeys and realize that we knew all that years ago. A turkey hen will stay close around the barn yard eating and drinking with the other fowls all winter, roosting in convenient tree tops, and giving no hint of wildness or firmness of purpose. But in April you miss her. She may return about meal time, take a dust bath perhaps, then she is off again. Now you must test your wits against her instincts and see if you can find her nest. She may have secreted her eggs in a perfectly safe barrel, provided with straw and cunningly secluded in the shrubbery. She is likely, though, to go far afield and give you a merry chase. It is wise to take away the eggs each day until she has finished and wishes to sit. Then you may give her a nestful, fifteen to eighteen, or you can set the eggs under hens and when the turkey's broody spell is over she will lay again.

Four weeks is the time required to hatch turkey eggs. Newly hatched turkeys are far from spry. They have no interest in food nor in the world about them. It is forty-eight hours or even longer before they begin to take notice. Hard-boiled eggs chopped fine is a good first meal for them. Some growers take a pint of sweet milk in a saucepan, let it come to a boil, and stir into it two eggs well beaten. This makes a sort of custard and this quantity is said to be enough for fifty new turkey chicks. Cottage cheese without salt is recommended. A dusting of black pepper in the food is good for week-old turkeys, especially in cool weather.

Two deadly enemies of little turkeys are lice and wet. These are responsible for the high rate of mortality in flocks of all breeds. Keep them free from these by all known methods and with ordinary care in other details your profits are safe. If you tide over the first two months you will see the delicate chicks transformed into hardy little poults, holding their own with any kind of fowls.

I don't know of any one who ever made a success of turkeys on a small lot. Their habit of ranging can be restrained to the extent of keeping them off the neighbours, but close cooping opposes their natural instincts. They are great insect eaters and will pick up a fair living away from the feed trough. It is best to train them by a regular evening feeding to roost at home. You will want to count them frequently, especially as November draws near and the price begins to soar.

There are a number of breeds in cultivation. The biggest and perhaps the hardiest is the bronze turkey. Some consider their flesh less delicate than that of the smaller kinds. There is always a good market for any size. If all your neighbours have bronze turkeys and the flocks are always getting mixed, why not try the buff or black or the white Holland? The latter are almost as beautiful an ornament to the country home as peacocks, and can be seen at a great distance because of their brilliant white plumage.

If one wants to get enthusiastic over turkeys let him drive through a thrifty farming community in the fall and catch glimpses of the sunshine reflected from the burnished backs of the great flocks which ornament every farm yard. Or, if inclined to a meal of turkey, just inquire the price on the farm or in the market, and you will decide to raise some for your own use next year, and a few to sell.

RAISING PEACOCKS

We have it on the authority of the curator of birds of the New York Zoölogical Garden, Mr. C. William Beebe, that peafowls are not difficult to raise if the owner is watchful. Wouldn't it be a triumph to raise a family of these wonderful birds? Mr. Beebe says also that "peacocks are so common that we sometimes fail to appreciate their really wonderful colours." I wonder if that can be true. They were so uncommon in the Mississippi Valley when I was a child that I never saw one; it was less than ten years ago that I saw for the first time this regal bird spread his wonderful tail in the full sunlight. It was one of Mr. Beebe's own pets and I shall never forget nor fail to appreciate the sight.

A peahen lays fewer eggs than most birds of her size. She will lay three times a year if you succeed in "changing her current of thought" when she is broody. She usually wishes to sit on the first six eggs and as she has pretty good judgment in placing her nest and is a patient and courageous mother, you had better trust her to bring up her family, unless you wish to raise the first lot under hens or turkey mothers.

Like young turkeys, the little peachicks are very tender and susceptible to dampness. Woe unto them if the chill of an early May rain gets into their bones! This is the time when watchfulness on the owner's part is necessary.

For newly hatched peachicks a few meals of finely chopped, hard-boiled eggs and minced lettuce are right. As they develop appetites, feed some of the mixtures prepared for game, pheasants, etc. By all means let them have space to run in; a little coop is bad for their health. Make it twelve feet long at least. They will eat quantities of insects and will need feed only morning and evening after the first month or two. Corn, wheat, barley, and millet make a good mixture.

No regular house is required for peafowls, though shelter must be provided against rain. They prefer to roost high, where the air is fresh and cool. Wind and cold weather they like.

Indian peacocks cost twenty dollars to thirty dollars a pair. You can grow them for far less from eggs and sell the birds. They live to be twenty or thirty years old.

If you are convinced that you want to try your hand at any of these kinds of fancy poultry, collect all the information you can first. Visit some successful poultry plant, ask questions, take notes. Get all the government and state experiment station bulletins available. Breeders often publish information about rearing birds. They are glad to help any one who is interested. It increases their business. Write to your agricultural college for information. They may not have a bulletin on the subject, but the men in their poultry department are glad to answer questions. Giving advice is part of their business and you can count on it being good advice.

RAISING GEESE

March is a good month to set goose eggs. As it takes them a little over a month to hatch, they will come out in April and the early birds catch the best prices. It is really surprising that more farmer's boys and girls do not raise geese. They will "board themselves" if given a chance at pasture, but need fattening with ground grain if held for Christmas trade.

Goslings can be raised under hens, six eggs in a nest, but the goose is an admirable mother. Unlike most of his feathered kindred the gander is a true helpmate, often "spelling" his mate during the sitting period and caring for the young afterward with great solicitude.

Watchful care is needed to prevent the damp, cold April from getting the best of little goslings. They should begin their careers with a meal of bread crumbs, scalded meal, and hard-boiled eggs, chopped vegetable tops and grass included in the mash. They eat small quantities at a time, but need it frequently to stay their stomachs.

Water for drinking should be accessible, clean, and fresh always. Many a sick gosling can trace his disorder directly to the bad water. A large tub of water for bathing, too, is advisable for geese after they are feathered.

Toulouse and Embden geese are tremendous creatures, even reaching the enormous weight of twenty-five pounds. Their meat is highly prized in European countries and is becoming popular in America so that a good market is assured.

The business of fattening geese for market is quite specialized now. Men engaged in this business visit the farms where a few geese are kept and buy the eight-weeks old goslings for seventy-five cents to one dollar and a half apiece. If you can get this price your profit is fair and certain and your work ended. You can put your cash into some other business. Raising geese is a good summer vacation job. On a goose fattening farm near a good Eastern city market as many as fifteen or twenty thousand geese are fattening at one time.

Geese on farms when I was a girl were kept principally for their feathers which found their way into the pillows and feather beds then used. The best pillows in my house are filled with the feathers plucked from geese with which I was personally acquainted. These feathers have a high market value, higher when you buy than when you sell to be sure, but you may be able to supply a local market and thus get a better price. Geese, like all the other feathered tribes, moult naturally in late summer. If the live geese are to be plucked, it should be done very carefully, three or four feathers at a time. The geese do not show evidence of minding much when they find that your designs are peaceable. Only the breast feathers and the smallest ones from the back are ordinarily taken for home use. Avoid the feathers with coarse stiff shafts. No down should be removed. Goose quills make good toothpicks, cleaned and scalded and trimmed into shape. Or they may be sold separately as feathers.

Geese are plucked before sending to market. Most of the feathers and some of the down now extensively used by manufacturers of bed clothing comes from the marketed geese.

RAISING DUCKS

Probably in many neighbourhoods you would be laughed at if you tried to raise ducks without a pond or stream of water. It is not customary. True, if you have them for ornament principally, they look best disporting themselves in what seems to be their natural element. But if you believe there is money in raising ducks for market, nothing is easier than to prove that the people who laughed were not up to date.

You have heard the old saying on a very wet day, "Good weather for ducks." Don't you believe it. If you go into duck raising you must be just as careful about ducks getting wet as you are about your chicks. The duck must have plenty of water inside, all he will drink, but keep him dry outside. Little ducks are hardy if kept dry and warm. Even cold drinking water will give them cramps and should be avoided. The drinking vessels should be so covered that the duckling can get only the bill wet.

The advantage of ducks over chicks is this: they do not bring quite so big a price per pound, but they grow so much faster during the first two months of their lives. Ducks should be marketed at eight to ten weeks old. At ten weeks old a good broiler will weigh about two pounds and will sell for seventy-five cents, but a duckling will weigh four to five pounds, which at twenty-five cents a pound will give you from one dollar to one dollar and twenty-five cents. The cost of feeding the two will be about the same.

Ducks have other advantages over chickens. They are not nearly so subject to vermin, though lice sometimes attack their heads. They seem to thrive in confinement and cost less to house than chickens. Their feathers will bring a good price, and eggs of pure breeds for hatching are in demand. They are excellent layers, even better than some hens, as experience will show. If a duck lays nine dozen eggs at four dollars a dozen, and raises a family, she does a pretty good year's work, and is more profitable to keep than some cows. She eats grubs and insects, too, and grass and surplus from the vegetable garden.

The commonest practice for beginners is to set duck eggs under hens in April and May. The biggest varieties are the best to raise as all are hardy, fast growers, and good layers. The eggs take about twenty-eight days to incubate. Treat the hen and nest for lice just as when sitting on hens' eggs.

When ducklings are twenty-four hours old, they are ready for their first meal. Mashed potatoes mixed with meal of corn or oats and middlings are good for them. Milk, too, is excellent as for all fowls. Begin to stuff them immediately; you will find them quite agreeable. Green food of all kinds—grass, lettuce, cabbage, vegetable tops—all chopped small, fills them up and is good for them. Such things as turnips and potatoes should be cooked. Ground meat should be fed three times a week. Have the feeding troughs so arranged that they can get their shovels into it but cannot walk over the food and foul it; same thing with the water. Feed four times a day. They must not get empty. Growth will not be rapid unless continuous. Grit should be supplied.

On duck farms one hundred ducklings are kept in brooders five by seven feet, with yards five by sixteen feet. They are kept absolutely clean and dry. Those you keep over winter for next year's egg supply should have access to a pond and grass. Old ducks do not bring high prices for table use and do not put on weight very fast.

It was perhaps a young Boston housekeeper who asked when her market man offered her Pekin ducks for her table, "How are they esteemed?"

He replied, "Oh, my wife, she don't never steam ducks. She just stuffs 'em like you would a chicken and bakes 'em."

RAISING SQUABS FOR MARKET

A few years' experience in raising fancy pigeons for pets is the best kind of training for a young man who wants to raise squabs for market. This business on a small scale ought not to take all one's time and can easily be combined with some other business or profession or with attending college. But your experience, varied though it may be, has not acquainted you with all that is worth knowing on the subject. The time has gone by when a man can afford to ignore books and bulletins even on a subject upon which he may himself be an authority. A library of pigeon literature will increase your wisdom. A practical man writing of his experience in your business may save you hundreds of dollars if you heed his advice. Don't scoff at college bulletins as your grandfather probably did. He had reason, but the bulletin is not what it was. Great strides forward have been made. Visit some big squab raiser's plant and take mental and written notes of significant facts observed. The colour of his pigeon loft does not affect the price he gets for his squabs, but the quality of the grain he feeds has a direct influence on the fullness of his wallet.

Full-blooded homers are declared by many to be the best, all things considered, for table use. Good, mated birds of this variety can be bought for about two dollars a pair. They are hardy, bright, active on their feet, and the squabs have a larger breast than some of the other sorts.

Homers are not all the same colour; some are white, others black, reddish, and mixed colours. Good stock will rear six or eight pairs of squabs in a year, while some exceptionally good ones will raise ten pairs. If you make a clear profit of one dollar and twenty-five cents per year on an average from each pair you should do well. It is not profitable to keep birds which produce less than five pairs a year. A record must be kept in order to weed out worthless birds. You do not wish to spend your leisure running a free boarding house for pigeons. You must know which are the big producers and keep only their young as breeders. Nests should be numbered and every bird have a leg label with a number corresponding to a numbered description in your book of records. This is good economics.

Squabs of homers should be ready for selling at four weeks old; they should be fully feathered but still in the nest. The heaviest grade weigh eight pounds per dozen and these bring highest market prices. Lighter birds are considered poor quality and bring a correspondingly low price. Prices vary from four dollars and fifty cents to one dollar and seventy-five cents per dozen. Dispose of pairs which habitually produce light-weight squabs as indicated by your records.

Minute directions for killing and dressing squabs for market are given in Farmers' Bulletin No. 177, which every squab raiser should have in his library.

There is, as yet, no indication of over-production in squab raising; although many more are grown every year, the demand is still on the increase. It is a good business for two people to go into together, a brother and sister, two brothers, or adjoining neighbours.

Descriptions of house and furnishings, fly, foods and feeding, and details of care are given in Chapter IV under "Raising Fancy Pigeons."

RAISING PHEASANTS

The young people on a big ranch or estate with its up-to-date poultry plant, raising not only plain and fancy chickens, but pigeons, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guinea fowl, all attended by men hired for the purpose, may look about in vain for a chance to try their hands at raising anything with feathers. To such boys and girls I say, "Did you ever see any pheasants?"

"At the Zoölogical Gardens, yes."

Aren't they beauties? How would you like to grow pheasants? There is a line that has not been overworked. Profit in it, too. Look at prices you must pay for birds and get an idea of how yours will sell later.

Numerous experiments in pheasant growing have been tried in this country. It is well to know of these and to profit by them. Some men raise many varieties, importing them from every quarter of the globe. Their ideal is to have a complete collection. A visit to a large aviary will give you some idea of what a gorgeous family of birds the pheasants make. They are highly prized as game birds. In Germany they are served in a most surprising way. The edible parts are cooked and arranged on a platter on a bed of parsley. At one end of the platter the cook puts the head with its beautiful neck ruff and at the other end the tail feathers. Imagine the waiter's triumphant entrance into the dining-room, platter held aloft, and the pheasant's brilliant tail feathers streaming far behind like pennants from a mast top!

The pheasant most easily grown in the United States is the ringneck or Mongolian pheasant imported from its home in China. There is hardly a state in the Union where no attempt has been made to raise pheasants. It is an industry that appeals to sportsmen everywhere. Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois, California, New Jersey, and some other states have made pheasant rearing a part of the work of their Fish and Game Commissions. The state of Oregon is the only one where a remarkable success has been won. Evidently the climate and conditions there were ideal. About three dozen pheasants were set free in the Willamette Valley in eighteen hundred and eighty-one. So rapid was the increase that when the first open season of two and one half months was declared eleven years later it was estimated that fifty thousand birds were shot the first day! They have continued to increase in that state and towards the north, and many other states get their supply for propagation from Oregon.

The first thing to do after becoming interested in pheasants is to learn something about their nature and needs and to consider whether your conditions are such as would make the business possible or profitable. They are not domestic fowls but more like the jungle fowl from which, in all likelihood, our barn yard fowls are descended. But they can be raised in captivity if due regard is taken of their habits and characteristics. Books and bulletins are mentioned in the appendix of this book. In some respects pheasants are very like chickens, being especially susceptible to the diseases of the poultry yard. In England, pheasant rearing is quite common. One sees in open meadow land on great estates the tidy coops where anxious biddies cluck after their wayward foster children. It is a pretty sight to see the fifteen or twenty brown-striped birds scuttling wildly to her protecting wing at the approach of danger.

Pheasants' eggs for shipping should be most carefully packed in cotton, hay, or excelsior to insure safety from jar. You do not have to begin with grown birds which cost five dollars a pair for ring-necks, as the eggs are best set under hens. The eggs should be set in late April or early May for best results. Bantams are often preferred, but any good mother will do if she is cleanly and not too clumsy. Great precautions should be taken that the nest be clean, and that the hen should have all the comforts of home, e. g., a dust bath, clean water, and regular feeding. Can you afford to run the risk of young chickens getting lice as soon as they are hatched? Well, you simply can't take any chances with baby pheasants. Hens should be dusted three times during incubation with insect powder. Visit an aviary or a pheasantry if you can and ask questions and take observations on how to make nests, coops, and pens. Study your books, too, and be guided by the experience of others.

While you wait for your young pheasants to hatch there is plenty to do in preparing coops and learning what to feed them when they arrive. Much of our lack of success in rearing all sorts of wild game is because we know so little about what they eat. We probably make lots of mistakes with the animals we have domesticated but the more adaptable of them have grown accustomed to civilized food, and thrive.

There could be no better place for a rearing ground for young pheasants than an orchard where clover abounds. Coops, like chicken coops, should be rain proof, well ventilated, bottomless, and so built that they can be closed to keep out vermin and to shut the chicks in when the grass is wet.

Pheasants are omnivorous but they need more fresh animal food than is supplied by ordinary "chick mixtures," to balance their ration. Probably they share with other young birds a relish for insects and while their mothers do not actually bring this food to the open bills of their young, they take the flock to the feeding ground and show them how to find worms, bugs, caterpillars, etc., by scratching. There are ways employed by experienced pheasant growers of raising a supply of meal worms, maggots, and ant pupæ for their flocks, but cheap, fresh meat ground very fine furnishes suitable animal food. During the first three or four days after feeding is begun a custard made of ten eggs to a quart of milk, baked well, is their best food. Hard-boiled eggs finely minced (put through a potato ricer), fine bread crumbs, and fresh vegetables cut into small bits can be given during the first week. Later, small grains of a great variety of kinds. A sprinkle of red pepper in their food during cold, damp days is good for half-grown chicks. The young pheasants must have access to fine grit and gravel and they must have fresh, cool water all the time.

In building pens for pheasants we should take into consideration their habits, their safety, and their lack of hardiness in domestication. Select the site for the pens after due thought. There must be both shade and sunshine. The soil should be well drained and rich enough to grow grass and clover. Each run should be at least ten feet by ten with netting of medium mesh for sides, eight feet high, cover of the same. A house is an unnecessary expense, as it is pheasant nature to stay in the open or seek a covert of brush. A rain proof shed, where they can retire when it rains, and where a dust bath will always be in readiness, is a necessity.

Wild birds of prey evidently consider it perfectly legitimate to visit pheasant runs. Raccoons, foxes, rats, and mink, too, may work ruin there. The cover of netting protects from above and it may be necessary, where burrowing animals abound, to dig a trench a foot deep and set the netting down in the ground that far. A few steel traps set unbaited along the outside of the runs may prevent a serious loss and provide you with a handsome mink or raccoon fur skating or motoring cap. Severe cold, even storms, are not fatal to pheasants. Provide perches in the pen as well as in the shed and they will usually choose those in the open air.

Because of their great timidity the birds should be disturbed as little as possible. Unfamiliar sights and sounds alarm and distress them. What a triumph it would be to induce your pheasants to eat from your hand! It can be done by exercising great patience, gentleness, and perseverance.

All you know about chicken raising will be useful now. Make up your mind that everything that is bad for chicks is simply fatal to young pheasants; for instance, wet feet, lice, dirty, or sun-warmed water, over-feeding, wrong feeding. If you play this game you must expect a constant succession of hazards, of narrow escapes, and losses. But it is a noble game.