But, young chicks must be reared, and this is more laborious. For
this reason I advise going into some other industry on a part of the
land, which will not require attention in the young chick season.
One of the best things for this purpose is the cultivation of cane
fruits as blackberries, raspberries and dewberries. The work of
caring for these can be made to fall wholly without the young chick
season. Peaches and grapes for a slower profit can be added, but
spraying and cultivation of these is more liable to take spring
labor. All these fruits have the advantage of doing well in the same
kind of soil recommended for chickens. Young chickens may be grown
around such berry crops and removed to permanent quarters before the
berries ripen. Strawberries would be a very poor crop because their
labor falls in the chick season.
Another plan, and perhaps a better one, is to have about three
fields, and rotate in such a manner that a marketable crop may be
always kept growing in the third field. Any crop may be selected,
the chief labor of which falls between July and the following March.
Late cabbage and potatoes, or celery, will do if the ground is
suitable for these crops. Kale and spinach are staple fall crops.
Fall lettuce could also be grown. If the market is glutted on such
crops, they can be fed out at home. Whenever a field is vacant, have
some crop growing on it, if only for purposes of green manuring.
Never let sandy ground lie fallow.
A modification of the above plans suited to heavier ground, is to
seed down the entire farm to grass. It is then divided into three
fields and provided with three sets of colony houses. Coops are
entirely dispensed with, and cheap indoor brooders are used in the
permanent houses. The pullets stay in these same houses in the same
field until the moulting season of the third year, or until they are
two and a half years old. One field will always be vacant during the
fall and winter season which time may be utilized for fresh seeding.
The difficulty of maintaining a sod will necessitate somewhat
heavier soil than by the previous plan. The houses should be moved
around occasionally, as the grass kills out in the locality. This
plan is a lazy man's way, taking the least labor of any method of
poultry keeping known. It is adapted to the cheaper ground in the
region farthest from market. On the Atlantic seaboard, the more
enterprising man will use the third field for rotation, and sell
some of the fertility of the western grain in the form of a truck
crop.
Five Acre Poultry Farms.
Can a living for a family be made from a five acre poultry farm?
Yes; by individual effort, where the marketing opportunities are
good; by corporate or co-operate effort, any place where the
fundamental conditions are right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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