The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor WorkMiller, Mary Rogers
Philosophy
The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work
Miller, Mary Rogers
Agriculture -- Juvenile literature
In April, nineteen hundred and five, I purchased two settings of White
Wyandotte eggs at the Rhode Island College, and borrowed two broody
hens. I bought one of these hens later, but she soon died. I fixed up
an old pig house that was on the place, and set the hens in this house.
While they were sitting, papa helped me make two coops and pens for
them. For the coop I took a dry-goods box, about four feet by one and
one half feet by fifteen inches, and made a door in one corner large
enough to admit a hen. In one end I bored some holes and covered them
with wire netting, for ventilation.
For the pen I took four pieces of scantling and a good supply of laths.
I used the pieces of scantling for the corner-posts and nailed the
laths on the sides, top, and one end. I did not put anything on the
other end except the top and bottom strips. The pen is just the length
of a lath, but the width is a little less. The open end is placed
against the front of the coop; the hen can then come out into the pen,
and the chicks can go anywhere.
After awhile the chicks hatched and there were sixteen of them. At
first I fed them a mash of corn meal and bran and later a little
cracked corn and wheat. They grew finely, but I raised only thirteen of
them, eight of which were pullets.
I fed them in the back yard for a while, but they dug the grass up so
that I had to stop it. Then I built a scratching-pen by the wood shed,
to feed them in.
In the summer the chickens were roosting in the trees, and when cold
weather came and I wanted them to roost in the hen house they would not
do it. I tried feeding them there, and driving them in; but that did
not work very well, because I could not drive them all in at once, and
when I drove some in and tried to get the rest, the first ones would
come out again. So I had my brother help me, and every night we would
carry them down to the hen house. After a time they learned to roost
there.
The pullets began to lay early in November and laid well all winter. I
am proud of one of my hens. She laid two hundred and thirty-eight eggs
from the eighth of November, nineteen hundred and five, to the fifth of
August, nineteen hundred and six. I think this is a very good record,
considering that during the most of that time she was fed nothing but
cracked corn.
During the first part of the winter of nineteen hundred and six to
nineteen hundred and seven the hens did not lay very well, and I asked
one of the poultry men at the Rhode Island College what to feed them to
make them lay. He told me what he had fed with good success, and as it
made my hens lay, it may make somebody else's hens lay.
GRAIN
{ Whole corn
Equal parts, by weight, of { Wheat
{ Oats
MASH
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