. Our domestic birds; . ual—give an average annual production of IR^t Fig. 104. Colony houses at Iowa Agricultural College. (Photograph from the college) eleven or twelve dozen eggs a hen, but the general average isonly eight or nine dozen. Although the profit per hen is small,the compensation for labor and investment is better than on MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 105 most poultry7 plants where a much greater product per hen issecured. Even when eggs are the most important money cropon the farm, the care of the laying hens is but a small part ofthe days work of the man who looks after them. How the chi
. Our domestic birds; . ual—give an average annual production of IR^t Fig. 104. Colony houses at Iowa Agricultural College. (Photograph from the college) eleven or twelve dozen eggs a hen, but the general average isonly eight or nine dozen. Although the profit per hen is small,the compensation for labor and investment is better than on MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 105 most poultry7 plants where a much greater product per hen issecured. Even when eggs are the most important money cropon the farm, the care of the laying hens is but a small part ofthe days work of the man who looks after them. How the chickens are grown. The number of chickens rearedeach year on one of these colony farms is usually about equal tothe number of fowls kept. Where there are so many hens of asitting variety, and very early hatching is not practiced, there israrely any shortage of sitting hens at the time when they arewanted. Usually twenty or thirty hens are set at the same time,and it is expected that they will hatch eight or ten chickens. Fig. 105. Colony houses at Hampton Institute each. Sometimes sixty or seventy hens are set at one time. Asit is almost always quite warm when the chickens are hatched, itis customary to give each hen twenty or more chickens. Thecoops are placed in rows, several rods apart each way, on apiece of grassland that has had no poultry on it for a year ormore. Most of the farmers are very particular on this point,and prefer to put the young chickens on land on which therehas been no poultry for at least two years. They have learnedby experience that under such conditions they can rear a muchlarger percentage of the chickens hatched, and that the chickenswill grow more evenly and mature earlier. In planning thefield crops grown on the farm they always try to arrange so io6 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS
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