HOW TO MAKE POULTRY PAY.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 90, 26 October 1878, Page 3

HOW TO MAKE POULTRY PAY.

The fii'lowing sensible sentence-- contain su -gestions which ma pr-.v.- serviceahle to some «f the wives <■!’ our agriculturul settlers : “ Does it pay to raise poultry for market ? ” (asks a correspondent of the ‘ Prairie Farmer,’) Of course it does ; that is, if you understand the business. I speak from experience, for I have been in the business nine years. I blundered a good deal at first, but I have made a success of it v Last year I raised over two thousand chickens for market, and the result was very gratifying from a pecuniary point. There is no secret about it ; any iaimcr’s wife or daughter can do what I have done. It don’t pay to keep a little, old-fashioned barn-yard fowl ; it costs nearly as much to rise a four-pound mongrel as it does. to raise a ten-pound Brahma ; and it don’t pay to let chickens shift for themselves, living on what they can pick up, with, perhaps a handful of grain occasionally, and roosting wherever they can find a place, an easy pray for vermin. Get some of the improved varieties, give them comfortable quarters and plenty of food and drink, and, my word for it, they will put money in your pocket. If you do not feel able to get pure blood fowls to begin with, I can tell you how to improve your present stock of common hens at a trifling expense. Send to some reliable poultry breeder and get a cock of some of the large breeds ; no mutter if he is not combed and not feathered according to the “ standard,” if he is -young, vigorous, and largeboned, that is all you want. Male this cock with a dozen of your largest common hens. The chickens raised from this cress will be half-breds, and, at maturity, will weigh from two to four pounds each more than the common variety ; you can figure for yourself and see whether it would pay or not.