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The early hatched chickens were now full grown, and the cockerels gave us
unmistakable hints that it was time to separate them from the pullets.
So I had some more portable fencing made,
enclosed the large shed, and kept them in that.
They were well fed on rather fattening food, so as to prepare them rapidly for market,
and we got rid of them as soon as possible by methods
which the reader will find detailed in the chapter on marketing.
To the pullets we allowed the range of the place,
but we found that although the nights began to grow cold,
and even after snow came, they would persist in roosting in trees and on the fences
and it was almost impossible to get them into the houses.
Night after night we carried them into a house and placed them on the roost,
but next night they would be found in their own places the same as ever.
The worst of it was that they were excellent fliers,
so that none of our fences would keep them in.
I got over this difficulty by catching them one by one
shaving off the feathery part from the quills of one wing
and placing them in the old house where there was most room.
We had to lock up the entire flock for ten days,
but at the end of that time when we let them out we had no trouble.
I was anxious to leave the poultry at liberty as long as possible,
so though November brought wet and dreary days
and a few flurries of snow, yet the chickens did very well.
Many of them moulted and consequently stopped laying,
but I was surprised at the number of eggs that we got every day.
The number of hens on the place was a little less than 600,
and of these two-thirds must have been laying for many days;
we got twenty and twenty-five, dozen eggs.
At this time it was our practice to shut the hens in every night,
and keep them in until late in the morning.
As soon as they were let out, they had a warm feed of dough
made by scalding a mixture of corn meal and oil-cake, and adding a little of the siftings of ground oyster shells, and a little red pepper.
At noon they had wheat, as much as they could eat.
At night, a good feed of whole corn.
On fine days they had free access to the patch of clover and grass,
and on wet days, they had cabbages, as much as they could eat.
Twice a week they had all the meat and ground bones they would eat after their dinner of wheat.
Under this regimen they throve well, and became very bright and vigorous.
The egg crop increased to thirty dozen per day,
and as eggs were bringing a good price we much more than paid expenses.
This experience, however, was somewhat exceptional.
Under ordinary conditions the egg crop would have kept growing less and less until the revival in February and March,
and it was evident that under the stimulus of more liberal feeding than they had been previously accustomed to,
and also the influence of red pepper, and bones, their latent powers were being developed.
How long they could stand this, however, was a question.
Real cold weather did not set in until after the middle of December,
and then it was ushered in with a rather heavy fall of snow.
This prevented all access to green stuff growing in the fields,
and confined the hens to their houses and sheds.
And here the glass roofs came into play with striking effect.
While all was cold, wet and dreary outside,
these glass covered sheds were dry and warm.
As there was but little outside work for the man now,
we kept the boiler going all the time, and we ground up bones quite liberally.
As the birds were somewhat crowded,
we picked out a few that we thought the poorest, and fattened them up, and got rid of them.
We also got rid of the last of the cockerels,
except the very young ones, and in this way we made more room for the rest.
But in spite of all our efforts and extra feed,
the egg crop diminished;
the cold snap produced a remarkably sudden and great change in the birds,
and our receipts frequently fell from thirty to less than ten dozen.
But, as the number of eggs produced grew less,
the price increased.
Thus far our fowls kept in good health, but then, as we well knew, the worst was to come.
It was the cold of February and March that I dreaded the worst.
In the large houses the hens kept very comfortable.
But in the breeding pens the birds began to suffer with the cold of January.
The snow left us about the 8th of January, and we had some very fine weather about that time.
In a few days, however, it grew cold again,
and was much more severe that it had previously been.
The birds in the breeding pens, having no glass sheds,
were compelled to go out in the open air whenever they left their coops,
and the combs and wattles of the hens got frozen,
so that laying ceased entirely.
And as I was very anxious to get eggs from these coops,
so as to be able to raise some very early pullets,
that would lay next winter, I confess I was taken quite aback at this new obstacle.
Indeed, so serious was the difficulty,
that I almost gave up all hope of success that season.
It was an awkward predicament to be sure. What could be done?