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Show pLllif CULL FROWPOULTRY j: I Minidoka County, Ida., Opens j j Campaign for Larger 1 1 Flocks and Profits 7 i j . I 1 RUPERT, Ida., May 6. Minidoka 3 county, through its farm bureau, has started on an ambitiious program of r poultry improvement, which carries I with it the possibility of saving the i people of the county moro than $76,000 a year by the elimination of the cull $ ,hen. I Meanwhile, they are learning how to pi i produce hens that have no cull3 among 5 ( them. A. B. Brown, executive commit-i commit-i ! teeman for the farm bureau poultry i 'project, has had no culls among his , pullets for the last two years. C i Model poultry houses add to egg pro-i pro-i duction. Mr. Brown's alarm clock i turns on the electric lights every j ' morning and starts the hens' working I day at 5 o'clock. ( j Poultry Valuable Asset. , I "Poultry is one of the valuable as-I'sfits as-I'sfits of every farm In the county," says 2 'Mr. Brown. "There are -1S.88G hens 1 in the county. The culling campaign ! ! carried on by the state Tarm bureau shows 50 per cont of the hens to be unprofitable. Since it costs $3.11, according ac-cording to our records, to keep a hen here, we have decided it most worth while to work toward weeding out the 2- ,443 cull hens in the county and put the money saved into our pockets. Figuring on tho basis of the work already al-ready done here by the farm bureau, , tho county would be richer by $76,017.73 if all the unprofitable bans were disposed of. To date $3517.41 has been saved and only a very small per-. per-. centage of the people of the county have done any work toward the improving im-proving of their flocks by systematic I culling and careful breeding, j Netted Good Proift. "One of our farm bureau community ! workers, who has kept a very careful i record, says his hens have paid for all i the feed they have eaten and netted' a jgood profit. He gives the figures to ! prove his statement: 'The entire cost I of keeping my 200 hens was $824.75. (The gross returns from the yard were $1603.3S, leaving a net gain of $77S.6a. 'Tho profit from each.hen was $3.98.' ' The method of breeding started by the Ho.pewell community under the di-' di-' rection of Pren Moore, poultry special-j special-j ist of the university extension division !was explained by Mr. Brown thus: "Four flocks of very good quality White Leghorns were found In Hope-' Hope-' w-'ll community, and a community breeding circle was started among j. i hem. They were all of the same strain I V:hen Mr. Moore visited one of these I flocks in January, he found every pullet pul-let from the mating bird of excellent laying capacity. As soon as every breeding pen in the county Is as care-! care-! j fully selected as this pen was, we will j have no culling to do." Type of House. Mr. Brown was, then asked about his new poultry house, and admitted that iT was an improvement upon the old shack. "It is a Wood's type house," he said "with an open front, 24x40 in sixc. At one end there is a granary 10x24; in the center is the big laying pen, 20x24, and at the othe." end are two breeding pens, 10x24. "It is equipped with electric lights. I do not have to get up to turn them on A switch is attached to the alarm clock, and turns on the lights when the alarm goes off at 5 a. m. They are turned on again in the evening and kept on until 7. The increased egg production egg producttlon ahs more than paid forthe electricity used. "The litter carrier saves a great deal of time. In the old house it took 20 minutes to clean a week's accumulation accumula-tion of droppings, with only 50 hens. In the new house, it lakes exactly 12 minutes, and there are 200 birds. "Another time saver my new house contains is a row of windows under the droppings boards at the back. This keeps the hens from scratching all the littel undej the roosts, making It necessary ne-cessary to rake it smooth every day. "Self-feeding hoppers are used for dry mash. These nre filled once every two weeks and are kept before the hens at all timesialong with nests and drinking fountains, are raised fom the floor to loavo all avllble floor space for scratching. To make the water as convenient as possible, 1 have a well Uced As Model. Prcn Moore, poultry specialist fronl , the university extension division has sen Mr. Brown's house .and approves of it for this climate. Farm bureau ! workers frof other counties, who are ' planning poultry houses, have been ad-' ad-' I vised to see Mr. Brown's horse before ' building, limeiy Foltz, executive committeeman com-mitteeman on the poultry project ot I the Twin Falls county farm bureau, came up with his carpenter and looked the nouse over carefully. He returned to Twin Falls county with tho plans i ' and specifications and In very short ; time he had a poultry house completed ; i "Your hens are good layers, I hear; 'Where did you get them?" Mr. Brown 'was asked. I "I have had this strain for some i time," he replied, "but they are bet-, bet-, ter layers than when I got them. I started with one cockerel and five 'hens. For four successive years I have! ; mated liens to year-old cockerels. The old cock bird was mated with the earl-1 earl-1 lest maturing pullets. The first two ; years, 10 per cent of the pullets were j culls, but this systom of line breeding ; has improved my flock. The past two years there were no culls. During this I time the laying capacity of mv hens 'has Improved." oo |