1870s book on chicken care

[coopist]

Quote:
Isn't it amazing that such commonsense things as knowing that chickens need fresh greens have been nearly lost in our industrial agricultural era? They may not have had everything right back then, but they surely did have some things more right than now. Very interesting.

 

[BrahmaMama]

They mentioned Brahmas!

Thanks for sharing, I love the old farming type books, especially with the pictures

 

[chickenannie]

Yup, that's the book online - Terrific, thanks for finding a way to share this great info!

Coopist -- along the lines of your comment -- it's my sense from this book that their food sources were completely different back then too. They didn't have access to feed mixes so they had to use what grains and foods were easily had.

Some of their treatments seem rather deadly though -- such as giving turpentine to a hen to cure gapeworm. So, maybe we've advance medically... but not preventatively. Or, maybe these two go hand in hand...

 

[coopist]

Yeah, I'd say we've advanced a bit too far commercially-scientifically, that sort of 50's Progress with a capital P mentality, forgetting all else, but yes, prevention of a homey, old-fashioned sort is something that we can begin to re-appreciate now, because I think many people do count the cost now. Reading a book like that is a mixed bag: awe at both the wisdom and the folly of the past. So, fun. I'm definitely going to be perusing the pdf

 

[d.k]

We have a family legend that says my granddad painted one of his hunting dogs noses with turpentine when it got bit on the nose by a copperhead. The burn of the turpentine made the dog run around for hours and supposedly it "burned the venom out" The dog lived so who knows. . . ??? I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND IT THOUGH!!!! I figure the copperhead just bit & didn't venom the dog. Kinda amazing what they used stuff for at times. . . .