How to Raise Poultry for Pleasure and Profit by William M. Lewis

How to Raise Poultry for Pleasure and Profit

William M. Lewis’s How to Raise Poultry for Pleasure and Profit (1895) is a practical handbook that blends hobbyist enjoyment with commercial guidance, covering poultry breeds, housing, feeding, disease prevention, and marketing. It emphasizes both recreation and financial gain, making it a hybrid manual for small-scale farmers and urban enthusiasts.

📘 Overview of the Book

Author: William M. Lewis
Published: 1895, New York (Excelsior Publishing House)
Purpose: To guide readers in raising poultry for both pleasure (as a hobby or recreation) and profit (as a business venture).

Audience: Hobbyists, small farmers, professionals seeking outdoor recreation, and those considering poultry as a side income.

Except 

essential to success, for a person may have the best known breeds, and if they are not properly cared for they will, in nine cases out of ten, prove a failure. 

Therefore we wish to impress upon the mind of the breeder, in the outset, that this needs attention more than purity of breed or superiority of kind. As a friend of ours said, “there exists gross neglect of the poor birds generally.” 

This neglect is not confined to persons who have no fancy for fine poultry, but extends even to many who have the reputation of being fowl fanciers. Still, as before stated, for poultry to be remunerative there must be good management. 

 STARTING OUT IN THE BUSINESS, 

plans should be well matured and digested before hand. A good, convenient poultry house should be properly constructed, sufficiently large to contain the number of birds one desires, warm and dry in the winter, well ventilated, and it should be kept scrupulously clean. The house should not be over-crowded, but just large enough. Nothing is made by over-crowding the hennery; on the contrary, it will prove detrimental. 

The fowls must be fed regularly and at stated periods. They must have plenty of pure water at hand at all times — this is of as much importance to the health of the brood as proper food. If possible, they should also be given, in addition, a plat of grass forarun. Place within the hennery a dust heap; this may consist of wood or coal ashes, sand, or dust from the streets. It should be kept under cover, so that it will not become drenched with rain or snow, and to it the fowls should have access at all times, to dust, and thereby rid themselves, in a great degree, of the numerous parasites which infest them. 

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