Farm and Garden.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 451, 8 December 1904, Page 2

Farm and Garden.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES. OF AN INCUBATOR. IT is very necessary that the incubator should be got in to working order and started soveral days before the oggs are placed in ; heat slowly, and gradually turn up the flame; watch it constantly, and when the thermometer registers 103 degrees, sorew the nut on the connecting rod until the cap over the lamp is raised about oneeighth of an inoh. It is important to know that tha regulator is working all right before the eggs are put in. After the temperature is regulated, put in the eggs in j the incubator and closo the doors, and do not open them again for 48 hours. It takes from 36 to 48 hours to get the eggs warmed through, so do not be surprised to find that the thermometer does not register 108 right off. Keep the flame as it was beforo the eggs were put in. The lamp should be filled and cleaned and the wick trimmed over-night, as that insures a good steady flame through the night. After the eggs have been in the incubator 48 houis, they should be takon out and turned twice every day. It is not necessary to turn them completely ovor each time, but just enough to keep the yolks from settling on one side. On the seventh day the eggs should bo tested and the infertile ones taken out. That is done by inclosing a< lamp in a box, with a hole in one side the shape of an egg. Hold a fresh egg up to the light and see if it looks perfectly clear. When a fertile egg has been incubated seven days, a dark spot, surrounded by a network of small veinp, can be seen. All eggs that still look clear after the seven days incubation are infertile, and should be taken out; those infertile eggs can be used to cook, or can be cooked and fed to the young chickens. On the tenth and fourteenth days the eggs should be tested and the dead eggs removed. The chicken will commence to hatch on the nineteenth and twenty-first days. After the hatch commences, do not open the door of the incubator until the end of the twenty-first day. A great many of the details of the management of an incubator have to be learned by experience. Full directions for operating accompany each incubator, and should be carefully studied before the incubator is started. There is quite a number of good incubators now being offered for sale. Avoid buying an inferior machine because it is cheap.

BREEDING TURKEYS. No poultry-keeper can hope to become a successful turkey-raiser who resides in the midst of a thickly-settled neighbourhood and must therefore keep his stock in close quarters. Freedom from confinement and a wide range are essential to successful rearing. An isolated farm, with access to woodland and a few upland light-grass pastures, is the ideal place for turkey culture. A prime requisite at the start is to secure the best of stock, even at fancy prices, as it is folly to breed stock from immature inbred or inferior birds. For vigour, hardiness, numbers and immunity from disease the stock raised from a cross, producing the Bronze Turkey, is most satisfactory, although there are other breeds having the advantages of greater gentlesness, less inclination to stray, and earlier maturity. Too great an admixture of wild blood, while it gives increased hardiness, decreases size, as does also breeding from young gobblers. One gobbler may run with a flock of from twelve to twenty hens. The best results in breeding are from old gobblers not related to the hens. In killing for market the largest, plumpest, and hardiest of the flock should be reserved for future use. Let the turkeys choose their roost, if they can .find easy access to apple trees, on rising ground, rather than valley; they should be fed away from the house, and not encouraged to intimate association with the hens and other fowls. A flock properly tamed wil seldom venture away into the bush for laying, but where nests are provided they will usually seek them ; an inclosure with wire-netting and nests provided therein may be used, an 3 the birds confined within for' half a day during the season. When a turkey sits on the nest for two successive nights, eggs for hatching may be furnished her, and any number under eighteen. As a turkey has not the patience of a hen in hatching, but will often leave the nest with the first-born joung and desert the rest, it is best to give her eggs as nearly as possible of the same age. Leave the turkeys alone until nearly hatching time. When about to leave the nest, feed the mother corn-meal dough, to induce her to remain till. all the young are out. A precaution that should never be forgotten is to dust the mother thoroughly with insect powder before and during the hatching.

O.its. —Oats as a poultry feed should be first class, but owing to the large percentage of bulbs they are not relished by chickens, and for that reason they are somewhat indigestible. When ground they may be used freely in the mash; also the rolled and granulated oatmeals are excellent for feeding young chicks. The ground oats without the bulls are extensively used in some parts for fattening fowls.