Poultry Notes.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 157, 20 May 1909, Page 4

Poultry Notes.

Keep the grit and shell boxes full. The shell grits on sale are fairly good for grit, but crushed oyster shell is more soluble, and as fowls require a lot of lime, especially laying bens,this is the best form in which to give it. Do not fail to put Douglas's mixture in the drinking water at least twice a week. Moulting birds and growing chicks require a tonic, and iron sulphate, of which Douglas's mixture is composed, is the best and also the cheapest.

Keep a good look out for lice. They are the cause of a good many of the diseases to which poultry are subject—not only the lice that stop on the birds, but the little red mites that hide in the crevices of the roost, and only come out at night. They can be found in millions in a dirty fowl bouse. Keep the roosts well oiled with kerosene. A liberal dressing once a month will keep the pests under.

Take especial care of the old hens, as these are the crown jewels of the breeding pen. The hen which carries her shape, colour, and marking into old age, is worth her weight in gold to any breeder, yet most breeders do not realise this. I have frequently gone into a breeder's yard and bought the pick of his breeding hens, just because be thought them no longer fit to show. What a great advance there would be in the breeding of exhibition birds if this fact, were generally recognised!

The value of the Angora goat as a scavenger is evidently recognised in America, for the United States Forestry Department has contracted for the servicse of 3000 goats to clean out miles and miles of tangled undergrowth and shrubs in one of the largest forest reserves in California. The tracks are to be cleared to provide fire breaks for the protection of the forests. This step is falling in line with the belief of the sheep and goat men who have been long advising the forestry officials that the grazing of flocks of sheep and goats was the surest protection against forest fires, and the only practical road to re-afforestation of millions of square miles that could only be made susceptible to timber growth through the continued tread and droppings of the flocks. There should be a lesson to this country in this use of the Angora, for a large area of scrub and undergrowth is wasting good land here.