POULTRY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 183, 4 August 1877, Page 5

POULTRY.

We have learned to jest at gapes by making free use. of camphor. We give to a chicken in a very bad case a pill the size of a small garden pea. As soon as we see symptoms of gapes we give the birds water to drink which is strongly impregnated with camphor, thus giving to the chickens that which was a favorite medicine with our grandmothers, "camphor julep." The treatment seems to explain itself. The gapes or gaping is caused by the presence of small red worms in the windpipe. No medicine can reach them unless it I does ao by vapor. An hour after the chicken has swallowed the pill it smells of camphor. Camphor is a very strong vermifuge, and the worms die. — London Cottage Gardener. If you were breeding for a fine shining black you would expect a large egg from a cross between a Dorking and Cochin ? Both are good layers, but they do not lay very large eggs. If we were breeding to ensure large eggs we should try them by crossing CreveCceur and Spanish. Both are non-sitters, and can therefore afford to lay larger eggs than others that have the honors of maternity. We are not in the habit of measuring eggs, nor can we form an opinion as to results from that process. We have known Spanish eggs to weigh 4^- ounces, and we have known an averge of 4 ounces. This question will go far to resuscitate the old question, viz : Should not eggs be sold rather by weight than by number ? — lbid. A correspondent to the New York Tribune says : — An egg was laid by a brown Leghorn pullet, not ten months old, with three yolks, weighing 4^ ozs., measuring around 6| in., 8|- in. lengthwise. The same day another hen laid an egg weighing 31 ozs. The cause of scales on the legs of fowls is from the burrowing of minute parasites beneath the skin. These parasites are nearly identical with the itch insects. Anointing the legs and feet with lard and sulphur three times at intervals of four days, or moistening with kerosine at the same intervals, are usually successful remedies. — Weekly Herald. Hens may be prevented from sitting, if they should manifest this desire too frequently, by shutting them in a small dark box for a few days in a corner of the ground, without any nest, and feeding them abundantly during the time of their confinement. Of course care must be taken that air ia admitted. Some consider that this end is better secured by leaving the hen without food, though always giving it plenty of water ; while not unfrequently the practice is adopted of dipping the poor creature in cold

water. It is always well to know how the desire of incubation, if frequently recurring, may be prevented ; but it should never be forgotten, that to debar the hen from sitting entirely would be very injurious to her health, anil destructive to her laying.