THE POULTRY WARD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1948, 26 September 1889, Page 4

THE POULTRY WARD.

USEFUL HINTS. ; Eggs from pullets generally produce weak chickens. If eggs are chilled during batching considerable loss will result. Dampness and lice are the cause of the great mortality so common amongst young turkeys. The lice which destroy so many young turkeys are not the little mites, but the large tick lice, which prey on the heads and throats. A few drops of warm lard rubbed on the heads and throats of young turkeys close to the skin will protect them from the lice. chickens get larga and aban-: don their coops, see that they do not sleep on damp ground at night. Never feed little chickens with wet food ; they like it, but it is not safe. Sweet dry food and plenty of water to drink are what chickens want. “ Little and often ” is a good motto for poultry feeding—particularly for chickens.

A little pepper mixed. with the food given to young chickens will be of very great advantage. The best coop for chickens is the tent coop without any bottom. : No coop should remain long on the same spot; it ia well to remove it frequently. Young chickens are always best cooped on new ground where they are lees liable to disease. Never use a' chicken coop twice without giving it a coat of whitewash inside or a sprinkling ;o£ kerosene, i Neglecting to supply pure fresh water will often be the cause of hens not laying well. i M The secret of raising turkeys is •to keep them /warm and from getting wet in any way in the fowl-house. Use lime wash freely in every house where fowls roost, a little carbolic acid in the lime will do good. Be sure that your hen wanta to sit and is contented with her location. . Select your eggs from hens that you know, and do not always trust to those from a neighbor. , Do not use eggs that are from yards containing more than ten hens to one cock. After the heh is on her nest do not disturb her, and place the nest where the other hens cannot molest her. Let the nest be in a warm- location in winter, and in a cool place in summer. See that every ting is clean around her nest, and keep food and water within easy access. Provide a dust bath, and be on the watch for. the appearance of lice. Should they appear, use insect powder, Persian being the best. The eggs should be as fresh as possible —the fresher the better. After the egg is “ pipped ” do not open the shell any to assist the chick, as the fluids will evaporate before the chick is ready to com© out. Lice make the hen restless,- and as this causes a constant change of temperature in the nest, poor hatches will be the result. Let the food for the hen be of a variety, and plentiful. Do not feed the young chicks until they are 24 hours old. , Do not be too particular to save all the culled or chicken corn for the fowls. /

It is a great mistake to give grown fowls fusty corn; no species of farm stock is more: choice in this respect than a well-fed hen* and unless the hen is well-fed she will not pay her way.

Make up* your- mindr tq keep each cockerel you want in a natural and gallinaceous manner. Nature made them to run singly, each with as many hens as he can,keep together.r j To give the pullets a chance take the cockerels away and put them:in some roost at a distanced soonias you can distingush them. It is a curious fact that the nonsetting are decidedly less hardy and less easy to rear than the setting breeds.

The harder and drier all poultry food is the better; soft‘ and especially sloppy food ruins the crop and gizzard, and the liver as well, •

A reliable means of ridding the henroost of lice is a preparation of sulphur and carbon.—Sulphufet of carbon,

Put two ounces of the mixture in a bottle of water open at the mouth, and hang it by a string in the fowlhouse. At the end of eight days the bottle should be refilled.

To make hens lay the whole year give each half an ounce of fresh: meat every day, and mix a small amoUntlof red pepper with their food during the winter. Give them plenty of grain, water-gravel, and lime, and allow no cocks to run with them.: v :

A man named Kirby, employed - on the Manawatu Gorge works, met with a fatal accident on Monday afternoon. He was reaching for the rope of a. cage which spans the river ;&t the tunnel, when he slipped from the stage on to the rocks in the bed of the river, a depth of 20f;t. His arm was shattered and his head split open. Death resulted shortly afterwards. A meeting of natives of Shetland and others has been held at North Invercargill to assist crofters who refuse to pay tribute money to landowners in connection with the profits from small whales driven a-shora. Over £l2 was subscribed in the room, and it was decided to canvass the district, and ask Sir Sobert Stout to lecture on the subject from a business and social point of view.