POULTRY FARMING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1940, Page 9

POULTRY FARMING

SOME USEFUL HINTS. A trifle more feed often means converting a “slacker” into a layer. The best way to mend a hole in wire netting is to patch it with another piece.

Anyone can feed or look after adult fowls with' a measure of success, but rearing chicks is the crucial test of the poultryman.

A strain of poultry may be started without much trouble, but it is a difficult matter to perpetuate it.

Perfect stamina and straining after extremely high laying do not go together. Legweakness in chicks is sometimes caused by too much meat food and insufficient greenstuff, which results in gouty rheumatism. Broodiness is one of those things that develop naturally; it may occur after the first 15 eggs, or it may not occur until 90 or 100 are laid.

Never be in a hurry at feeding time; no better opportunity exists to note the flock’s health.

When a broody hen starts to eat eggs it is generally due to an egg being accidentally broken. This can occur from setting thin-shelled eggs, the ground under the eggs not being properly shaped or becoming hard, ‘or a clumsy hen.

In ducks and geese the crop is merely a dilation of the esophagus or glandular stomach which follows the crop in the fowl —it is not a distinct pouch. For this reason their feed must consist largely of meals and greenstuff.

When feeding dry mash fix the water vessels as far as possible away from the mash hopper. Fowls eat a lot of dry mash and need plenty of water to drink, so if they have to travel anything like the length of the shed for water they will not gorge themselves on dry mash and get more exercise going for a drink. WHEN BUYING CHICKS. SOME IMPORTANT POINTS. When buying chicks be sure to reject all those that — Are obviously small and weakly. Newly-h’atched chicks should be perky, full of “go,” well fluffed out and of good size. Are cross-beaked, crooked toed, crippled, or with drooping wings. One with a cross-beak cannot eat properly. The other deformities are signs of inherited weakness.

Are blind. Quite a number of chickens suffer from defective eyesight or actual blindness. The objection is obvious.

Have not fully absorbed the remains of the yolk. The rest of the yolk should be absorbed into the digestive system through the vent immediately prior to hatching. Are mismarked. While you do not want _to keep exhibition stock, since these Tire not particularly good layers, it is highly desirable to buy chickens true to breed. Have tiny bits of shell adhering to the fluff. Since this is a sign that the incubation conditions have been at fault, such chickens are generally weakly. WHY LAMPS CATCH FIRE. THE CHIEF CAUSE. The chief cause of kerosene lamps catching fire is filling them too lullKerosene expands in bulk when it is warmed up by the heat generated under a brooder, and as it cannot expand in the container it must either come out through the wick tube, in which case there is very grave risk of fire, or out through the filler cap, or between the burner and collar. A good Jin. space should be left in the container for the expansion ol kerosene. A bucket of sand, or a tin of fine salt is handy to keep near lighted brooders in case of fires.