POULTRY NOTES.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 301, 27 August 1908, Page 6

POULTRY NOTES.

o Now that chickens are bred from good layers they need more and more stamina to help them to fulfil their best intentions and usefulness. Cold does not affect strong chickens much, but driving winds do, so the more fresh air they can get without cold winds the faster they will grow. in the building of a new poultry house at precautions are taken, through the use of cement and wire to make it rat-proof, the poultry-keeper will be recouped for the extra costs. Light and pure air in the poultry house are absolute necessities, and the inmates |must have then to be in a healthy and cheerful condition, for fowls will not thrive in a dark and cheerless place any more than plants will.

It is the fat, lazy and unthrifty hen that lays the soft shelled egg. Let her go, in a measure, hungry for awhile. Then place her feed where she will have to get a move on to get it, and do not have too much of it for her at a time, and she will soon get her system in bettor condition and stop laying soft-shelled eggs.

As a preventative of lice it would be a good plan to whitewash the poultry house and nest boxes early in the season ; it is much easier to prevent the lice from getting a foothold in the poultry house than it is to eradicate them after they once gain possession. A quantity of crude carbolic acid in the whitewash will aid materially in keeping the pests away.

Regular feeding with nutritious fool plays an important part in egg production (next to the consideration of strain and age). Good housing must not be neglected, especially when substantially-built night-shelters on hygienic lines can be obtained so cheaply. It is this attention regularly given to poultry suited to the owner’s 'surroundings that keeps the eggbasket filled.

A good many farmers consider oats a dangerous feed for chickens, believing that the sharp, pointed hulls will damage or even pierce the fowl’s crop. This is usually a mistake, although occasionally wheie very stiff or hard pointed kinds are used trouble may be caused. A plentiful supply of grit will go a long way toward preventing any trouble arising from the use of oats. Also sec that the fowls have an abundance of fresh water at a] 11i mes. Th e grit grinds the food, while the water softens the hull and renders it less hard and stiff,