POULTRY NOTES.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 301, 29 August 1908, Page 6

POULTRY NOTES.

BOWEL TROUBLES. During no other period of the year are the trials of the poultryman so great as at this time. Chicks are being hatched in large numbers, with weather conditions changeable and uncertain. With seasonable warmth and sunshine alternated by rain and cold it is hard to get chicks started well, no matter whether being reared in brooders or in the care of trusty hens. Unless extreme care is exercised in feeding, bowel trouble, of some kind is almost sure to develop. Intestinal troubles in fowls are of many sorts and degrees, from simple diarrhoea to the almost incurable dysentery. The intestines form a large part of the alimentary canal, and are subject to great irritation through sour and unwholesome food or through exposure, cold, wet weather and other ' causes, and diarrhoea may easily be developed. Diarrhoea is responsible for very . great mortality among chickens, some poultrykeepers losing a greater number from this cause than from any other ailment. A remedy that is much used in combating the commonest form of diarrhoea is composed of the following : —sgrs chalk, sgrs rhubarb, and 3 grs cayenne pepper made into pills, one to be given each night and morning. Putting a little alum into the drinking water has often been found very useful in checking the trouble.

Exercise in the open air and sunshine, whenever weather permits, is essential to health and the production of strong-germed eggs —eggs that contain -potential vitality, the power to live when properly quickened.

When on free range the chickens pick up insects and worms. These are most abundant during the spring and summer time, and it is at that time that the chickens thrive. When they cannot get these abundantly,x animal feed must be furnished in some other form.

Variety in food is very important in feeding the laying hens, and there is little or no danger of giving too much of a vaiiety so long as only sound wholesome rations are given.

Three things are important in poultry-raising, and these are coarse sancl or grit, fresh water, and a good dusting place.

If you have a few heads of cab bage, hang them up by a string just high enough so that the fowls can jump up and pick them. This will give them exercise. Livers and lights can be hung up in the same way.

Hr Hawkins, the Victorian poultry expert, says that adulteration of food stuffs is by no means confined to chaff. “ You can get a handful of salt and soda from a quarter of a bushel of pollard,” he remarked, “ and such adulteration is fatal to poultry.”