POULTRY NOTES.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 303, 3 September 1908, Page 6

POULTRY NOTES.

o The breeder should pay as much attention to producing the pullets from the best laying hens as to the cockerel which is to be their future mate. Keep the males in the best condition possible. This means—see that they are entirely free from disease, vigorous and hardy, not over-fat, nor exhausted oi worn out from too prolonged service *n the breeding pen. Keep them as free from lice as eternal vigilance ean make them.

No poultry man can afford to be without charcoal. A little goes a long way and it is worth its weight in gold to raisers of young chickens. It aids digestion and promotes the health of brooder chicks to a extent. The use. 'of charcoal is generally corrective of numerous poultry ills.

In any flock that has not been carefully selected there are sure to be some hens which do not lay more than one or two dozen of eggs per year, while other members have surprisingly large records. These are actual facts and not theories, and a trap-nest in any untested flock will show this wide variation of prolificacy. At Mr E. T. B. Worthy’s admirably kept poultry farm at Hawera (says the “ Eltham Argus ”) the art of poultry breeding for utility is very much in evidence, not only on account of the selection of the birds kept, but for the complete and up-to-date arrangements made with respect to their housing and general attention. Of the many features of special interest is a fowl-house built with malthoid, which, though a cheap building, is substantial, and accommodates 80 birds. Both this and the other houses are fitted with trap nests, and as each bird is numbered, it is possible to find' out exactly which birds are the best laying strains, and this has been done by Mr Worthy, who has had his system in operation some time. He has thus secured a fine strain of utility birds, as reference to the egg records will show. From two pens of birds, 34 white Leghorn pullets and 32 brown Leghorns, Mr Worthy has received 1486 and 1153 eggs respectively since April. The totals for July were : Whites 616, browns 436. “ WHITE DIARRHOEA.” There appears to be a great mystery over the disease known as “ white diarrhoea,” which has caused great mortality among in-cubator-hatched chickens in America, not due to that cause but to something apparently not understood in artificial rearing. As the chicks are only a week or two old when attacked, it is readily seen that there is difficulty in effecting a cure. , For this white diarrhoea a teaspoonful of castor oil, followed by 5 grs of rhubarb and 10 grs of carbonate of soda, or a grain of opium, has proved a very effective remedy. During the attack, and for a little time after i.ts abatement, the fowl should be fed on soft food and have no green vegetables. For very -young chicks, half a tea-

spoonful of olive oil is preferable to castor oil, and boiled rice should be fed.

Professor Graham, of the Ontario experiment station, has found that there is less mortality among small incubator chicks when the egg chamber of the machine is thoroughly saturated with a-10 per cent solution of some coal tar preparation and water. This should be applied before the eggs are placed in the incubator and after the proper degree of heat has been adjusted. If this solution is applied after the eggs have been in the machine a day or two it has little if any effect. A. comparison of incubator chicks with hen hatched ones has shown this solution to be very efficacious in preventing “ white diarrhoea.”

Fanciers and others with valuable stock may try the doctoring, as it is worth while to go to some trouble ■ and expense to effect a cure. But it is hardly worth while for the ordinary poultry keeper to bother beyond prevention as far as possible.