POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2362, 1 June 1899, Page 40

POULTRY NOTES.

Br Teekob.

— A correspondent writes thanking* me for the particulars I gave two weeks back of the poultry house I saw at the Industrial School. Ho says that he is building one like it, but minus the passage for caretaker, which he cannot see the practical use of. He thinks that if the board at the back of the nests can bo broached from outside it will be more convenient than having to enter a room for the purpose. In reply, I would point out that the caretaker's department is practically — because of the wire partition — all one with the henhouse proper, the idea being to give the maximum air space, with a limited area to soil.

—Do not overcrowd your fowls ; give them fresh water each day, and good, wholesome food. This is the best preventive of all Do not neglect to search for lice several times each year. In our large house, 166 ft long, we have never been troubled with a single louse, as we keep plenty of road dust in all the time, and a louse cannot live where there is dust. Keep this in mind, act accordingly, and lice will keep out. Egg-eating can be prevented by keeping plenty of ground bone, oyster shell, and fine gravel before your flock all the time, so they may eat well, and construct the nests in a dark place ; by so doing you will seldom be annoyed by those egg-eaters. For those that have formed the habit, pare off the upper mandible quite blunt, also the lower, and put china ne.Et eggs in the nests ; they will work awhile at those artificial eggs to break them, and, finding they cannot, will yield. This is the best cure we know of. Egg gourds make very good nest eggs. — Exchange. — The prejudice against dark-legged fowls for table purposes is gradually dying out in Great Britain, as it has been proved that the quality of flesh is not influenced thereby (except in solitary cases), and all of the leading French table breeds are either dark or mottled colour in leg. The white-fleshed fowls are Dorkings, Houdan.o, Crevecosurs, Scotch Greys, Old English Game, La. Fleche, and Orpingtons.

— In an article on the egg trade, an expert says that something has been done towards placing more fresh eggs on the market in the winter. In Yorkshire, at one village, a small society of 18 poultry breeders has been formed, and they have conjointly marketed their eggs in one of the northern towns, securing by the increased price obtained for their guaranteed eggs an advance of some 33 per cent. The only complaint is that they cannot jupply enough to meet the demand.

— A thoroughbred fowl i« a thing of beauty ; a scrub is an eyesore. Apply the rule in all human and animal races, and the conclusion is the same. A scrub may be useful, so is a rag carpet. Both are made up of unfathomable mixtures. They serve a purpose, but fail to cultivate a desire for the beautiful. Not so with the thoroughbred. Like the finely-woven textures of a Persian rug it fills the eye with a sense of beauty. The mind is cultivated to a higher sense of art, and a fancy for the ideal thoroughbred is created. It leads to an active desire for the possession of the best, and the satisfaction of breeding and improving a race of fowls to a high thoroughbred standard is greater than all the gold that will purchase the. same from the hands of another. The thoroughbred racehorse, the finely-bred cattle, the many well-bred varieties of dogs, the magnificent chrysanthemums of the present day, and the wonderful improvements in all fruits and flowers, are due to the fancier, whose inbred desire for the beautiful and more perfect ideal in what lie cultivates makes him the most important and beneficial factor in the improvement of animals and vegetable life..