POULTRY JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 145, 19 June 1895, Page 2

POULTRY JOTTINGS.

Don't overfeed your etock. Don'b omib to gather the eggs daily. Green food should be regularly supplied. Bad water breeds more disease than bad food.

Stricb cleanliness is essential in the poultry yard. Do not, force your pullets to lav, bub give them their time.

To raiae geese Buccosßfully there mußt bo some pasture land close by. Geese cannob thrive without plenty of green food.

Half-cooked barley i_ an excellent food to induce laying. Tho oggß will be found larger in size and quantity ; but enough is better than a feoat in this connection.

An excellenb remedy for leg weakness is' one grain of strychnia, sixteen grains of sulphate of iron ; common mass sufficient to make sixteen pills. One pill to be given twice a day. '

The English Board of Trade returns for 1894 show bhe eggs sent to England fbr sale from other countries during 1894 .to, be worth £3,786,320, whilst in poultry, and game the value was £480,890. Select the food for your fowls with as much care as you would for yourself. Because weevily wheat and rotten corn can be bought for one-half the price of; sound grain, is no reason ib ia the--cheapest. Plump pound grain gives good results.

Hen-houses, or poultry-houees of all kinds, should bo kept so clean'bhat enteribg them at night nob the slightest odour can be detected. Don't forgeti to make frequent and generous applications of limo wash, together with sulphuric and carbolic acids.

Sunflower seeds make an excellent food for poultry. ' They are easy to grow. The soil should be prepared as it for maize, and should be planted about 3_*or 4 feeb apart between the rows. Weeds should be kept down, and the earth cultivated around them. The Mammoth Russian ie about bhe best variety to grow. Aa they ripen care should be taken that bhe seeds do nob become over-ripe. The heads should be cub a little green, and stored away in a dry place to ripen until the seed ia ready to shell out. If the sparrows are numerous they will attack the sunflowers when halfripe.

It ia nob cold bo much as dampness bhab brings aboub disease in the poultry-house. Ducks will stay in bhe waber half bhe time and be perfectly healbby ; but compel them to remain in a house on nights in which bhe floor ia damp, and in a short bime bhey will show the effects of ib. Chickens can atand a hard rain occasionally, bub a house bhab is damp and full of bad odours is a regular death-trap, and a breeder of diseases. Half bhe diseases of ponlbry are braceable to damp houses, and compelling bhe chickens to roost where the air strikes them through crevices.