POULTRY JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 271, 14 November 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

POULTRY JOTTINGS.

Keeping Fowls for Profit.—J.P., Parnell, writes: ' Will you kindly put this in answer to "Commerce's" report on fowl keeping. I have kept fowls tor a number of years and always put the cost and the return down. They have always paid me well. This year I have 31 hens and three cock?, all good hilf-breds — Leghorns, Andalusians, etc. From the Ist of March to tho 25th ot October I have had 132d0z and six eggs. The first four month* I had lodoz and three ; July, 18ioz and 1 ; August, 32doz and tour ; September, 40doz; and to the 25th October, 26doz and ten : ecrgs value £6 13* 3d ; to IS bushels iced, £5% ; balance of profit, £3 8a 3d. I feed three parts wheat and one of maize. I have only half-an-acre of ground to run them on. My fowl house is cleaned out; every week and twice a week in the summer, and there i 3 always pleDty of freah water for them to drink. lam sure that if they are managed right they will always pay well.'—[Your letter, which should have appeared lasi; week, was unfortunately mislaid. —Mara.] It ia estimated that each fowl will annually produce one bushel of manure almost equaling guano in richness, and at a vastly cheaper rate t^ian we can buy the foreign fertilizer. The deposits ehouid ba gathered sufficiently often to prevent fermentation, as by that process much ammonia escapes. Give your fowls plenty of dusb or coal aahe3 as a bath ; also, lime, rubbish and gravel, together with proper food, and you will be rewarded by healthy fowls and a generous supply of eggs. With all the osher directions which are given for the prevention of disease among poultry, none is of more importance than that of having clean, weil-ventilated houses. Bran, scalded, or, better still, small potatoes, boiled, then mashed, and a quantity of rich bran stirred in while the mash is hot, left to cool, and then fed, is a most excellent feed for all kiuda of fowla, chough Buch food ehouid not be fed continuously, only alternated with whole grain, ate, as it has a tendency to produce an undesirable laxity, which should be carefully avoided with all kinds of live stock. There is on many farms a quantity of milk which is of no further use, and ia often thrown away. Meanwhile, the hens are suffering for a taste of thab milk, aa drink or food when curded.