POULTRY NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 204, 28 August 1926, Page 24

POULTRY NOTES.

IBy R. J. TEBIIY.) TO CORRESPONDENTS. ANXIOUS TO KNOW (Walniauku) asks what is wrong with her Leghorn chicks? They were hatched in an incubator, and up till a week old rIIC3- were tine, healthy chicks, then some of them went lame, could (inly shuffle around: next day they would die. They were fed oatmeal aud milk after forty-eight hours, aud given a weak solution of Condy's to drink.— Many things may have happened. It may have been over uniting, the floor too hot. lint there is one thing which you are doinu wrong, and is quite sufficient to ruin any chirk, if not kill it, the giving of Pondy's crystals, as they are called, in the water all tlie time to drink. This would preserve tlie food and prevent its breaking down and digesting. When you Inive chicks dying suddenly, tell mc whether the abdomen is distended with gas, and if on pressing it creamy, watery fluid is expelled. KKM KERI lyour letter has evidently been delayed, judging by the date on it, —will 1 advise the cheapest food to feed hens? The iO birds have laid (iOSO eggs in the year. Is that good? How old should chicks be when put in the brooder? How old are the chiclis when 1 ran tell a rooster from a hen, and how to tell them? —As your birds have six acres to roam over, and a sandy beach, the number of eggs laid for the period is good. They would balance most rations themselves. I should say your cheapest food would be skim milk and maize, providing you can pet skim milk for nothing, or at a low price, without much cart ins. Yon should be able to buy locally snivrn maize. The birds will Kathe&r the other essentials. The chicks should be placed in the brooder when they are forty-eight hours old. • I do not know the brooder you mention. You should be able to tell Leghorn chicks when they are a month old —certainly six weeks. The combs of the cockerels will start to grow and be reddish at the tips: those of the pullets will not crow nway. and will be yellowish. The pullets' feathers at the saddle are rounded at the tips, those of the cockerels are pointed. It would be better to sell the turkeys locally. * SHAWN GLAS (Whakatane) writes again re his fowls, which he thinks are suffering from fowl cholera. Has been giving Condy's crystals and pills. What substance should he used for the foundation of a pill? Should fowls be fed three times a day? What proportion of albumen food should be given to each hen?—Condy's will not help in the case of cholera: give Miracle in the water, but for only two days. Kerosene does not take the place of turpentine, although for some purposes it is better. You may use anything for the foundation of a pill: flour, fat. pollard. If you use a meal dip It in water before you slip it down the neck of the birjl. If fowls nre not at liberty they should have a light feed midday. I know the strength and proportions of only one albumen meal. That should be fed 2oz to eight birds, mixed in the mnsh. every day.