BROODY HENS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 223, 20 September 1929, Page 16

BROODY HENS.

VALUE OF GOOD SITTERS. A SPELL FROM LAYING. There is still a chance for the very small poultrykeeper or the juvenile often to obtain a fairly good price for an old hen because she is a reliable sitter. Don't miss the opportunity. With the younger broodies one has to use judgment. If they have been laying through the winter months or for some considerable time, it. will in most cases pay to let them sit for a while or rear a clutch of chicks. You can dispose of the chicks if you have no room to rear them. By allowing the bird to sit, you give her a spell from laying at the time when eggs are the cheapest, and, with proper feeding, there is more probability of you getting eggs from that hen in the time of scarcity than if she had not reared the clutch of chicks. It is all a question of what you intend to do with that particular hen at the end of this or next season. If you think she is past the profitable laying stage, then break her off the broody propensity and feed her additional meat or albumen mez.l, that is, if you do not have skim milk or curds. When you are handling a broody hen, it is a good opportunity to give her legs a dressing to prevent or cure scaly leg. A little powdered sulphur dusted into the feathers around the vent will check bodylice. Hen With Chicks. A correspondent asks how a hen may be prevented from eating chick food. If you want fresh eggs for your household, I don't think it is economy to prevent the hen eating a portion of the chick food, as the> substance assists her in again reaching the egg-laving stage, which, in most cases, she- will do if she has been well fed five weeks after the chicks are hatched. If you wish to prevent her eating the food, put the hen and chicks in a slatted coop, so that the j chicks may run out, but the hen cannot. Then place the food a sufficient distance from the coop so that the'hen cannot reach it. If you'cannot do this,', give her a feed of maize before putting-, down the chick food.

Mites. Already correspondents are starting to ask for information about the eradication or check of this pest. Some .wish to know with what substances they, may dust the bird. Dusting the birds would have very little effect. You must treat them in the poultry house, as the mites' are on the birds only at night, and for this reason their presence is often not suspected. They have the power, as many other suckling insects have, of thinning the blood of the host, enabling them to draw up the blood through the hollow barb with which they puncture the skin. This toxin or poison, which is ejected by the mite to thin down the blood of the fowl, if in sufficient quantity, undermines the health of the bird, and may even cause death to sitting hens if the nest is in a fairly dark position. Mites must be dealt with on the woodwork of the perches, nests and buildings. If the timber in which tiiey are living can be got at. they can* be kept in check, if not eradicated; : but it is necessary to pull fixtures to pieces, otherwise when you are dressing the timber the mites simply go back further from the surface. If the building is a larpe one, or it is lined, then the mites will beat you, unless the building remains empty for at least twelve months. All the mite and tick family have the ability to sustain life for very long periods without food, or at least without apparent food. When investigating the sheep tick in Australia, I kept them on a strand of wool in a glass case for ten months, when the placing of them on the wool of a live sheep would very quickly revive them. It is the same with fowl ticks. There may be no siftn of them in a house, the house mav have been kept empty for weeks and" months, but if you hold your hand over a crevice, within ten minutes the mites will come to the surface. I have even known them to drop from the roof of an empty poultry building evidently attracted by the smell of something living There is only one fume that l know will kill them, and that is cyanide, but it is somewhat dangerous to -use There are many things which will kill them if you can bring them into direct contact with their bodies. One of the best is a 50 per cent mixture of kilmite and ordinary kerosene. Day-Old Chicks. Chicks packed properly travel safely, but much depends upon the treatment they receive from the railway officials. My experience covering a long period is that very seldom are the officials careless in their treatment of this class of traffic. All live stock should be kept out of draughts, and this is the chief source of danger to chicks where they have to be transferred on a cold day from one railway to another. Even so, very few cases of trouble 3<rise. Tlie newly hatched chicks intended for dispatch should be allowed to dry off properly, but the sooner they are put on the rails after the drying process is complete the better they will travel, especially if long distances have to be covered. The chicks are benefited by the journey so long as they are comfortably boxed. The reason for this is that they require plenty of sleep for the first day. or two, preferably in a darkened compartment, where they are not tempted to exercise nor to worry each other. When chicks are sent on a journev they are compelled to rest in the boxes, and at the end of the journey,, when the consignee lifts the lid of the box, they.will look up perkily and be quite fresh. Contrast this state of thing's with the restless exhibition treatment the might have received from novices if kept at home. As soon as the consignment/of chicks reaches its destination the >box and contents should toe placed in a brooder registering about 80 degrees, and the lid should then be removed so that the chicks cool off gradually to the heat of the brooders. The youngsters should on no account be tipped out ol the box. It is advisable for them to remain in it as long as they show a desire to do so, which will not be for Ion". When they want to leave the box° thev will promptly clamber out, and the" box can be removed. If a broody hen is being used, the., chicks should be kept in the box until evening. Many hens refuse a family offered during daylight, but few will, do tso when they cannot see what is happening. 1 e youngsters in this case should be leit resting in medium temperature, Wl th the lid of the box slightly up until

night comes, when they can be placed under the broody.

It is important that baby chicks should not be fed too soon, even though they have travelled a considerable distance. The behaviour of the youngsters is the best criterion as to the proper time for beginning to feed them. Rather than feed them too soon let them go without as long as possible until they come to scratch and forage about seriously. Then, and not till then, you should give them their first meal. This should consist of a little coarse oatmeal or rolled oats, or whatever first feed you consider best. They also need water and grit, with finely chopped green feed right from the commencement of feeding.

Although the day-old chick industry is growing in a very satisfactory manner in New Zealand, it is a mere bagatelle when compared with some other parts of the world. In U.S.A. there are districts where chick hatching is done on a huge scale. A million eggs at a time is said to be the hatching capacity of two small towns alone, Zeeland and Holland, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Last year about 8,000,000 day-old chicks were distributed from the little district, most of them passing through the Zeeland post office. One of the hatcheries there has a 179,000-egg capacity, and another deals with 240,000 at a time. Practically the whole of these chicks are distributed by parcel post, many of the chicks having to travel hundreds of miles.

Do not attempt, even in late spring or even summer, to send very small numbers of chicks in a box. It is the combined heat of several chicks which makes the journey safe. Twenty-five in a box or compartment would make a safe number. If possible, the corners of the box should be rounded, and this can be easily done by tacking a piece of corrugated cardboard inside the box in the form of a circle. This prevents the chicks from crowding into a corner and smothering or over-heating the chicks in the corner.