POULTRY NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 262, 4 November 1932, Page 12

POULTRY NOTES.

CARE OF YARDS. CONTROL OF PESTS.

(By ORPINGTON.)

As the weather gets warmer conditions for the rapid multiplication of red mite and lice are more suitable. Lice can easily be detected if you will examine the loose feathers near the vent. Part the feathers quickly with your fingers, and if you see those little yellow insects running for cover, or clusters of grey "nits" (the eggs) at the base of the feathers, then it is time to get busy. If you have only a few birds dust them well with some commercial insect powder, but if you have more than 50 birds it will pay you to use a nicotine solution applied on the perches just beforo dark. Red mite do not live on the birds, but sleep during the day in the cracks of the perches or walls, creeping out at nights to suck the blood from the birds. Destroy by prevention and by spraying all cracks and crevices with a good powerful disinfectant. When building new sheds, use plenty of creosote in all joints. Once a shed is heavily infected you will nsed to spray regularly every week to get. rid of them.

Those Bare, Dirty Yards. It is said that a good poultryman can be judged by the condition of his poultry runs. Those who try to keep healthy birds on dry earth runs are asking for a whole heap of work. What use is a bare run to a hen? She wants grass and grubs, and just loves scratching and digging. Force her to work in dirty disease infected soil and she will soon pick up enough worm eggs to lower her vitality. Intestinal worms breed very rapidly in a hen. They lay eggs in the hen's stomach which pass out with the droppings. These eggs are then swallowed by other birds, and so the infection goes on.

CORRESPONDENTS' PROBLEMS,

BROODY HENS. B.H. (Papatoetoc) writes: "I have read your remarks about broody coops, and thought you might be interested to learn that such well-known poultry authorities as Sir Edward Brown, LL.D., F.L.S., and Mr. Toovey, the latter one of the best-known poultry breeders in England, express themselves strongly against the use of broody coops; that is, coops in which broody hens are placed in order to put them off broodiuess. They maintain that fowls should be allowed the rest which broodiness gives them, and that if this is done a more uniform yield of eggs the year round is obtained, that the birds are more vigorous and healthy, and that their eggs are of a better quality. Mr. Toovey does not compete with his birds at egg laying competitions, nor does he sell settings of eggs or • day-old chickens, but he is known to be running a poultry plant successfully from the financial point of view." |

While I liavc the greatest respect for the opinions of Sir Edward Brown and Mr. Toovey, I would remark that while birds kept from breeding should be allowed to follow their natural instincts, including broodiness, those which are kept and fed only for the eggs it is possible to get from them, should be discouraged from broodiness as much as possible in order to obtain the utmost profit from them. They arc not to be bred from, they are not to be used for natural incubation, and they will be disposed of, as a rule, when their best laying term is completed. The sooner they are put off broodiness the sooner they recommence laying and fulfil the purpose for which they are kept.