POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 24

POULTRY NOTES

[By UTILITY-FANCY.]

“A.M.R.” asks how. to prepare sprouted oats for poultry? It is simple. Procure flat boxes with sides irom 4in to 6in high. Soak some poultry manure for a couple of hours, using just enough water for it to absorb. Put this in the bottom of the box, making a layer of from 2in to din all over. Then dust about of fine sandy loam' over. it. Have your oats soaked for four or five hours, and sow thickly on top of the loam. Then sprinkle about lin of sandy loam and fine wood ashes over the seed, water well, and cover with a wot sack. Place the box in the sun, when the oats will quickly sprout and make a rapid growth. When the shoot appears the box should be moved out of the sun. Water it every day, and when the sprouts are about din long they will be suitable to cut. Do not cut too close to the soil, and a second growth will be induced. The soft sprouts will make excellent green food for either chickens or adult fowls, and can bo easily chopped up. U the oats are sown thickly only a portion of the “crop” will be needed to provide green food for over a dozen fowls. A couple of fair-sixed boxes will ensure a regular supply for a few weeks. Another way of sprouting oafs: Soak them in water for twenty-four hours, adding ten drops of formalin to a gallon of water, Place oats in shallow wooden trays in a room with a temperature of about 7()deg. It is customary to sprout till blades are four or five inches long, but it is preferable to feed ! them when about lin in length. Start by feeding about one-quarter of an ounce daily per bird, and gradually increase to loz per bird. “Troubled” asks what is the proper i doso of Epsom salts to give a fowl? Tho usual dose is half a teaspoonful | for a mature hen. The salt can be | dissolved in warm water and poured down the throat. In treating a flock the Epsom salts should be mixed in the mash, using about 11b to'each 1 DU fowls. “E.O’C.” —It is evidently a case of prolapsus of the oviduct, either caused by effort to propel a large egg or the result of condiments to force egg production. You will find information as to how to treat in this week’s notes. Mr Goodl.et expresses himself as very pleased with the condition of Ids birds returned from the competition. They have not yet started to moult. It speaks well for constitution when it is maintained under the strenuous conditions incumbent on such heavy laying as Mr Goodlet’s birds have gone through. Mr Geo. E. Jeffreys has again taken on the presidency of the Christchurch Poultry Club. There arc 400 members in the club. . , The man who would make a living from a 500-hen farm must do all the work himself with no hired labor. A definite system of working must' bo adopted, and it will be necessary to have buildings so constructed and things so arranged as to minimise work. Too many birds should not bo kept on a one-man farm run for egg production, as keeping stock separate always entails extra work. Protrusion of the vent is not uncommon, especially at the end of tho season with birds which have been forced for eggs, resulting in a weakness of the muscles at the vent; or at times a very large egg will cause such straining as will result in the mass of flesh coming right' out of tho vent. This should be noted very soon after it

lias happened, and the bird should bo picked up and examined. If tho egg has been passed it will bo a fairly simple matter to replace the parts alter bathing with warm water, in which" somo alum or permanganate of potash has been dissolved—this to act as an astringent to tighten the membranes. In addition to getting the part hack in its normal position, it Is necessary to stop the bird laying, as, naturally, if other eggs come along while the weakness is there the same trouble will happen again. Give no food for twenty-four hours, and after that only very little for a few days, in order to rest tho part as much as possible. It is best to place the bird in a comfortable coop with a sack over the, front to keep her quiet. Rut if on examination wo find the egg enclosed in the protruding mass ol flesh, we have a far more difficult job. and one that few like messing with. Generally, however, it is not impossible to ..relieve the bird in a lew minutes, first by bathing the part iu warm water, and then finding the small outlet through which the egg must come. By gentle pressure sec if it will come away through tho aperture, but take care not to break the shell. Tho belter way is to smear your fingers well with vaseline, press the egg as lar as you can through the aperture, and then work your fingers round and round, gently pressing the flesh back at the same* time until the egg comes away. Occasionally there is a case where nothing but the knife will save the bird, but such a. case is rare with birds, and is generally found with a pullet in trouble over the first egg. Only an experienced hand should attempt to operate, and, owing to the time it takes to rest the bird while she is healing, getting her back to lay, and the chances that the same thing may have to be done again, it is a question whether it is worth while. At the Kentucky Experiment Station fifteen hens were bred to a cockerel whose dam produced 262 eggs in one year. These hens laid an average of 128 eggs during their previous year. Sixty pullets saved from this mating produced an average of 152 eggs per year. These pullets were mated with a. fcockerel from a 263-cgg hen. As a result of his mating a group of pullets were produced that averaged 183 eggs each. This is an increase of 55 eggs per hen above the original flock in two years. This splendid example of the value of pedigreed cockerels should encourage every poultry breeder to purchase male birds that are not only true to type and color but that come from high producing hens. Teh prospective purchaser of cockerels should not expect to buy such cockerels for a “song.” Suitable Meal Mixtures.—The following is recommended by the ‘ Fanners’ Gazette ’ (Northern Ireland) as a good meal mixture for ieoding either wet or dry:—4lb good pollard, 21b bran, 21b maze meal, 11b Sussex or finely-ground oats, 11b fish meal or meat and bone meal. If milk is plentiful and the birds have free range, the fish meal or moat meal will not be necessary. One of the objections to the use ot dry mash is that it is somewhat unpalatable. If it is seen that less than 2oz of mash is consumed by each bird in the day it will be necessary to encourage better consumption. This can be done by giving at midday a quantity of the above

Contributions and questions for answermf should bo addressed to ** Utility-Fancy,” Poultry Editor, ‘ Star ’ Office, and received not later than Tuesday of each week. “ Utility-Fancy ” will only answer communications through this column. Advertisements for this column must be handed in to the office before 2 pan. on , Friday.

meal mixture moistened with warm water or skim milk, and leaving the dry mash hopper open all the time as usual. Protection from Wind and Wet.—lu regard to housing it is very important that the birds should have a good dry house to retire into in bad weather. Hons must have protection from wind and wet it they are going to keep up the egg supply. The bigger the house the better it is for them, four square feet per bird being the ideal at which to aim. The floor should be covered with dry straw, in which the birds can obtain plenty of exercise scratching for their grain. Big houses are fairly expensive, but they are well worth it. Nothing very elaborate is necessary, but it must be wet and wind-prooi. Also, it must be large enough to encourage the birds to take shelter and exercise inside when the weather is bad, instead of crouching under a hedge, which is inevitable if the usual small houses are used. Wine for Hens.—Llood live-year-old Burgundy is an excellent tonic lor a young chicken, says the Paris 1 limes.’ With laying liens and capons it has first-rate results, causing ihe hens to lay better and gam in weight. Capons increase in size also. These facts have been established, according to M. Pages, a French physiologist, who has made many experiments with giving wine to chickens and young turkeys. The question was recently discussed by the French Academy of Agrculture, which bore out M. Pages’s contentions. Experiments were conducted on a farm where leghorns are raised, and it was shown that pullets at three months old which had been given as chicks red wine mixed with a little sugar, and later mash moistened with wine, were heavier | and fatter than those deprived of this | diet. *Jd. Pages recomends a teaspoonful of sweetened five-year-old Burgundy for very young chicks every second day, to begin; then wine in mash. In Luxemburg, the custom of giving red wine to poultry is commonly fol- . lowed by the peasants.