POULTRY LORE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 957, 4 July 1890, Page 14

POULTRY LORE.

PICKINGS. (JOHN W. CAUGHET, PENNSYLVANIA.)

Many beginners wonder why their chickens, which seem to be lively when a few days old, begin to droop and drop off one by one. Look on top of the head and under their throats, and you will discover the cause—• lice. Prevention here is better than cure.

What about that flook of barn* yard fowls ? Many flocks hardly keep the farmer's table supplied with eggs and broilers. It is true that pure-bred poultry is the best to keep ; a good breed will, under proper management yield far more in profits than does common stock. They eat no more. The incubator seems to have a ‘ corner on chickens.' It goes to work late In the fall, tnrning out the living balls of down eaoh month, and by April a lot of broilers are ready, when the old hen is just beginning to get out with her first brood. Pour months ahead means handsome profits at top prices. Broken oyster shells and bone are both excellent food for hens. As the ingredients of shell making material are to be bad in both, the value of it for hens at any season of the year is certainly apparent. Any restaurant or fish market will be glad to make arrangements to give away what they have; all the expense will be that of removing them

The abundant rains which generally fall In spring will suggest the necessity of good drainage for the poultry-yard. Dampness Is invariably the open door to roup. Fill up all hollow places where filthy water accumulates after a rain. A chicken will see no more harm in drinking impure water than a man would in vile liquors. If the yard is properly keptthis will immediately obviate the trcub!?:

The meadow below the barn is where we advise turning out the fowls, at ten o’clock in the morning, or a little earlier, perhaps. The chickens all like a change of seen 6, We never permit them out later than noon, at •which time they are driven into the coops and given a warm feed of vegetables with a little grain. They are then content to remain within the enclosure of a wire or picket run, and suffer nothing from confinement. Wet days we keep them ib. A large, bright-red comb shows a layer. A healthy hen shows her condition by the colonr of her comb. A purplish-red comb indicates something disordered. One in this condition will lay but little. Her general appearance is stupid ; excrement thin and watery. She is a fit subject to take in band and mend. Place her in a warm clean pen by herseif and feed carefully a few days with stimulants. We never do mnoh doctoring; the hatchet is our remedy. In France the fattening of geese for market is the business of men who do nothing else. They contract with the dealers to get their stock in marketable condition at a ; certain time for a price agreed upon. France is considered the largest poultry' market in the world, the keeping of poultry being done in a manner that makes it pay. It is not ancommon to see the French peasant driving into market a flock of several hundred geese, selling them as we would so many sheep or hogs. There are also many who go among the farmers, pluck the geese feathers, and market them on percentage; this gives employment and a living to many poor people,