HINTS FOR BREEDERS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 68 (Supplement)

HINTS FOR BREEDERS

Provide plenty of shelter for your fowls. Fresh water should be given every morning. The hatching season should now be finished.

Don't give pasty food; let it be free and crumbly. Avoid disease in the poultry yard by cleanliness.

Indian Runner ducks are very hardy and easily kept. Partridge Wyandottes are coming rapilly to the front. Don't pamper your birds; give them a plam light diet. There is more money in duck raising than in poultry breeding for table purposes, but for general phi-puses and egg production the hen is invaluable. A green grass run will promote health and vigour in chickens.

Brooder chickens are easily reared, and are free from vermin.

Dorkings are fine table birds, and some strains are capital layers. A plot of green lucerne should always be grown by poultry Keepers. Skimmed milk can be mixed through the morning meal tor poultry. The Indian Runner duck has proved its worth as an egg producer. Great Britain is a large importer of eggs iroui many foreign countries. Don't trouble to rear deformed or wry tailed birds, they are useless. Orpingtons are good table birds, excellent layers and the eggs are large. Always scald your morning meal of pollard and bran before feeding.

Turkey breeding is profitable only where large grazing areas are available. Pekin and Aylesbury ducks are the best of the table breeds of water fowl. Fresh soil and new ground means vigour and health for young and old birds.

As soon as the breeding season is over take the cock bird away from the hens. Early hatched pullets will soon be laying if they are of the quick maturing strains.

Don't keep hens after the second season's laying unless they are from special strain.

Farmers have expressed surprise at the laying qualities of the Indian Runner ducks.

Pure white chickens from the eggs of Silver Wyandottes do not indicate impurity. Keeping fowls for egg production is the most profitable source of income from poultry keeping. The Wyandotte is holding ibs own all over the world as an all-round general purpose fowl. White. Silver, and Golden Wyandottes will always be popular, they are handsome as well as useful fowls.

Soft food should always be mixed to a light, free condition; it should be well balanced -with bran or green stuff. Dout fail to give your young chickens a very early meal, and feed a little and often. Send them to bed with a full crop.

Keep your fowls active and busy. Give them something: to scratch at if there is no natural scratching ground in your yards. Dou't feed your chickens on grain till they are getting feathered. Continue with, soft dry food till they are able to easily digest grain. Separate your young stock into yards according to ages. Don't keep chickens two months old in the same run as birds four months old. Young chickens should never be handled except in cases of necessity, and as regards their food, they should not be pampered. An abundance of healthy food in good condition is all they require.

Incubators are often very useful, even for those who believe only in hatching with hens. The eggs from the hens can be removed to the incubator at hatching time, and thus save all crushing of young chickens.

When building a poultry house be sure that the perches are all on a level. The plan of placing one higher than the other is a bad one for several reasons one of which is that the fowls always fight for the highest places. As chickens grow they require more exercise in order to develop themselves and gain size and health. Freedom is best for them, or when complete freedom cannot be given, other means must be resorted to in order to obtain the best results.

Watch your chickens carefully in order to detect the smallest symptoms of dieease or lice, and then hasten to correct the evil, whatever it may be. Attention will sharpen your eves and enable you to readily detect the least little things that are not as they should be. “Board floors will cause leg weakness in chickens by creating a stiffness in the and feet. Exposure to cold and wet will cause it by bringing on an attack of rheumatism. Overfeeding induces it by adding weight to the body before the legs can gain equal strength. If the droppings are allowed to accumulate in the poultry house for days at a time, there will surely be trouble in the form of sick birds. Many devastatingl diseases get a hold in the flock when the house is dirty. Cleanliness is one of the cardinal principles in successful poultrv keening. Silvei beet can be grown for poultry to advantage. The leaves make capital rraor fnrv'h several crops of green stuff can be obtained from the one root, for it kemis nn, throwing fresh tender leaves right through the summer if it receives a libera] supply of water.

In fancy breeds and the raising of exhibition stock the best results are obtain d. ait least where amateurs and limMed range are concerned, by keeping only one breed. Tt is easier and better to loupo-Mv attend to one thing than to two. T?emember the old adage, “f-n-t- -.f nl] trades and master of rone.’* T u -, nrmlies to for, raisinrr Q f poultry as well a- to any other subject.

Don’t overstock tho brooder. Turkey -eggs require from 26 to 29 days to hatch. Stale eggs hatch later than newly laid fresh ones.

A green patch of grass will act as a tonic for your fowls. Chickens, or any fowls, will not thrive with insect vermin.

The guinea fowl takes from 25 to 26 days to hatch her eggs. Duck eggs hatch on the 28th day, and geese on the 80th day.

Eggs should now be put down in preservative for winter use.

W yandottes are good all round fowls, and are great foragers. Cold storage will yet have a fine effect on the poultry industry. D on’t waste scraps from the table. Mix them in with the poultry food.

A good dust, or sand bath is essential for fowls, especially in hot, weather. Don’t forget grit, fresh water and green food at this reason of the year. The Orpington lays a brown shelled or tinted egg, or good size and quality.

Lucerne, lettuce, cabbage or white best leaves are relished in summer by fowls.

Green lucerne, chaffed and mixed in with soft food, is excellent poultry feed.

Vegetables and small potatoes, boile-d and mixed in with pollard and bran, arc good for poultry. Too many chickens should not run together; make many small colonies. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Cooping the hen with her chickens is always the best plan, but keep on changing the position of the coop so as to give the chicks a fresh run. ■Commence the year keeping proper accounts of receipts and expenditure in connection with vour poultry. See by black and white if they pay. Although 21 days is the usual time for hen eggs to hatch, sometimes they will take a little longer, and not infrequently they will hatch on the 20th day. Hang a cabbage up on the fence m the poultry yaid so as the birds can easily reach it; they will enjoy it. Don’t throw it on the ground, portions will be wasted.

If you have show birds and want to moult them early for exhibition purposes, beep them under cover, and feed on oily food occasionally. Linseed and sunflower seed is good.