POULTRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4734, 16 August 1902, Page 7 (Supplement)

POULTRY.

NOTES AnTnOTIONS (By "Cackler.”)' Young dandlion leaves chopped finely are excellent for young chickens. They prevent overflow or gall better than anything. Watercress is also an: excellent thing, but the cost is generally prohibitive. If young chickens are not doing well it is a good thing to change their food. Boiled rice is very, good for a change, but they must not have too much of it, although they are very fond of it. the chickens have a. cold, a small piece of camphor should be put in their drinking water, and the sain© with the laying hens.

All young birds need bone-meal and flint dust after they have turned the ago of a month. As they grow very quickly and frequently the young cockerels do not get strength in proportion to size, it is very necessary that hone-forming material should be provided. Good bone-meal and genuine flint dust are not expensive items, and the birds only require a sprinkling in their soft food once a day; therefore, it is well for this item to be remembered by all who want strong, vigorous chickens. - ■ If a ben or two is out of sorts it does not matter a great deal, except that they do not lay. But when the male bird is laid up, that is a different matter altogether, as the eggs are not fertile, and so no chickens are obtained. Where people have good birds, and fertile-eggs are an important matter with them; it is well to have an extra male bird or two in reserve. If it is not convenient for them to run about they should have a large coop, when there, is no outbuilding tq put them in. When chickens or fowls die. or are killed, and they are in good condition; the gizzard should be hard, and’ the outer skin very . tight, not flabby and soft. When chickens and fowls lack sharp vri< it is notan unusual thing for the gall to overflow on the liver, and there are thousands of chickens die through this one thing. After they have grown a good size (sometimes more' than half-grown) •hey droop , and die. Tt is . not-always through the lack of sharp grit, as an tpsuffie’ent aunnlv of green food will tiring it on. Chickens should-have some fine sham <wit the first week. A soft-food breakfast is conducive to a‘ good supply of eggs, as the birds receive nourishment at once when they are fed on soft food, whereas if they have grain this

has to remain in the crop to soak for some time before it passes into the gizzard. Where eggs are required during the summer it is a good plan to feed on soft food at least five mornings a week, ns this system certainly produces 'more eggs than feeding on grain. In the case of valuable stock birds, from which eggs are required in the early winter and throughout the spring for sitting purposes, it is advisable to feed' on grain only (for breakfa.-t and last feed at night), as the production of eggs throughout the summer in large numbers is not, desirable, it being well to give the egg organs a rest.

Boiled rice is. a very good thing for chickens. This- should bn boiled dry, long enough for it to burst, or is glutinous, as sometimes this wdll relax the chickens’bowels. 'Whatever may be the cause of diarrhoea, a little dry rice should bo given to them.-.-When a young chlekep lias diarrhoea, the gall becomes full, us it does not’ discharge into the intestines as it should. Very often when death ensues. the gall would have been overflowing half way over on to the liver. - Bio best thing to prevent this is to give ground ginger and a little powdered chalk, two teaspbonfuls of chalk to one of ginger. This will be sufficient for twenty chickens at three weeks old. It is a very simple remedy, and has saved thousands of chickens during the last twenty years. Jt is wise to pour a little salad ou down the chicken’s throat, much safer than castor oil, as people are apt to give too much of this. Salad oil is the best, ns this often heals the stomach when it is inflamed. People who rear a nn'inber of chickens should use groats and n little hemp-seed, and when a chicken gets a fortnight old, a little wheat, dan, buckwheat, or any sound nutritious gram.

It is wise to limewash the houses, hut before doing so (he houses should be swept round with a stiff broom, so that all the cobw r ehs, dust, etc., are all cleared out before the limewash is put on. J\ot only that, a good deal of dust collects round the walls of a fowl-house, and if it is not swept it mixes with the limn and makes the limewasliing look dirty. Whenever the fowl-house is limewashed it should bo done early in the morning, and the door left open to allow it to dry before the chickens go in in the evening. When the owner has an outbuilding for his fowls, he should have a wire door, so that they have plenty of air to keep them health}’. If they are put in a coop the latter should be placed outside in the open, so long as it is watertight. The more air they get, the more hcalrhy they are. Fowls do not want, keeping shut up in a band box. If the extra male bird is not wanted in the middle of the season there may be a poultry-keeper living near who has had bis cook bird die, and wants to replace it. . #

■ In such cases as : this the male bird, which* is kept on hand will make a fair price, and at the same tjme it saves the owner running any risk when he keeps a spare male bird. \Ve do uokinean that when a person buvs a pen or birds, say with sis or eight hens or pullets in, that they should buy two cocks and keep one in . reserve, - but when breeders have got some by them, which they breed themselves, they should keep one extra back. For the Momohaki Experimental Station the’ Government has just purchased one of the largest bono-niills which have yet been imported into the colony, a No. 14 "Dandy” machine.

A practical poultry farmer in the Manawatu . district who - is not in the •busines for fun rears .magnificent table birds to scale up to nine pounds at four and a-half months old at the rate of Id per week. As there is a demand above the supply for poultry at 6d per pound, the profit in rearing birds for' the table is undoubted. -In poultry-farming, as in any other branch of stock production, it is not so much the price realised as the economical production which tells. • A progressive farmer in tlie_ Wanganui district has decided to embark in the business of poultry raising on an entensive scale.. He will incubate by thirty ma.chines, and has. contracted to supply to the U.F.C.A., of Palmerston, birds at the rate of three hundred per week

Several complaints have reached me in regard to the why in ' which birds have Been looked after at recent shows. In fact in three cases valuable birds have not been returned to their owners. This is-, just the sort of thing which will effectually keep breeders from exhibiting at future shows of a society. The U.F.C.A., of Palmerston, offers a splendid price of Gd ppr pound for fowls up to any weight, in fact, the heavier -the better; the present demand far exceeds the supply, , and birds of the choicest doscription are absolutely unobtainable. The reason of this is not far to seek. Hitherto poultry raising in the colony has been conducted on a loose, haphazard principle with no particular object in view. With the ' introduction of the splendid principle of buying and selling bv weight it is to be hoped that a better class of bird will be grown. Considerable mystification was caUsed at the Feilding show by the frequent reference to the "Gordon Highlanders.” It turned out that the name to conjure up a Scot served to distinguish the pen of magnificent crossbred fowls with which Mr Morris, of Palmerston North, swept the board ,in the export class. As the progeny of a Langshau cock and Plymouth Rock hens literally grew while he looked at them the facetious Scotchman was wont to give expression to his feelings by the exclamation of a name which stood in his mind for everything great in a man—Gordon Highlanders, and the name them. Such an effect did these ■ wonderfully-developed birds have on the minds of the utility poultrymen who were the principal sunnorters at the Fe’lding show that the "Gordon Highlanders" were toasted at the excellent dinner at which the Feilding Society liberally entertained its visitors. Their owner replied on the ; r behalf with an amusing reading entitled “A, Bra’ Scotch Nicht.”