POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2928, 27 April 1910, Page 36

POULTRY NOTES.

Br Teehor. The schedule of the Dunedin Fanciers' Club show, to be held Ist, 2nd, and 3rd June, is to hand. All the usual classes are provided for, and the trophies offered are niiusually tempting. The judges are:— For Leghorns (all classed Mr H. G. Hunt; Wyandottes, Mr P. Sinclair; all other varieties, Mr E. O'Reilly. Entries -close May 7. The Dunedin Fanciers' Club has decided not to allow pigeons belonging to the sons of members of the Homing Pigeon Club to compete in the Boys' Class. Entries for. the Dunedin Fanciers' show close on the 7th May. Exhibits of poultry, pigeons, and canaries must be delivered at the Massey-Harris Buildings, Crawford street, where the show is to be held, not later than 10 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31. Mr P. W. AVates has been again ap(pointed superintendent of the show, he having proved last year to be the right man in the right place. ■ The club is now putting the old Mas-ssey-Harris buildings in order for the show, and no doubt country visitors to the shmv will be glad of the opportunity of visiting the poultry and dog show whilst in town. The championship for Norwich, plain head, buff, non-colour-fed canaries, Norwich, plain head, yellow, non-colour-fed, any other variety than Norwich, canary, non-colour-fed, will be competed for at the Dunedin Club's show. Mr T. Scott has been appointed judge of canaries. Mr F. Roger has been appointed to fill a vacancy on the committee of the Fanciers' Club, and should prove a decided acquisition, as Mr Roger is a keen fancier,' and one who has at all times been read'v to give the club a helping hand. Tho schedule of the Christchureh Poultry. Pigeon, and Canary Club announces that. the show is to be held in the King Edward Barracks, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th June, and that entries close on the 12th May. Judges are:—Mr J. Tindall, Wyandottes and Orpingtons; Mi H. Hearfield. Minorcas and black Leghorns; Messrs R. C. Wilson and C. Lucas, Leghorns (other than black), Anconas, Andalusians, and Oampines; Mr J. Dae re, all other classes. The club upholds its reputation for attractions in the shape of valuable prize?. The numerous advertising pages taken up by members of the club speak eloquently for the enthusiasm with which the. Christchurcb fixture is run, and a comparison in this connection between the Dunedin schedule and the one under review would explain many things to those curious to know why some things aire! DIRECTIONS FOR CAPONISING. The following directions for eaponising are given in Lewis Wright's "Book of Poultry," and are principally taken from French methods: —Closely connected with the subject of fattening is the operation of eaponising, or depriving the cockerels of the power of reproduction, so largely carried on in France, but eompairatively little practised in Great Britain., There is no doubt that the weight of the birds and delicacy of the flesh are enormously increased by it; and on the ground of cruelty there is little to be said', whilst all our oxen and most of our sheep are prepared for the butcher in a similar way. The usual mortality in. France amongst the birds thus treated is only about one in forty, and the danger is thought so little of that the operation is frequently performed by children. The French operation is best described in the work by Mdlle. Millet-Bobinet. The time choser is about the age of four months, and when the weather is cool and moist. In the heat of summer it is attended with danger, and is then rarely performed. The instruments are two—a small curved knife, kept very sharp, and a Eurved, 'surgical needle, with some waxed thread. Two persons are required—one of whom operates, while the other holds the bird. The operator sits down, and the assistant holds the bird on his lap. with its back towards him, and the right aid'? downwards, the lowermost leg beintj held firmly along the body, and the left leg being drawn backwards towards the tail, so as to expose the left flank, where the-incision is made. A few feathers are plucked off to expose the skin; the latter is raised up tvith the needle, so as to avoid the inteefcines, and an incision, large enough to Admit the finger easily, is made into the abdominal cavity, just at the posterior edge'of the last, "rib: in fact, is kept close to the °dge of the bone as a guide. Should' any oortion of the bowels protrude Lhrough the. wound, they must be gently Returned. The forefinger is then mho-

duced, and passed behind tba intestines towards the spine, on each side of which the two testicles aTe situated, being, in a bird of four months, rather larger than a horsebean. One of tba testicles being felt, it is to be gently torn by the finger away from its attachment to the spine, and removed through tha wound; the other being sought for and removed in a similar manner. Care must be taken that the testicle does lot _ slip away among the intestines after it is detached, when its detection and removal from the body may be difficult; but, wen if this accident occurs, it is not often followed with serious results, though occasionally it does excite inflammation. Both testicles being safely removed, the edges of the wound are brought together and kept in proper position by two or three stir js with the wax thread. These aro may. J in the usual surgical manner, each stitch being detaohed and separately tied, not sewn as a seam. In making them, the chief thing to guard against is to avoid even pricking the intestines with the needle, much tees including any portion of them in the stitch, which last would inevitably cause the death of the fowl. When all is done rightly, there should be little bleeding or suffering, and the whole being safely over, the bird should be put under a ooop in a quiet place, and given only soft food, such as bread and water. After a few hours he may be put by himself in a small run or yard, but until perfectly healed must not be allowed to perch, • but obliged to sleep on straw. For three or four days the soft food must be continued, and when entirely recovered, the bird may be either set at liberty or put up to fatten

THE PREVENT! )N OF DISEASE IN THE POULTRY YARD. Poultry are liable to quite a formidable number of diseases, and every poultrykeeper of experience, by which I mean one who has kept flocks of fowls, and not one whose poultry-keeping is confined to a back garden, learns by practical knowledge sooner or later what these are, and how best they a.re cured. If he does not, he is either exceedingly lucky or exceedingly careful, or perhaps both, for, with all one's care, die-ease not infrequently breaks out in the poultry yard. lb is really a moot point if fowls are worth doctoring, and one American poultry-keeper—the Americans are above all a practical nation —has- stated the best cure for a sick fowl is a hatchet judiciously applied upon the neck, while the manager of one of the big poultry farms (commercial poultry farms) that exist and pay in the United States, declared in ap interview once that every fowl on the fai - m that showed a sign of sickness was killed and buried in lime at .once. "We cannot afford to talc? risks," he concluded. Be this as it may, there is no doubt fowls cannot pay when there is sickness about, and the utmost vigilance should be used to keep it at a distance. Let us briefly glance at the most common causes of disease. In the semi-artificial conditions under which most fowls live, they are more prone to ailments than they were. Th/3 value of pure water does not receive pll the attention it might as a factor towards keeping fowte healthy, yet it is very important, and one of our largest utilitybreeders —a breeder who claims, I believe, to own the largest poultry farm in the United Kingdom—has at great expense provided all his pens with running water by means of pipes extending the whole length of the extensive poultry runs. Few of us can afford or desire to go to this length, but we can all go so far as to buy a good drinking fountain for the fowls. An old metal pot, the lid of a saucepan, a wooden trough, a piedish (cracked), a tin can—l have seei all these in use in poultry yards, and the owners are generally rather proud of their ingenuity and economy in using them. I even plead guilty to having done the same sort of thing myself once; but it does not pay in the long run, let poultrykeepers take my word for it. Fowls, to keep healthy, must have pure water, and it is only healthy fowls that pay to keep. No doubt fowls may drink water out of a tin can for years and be no worse for it. apparently, or the water may be allowed to become filthy without ill-effects, but fowh so dealt with are never in such perfect condition as if they had an. abundant supply of pure, fresh water given in an. enamelled fountain A good fountain will last practically for ever, and is the cheapest investment in the end It should be a covered one, tak'i.g to pieces for cleansing purposes After all, as good as anything is a bottle of water inverted into a dish, if given clean every day and sheltered from the sun, but it means more trouble. To let fowls drink exposed sun-heated water is about the surest way to make them develop disease. The two points of food and grit are best taken together; the more hard corn the fowl eats the greater tax on the digestive organs and the more need for grit. This is why fowls in confinement need ground meal, and why their corn should be given so that they must scratch for it. In its wild state the fowl had to hunt diligently for every grain, and 1 seed it swallowed, and this is the natural way for a hen to eat .We give it two substantial meals a day, sometimes throwing down the food in a lump before it, and we are then surprised at crop-binding troubles and the fowl being unable to digest its food. Grit should never be omitted; a smasher can be purchased very cheaply, and the grit made on the premises—that, or it can be pur chased by the hundredweight ready broken. But whether fowls are at liberty, unless they run across a main road with flints on it, or in confinement, grit in some form they must have to keep their health, for the natural grit they find on the land thev run over is soon exhausted, and, though land is often accused of growing stones, it is never obliging enough to grow grit suitable for poultry. [ Perhaps the danger arising from inbreeding ought to have been mentioned at the very besrinning of this article. Healthy unrelated stock is the foundation of success in the utility breeder's poultry, yard. Not only must the stock fowls be healthy, but they must always have been so. It cannot be repeated too frequently that a fowl which has had roun. however healthy it may look, should never be bred from. The probability is it will breed diseased chickens. This has been proved over and over again, and is about the best proof of the danger of doctoring roupy fowls. Inbreeding, if the stock are healthy, can be carried on for years without apparent ill-effect, but there i® one effect, subtle though it be; the birds become smaller., and it shows, too. in the large number of unferile eggs laid. Judicious crossng is the only way to preserve the stamina- and size of the flock. The skilled breeder can venture far furthe:: to inbreed than the-

unskilled, for wonst of all is the inbreeding among farm stock carried on simply because no new blood is introduced, and the very worst kind of mongrels result. The influence damp has in developing liver disease is. not recognised nearly so much as it might be. Sometime® fowls are confined in a run where they get next to no sun, &nd where the soil is always damp; dirt and damp'go together; breathing foul ait, and the continual dampness predispose the fowl towards disease. It may take a certain time, for liver disease is an insidious complaint, seldom shows itself till well advanced, and then a cure is little good. Unless the poultry-house can be placed in a dry and sheltered spot, and the fowls have the ad ventage of a ram on a light soil, the results of poultry-keeping are sure to be disappointing. • They will do fairly well on heavy land if provided with plenty of shelter, but on exposed, cold land the handicap is . so great that they are seldom profitable. It is sometimes thought that any land is good enough for poultry; this is not so. Moreover, the best land gets in time staled by their droppings, and needs a rest or a dressing with lime, otherwise they pick up disease, literally pick, it up, for, if fed on, it, they swallow their own excrement in minute particles, and contagious ailment follows. It is_ this which has finished off many a promising poultry farm in the days when the dangers of overcrowding and keeping large flocks of fowls, together were net so well Known as they are to-day.—Agricultural Gazette. SHELL-LESS EGGS.' Poultry-keepers are often troubled by their fowls laying soft eggs. There are several causes. It is generally for want of sheil-iorming material, but this is not so in all cases. Sometimes when hens have beer laying a large number or eggs they make eggs faster than Nature cam. shell them. We have known fowls lay one perfect and one shell-less egg in 12 hours. This is not an exception,, but often occurs when good layers are kept. At one time we thought it was impossible for a fowl to lay two perfect eggs in 24- hours, or rather to shell them in that time; but we have proved it is not, having had them do it, iand pullets under eight months old. Fowls are not always out of order when they lay shell-less eggs, as many think they are— that is, if they are supplied with everything necessary to form the shell and keep the egg organs in a healthy state. A fowl often lays ctouble-yolked eggs; this weakens the organs, and often causes soft eggs to be. laid afterwards. * When fowls are over-fed and become very fat internally, they frequently produce soft eggs; also when they have been laying a long time without a rest thenegg organs naturally get weak, especially if they lay large eggs. Their oviduct, or egg-passage, is wonderfully constructed. It is attached to the ovary ..where the eggs form first. They hang much the same as a bunch of grapes, and can be seen by a microscope when, not larger than the point of a piu. They are so constructed- that the largest ones are at the bottom of the ovary, or rather, they are encased in a skin," and as they grow they lower themselves into the top of the oviduct. After the egg is severed from the ovary it has to pass through the oviduct, _ or eggpassage, which is from 12in to 19in long. We have found it 7in longer in some fowls than in others. It is while the egg is passing through this pipe or passage that it is shelled. The 'egg-passage does not lie in one line, but 'is constructed much the same as the entrails of a fowl, and rather more of an S or pothook shape. -If an egg is examined in a fowl before it leaves the ovary there will be found some small blood veins upon it, and these leave the egg before it passes into the oviduct. Should a hen be startled or very much f rig-htened or over-reach herself the _ little blood-vessels become ruptured. This is the cause of small dark spots being found in a new-laid egg; they are usually found in the large end of the egg, not in the yolk, but at the top of it, just between the yolk and the white. .Sometimes it is caused by the male bird being too heavy. When these spots are found in a boiled egg people think they are not new laid, and that they may have been sat on. Im some cases they are as large as a pea. After a hen has been frightened it frequently happens that a shell-less egg' breaks in the egg-passage. When this is the case the fowl may be seen standing very erect, with her tail down and her head up. The feathers are usually wet behind, while the other part of her plumage looks very rough. If not attended to fowls often die when this occurs. j They are usually found dead on the nest, and the cause of death is frequently put down as egg-bound, when it is really the skin of the soft egg left in the eggpassage; this irritates the fowl and causes her to strain, as she cannot pass it. This causes a rupture of the egg organs, and often of" the body, too, and is often the cause of the laying hen being so large and down behind. When any of these symptoms appear the hen should be caught and examined. The skin, of the egg can usually be found just inside the egg-passage; occasionally it is already protruding. If so it can be easily withdrawn by gently pulling it down when the hen endeavours to pass it. It must be done very steadily; if not, it will break inside. When it is broken inside it can be withdrawn by tweezers; a small piece of linen rag should be tied on the end of the tweezers, and a little oil put on the rag. When this is done it is not so likely to break the skin or hurt the fowl. If this precaution is not taken, inflammation follows. This is partly caused by the hen straining herself. She should have a teaspoonful of salad oil and a little warm water given her; also a little soft food (not much), so that she does not lay any more eggs until the oviduct is strong again. If so it causes irritation, and the fowl becomes very ill. Ground oyster shells ave used for laying hens, as they supply the material for making the shell. Flint dust is also a fine thing for the laying hens, as this prevents their laying shell-less eggs when everything eke fails, and especially in the breeding season, as it makes the shell of eggs brittle, which is of great assistance to the young birds when hatching. CENTRAL PRODUCE MART. Messrs Reilly, Scott, and Gill, proprietors, report for the week ending Saturday, 23rd April:—During the past week full supplies of poultry have come forward, but unfortunately fully 50 per cent, of the birds arriving are too small and thin to command iattention from poultry-breeders, and very low prices have to be accepted to effect a clearance. At present we are experienc-

ing a good demand for pullets, particularly white Leghorns, and for these good prices are obtainable. We confidently recommend consignments of good hens, cockerels, ducks, and pullets, and would advise our country consignors to send only well-conditioned table birds to this market. For report as to prices please see commercial column.