POULTRY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 61, 26 October 1911, Page 3

POULTRY COLUMN.

AIM! ENTS AND PESTS. Tiiis is the season for diarrhoeas of various sorts. I so good granulated charcoal freely. If chicks or fowls have diarrhoea use a very little commercial creoliu in the drinking water for a few days. Mix fresh at least twice daily, and do not use enough to more than faintly- cloud the water. If the birds seem exhausted from the trouble give them the medicated water as above, and stop all food, give a few spoonfulls of scalded milk thickened to cream consistency with very little salt, nut-meg and ginger, if the birds seem quite weak add a few drops'of brandy to the milk. Dive ho solid food for a day or two, and return to regular ration very gradually. Boiled rice, fed cool, is excellent to 'follow up the milk treatment with. Keep the fowls so affected in a co.T, shady pen,’and give plenty of pi.ro, fresh water. An authority on insect posts oft' rs the Following advice for the eradication of lice and mites on poultry “Insect or dusting powders, to be'effective and most lasting in good results, is pure, fresh-ground Persian pryethrum powder. A thorough application made at night and repeated in one week gave freedom from lice for a period of three months, when the powder was again used, with, like good results. This insect powder is not a proprietary article and is expensive, but the results make it worth the price. To bo effective, it must l)e fresh-ground and unadulterated. If old of mixed with some cheap adulterant, it is worthless. Any reliable druggist should be\able to supply'it. It is excellent to use on fowls, sitting hens, and oii the heads and bodies of small chicks to rid them of body lice. A good, cheap lice powder, but loss effective than pyrethrum, may ho made by mixing 151 b of finely ground tobacco dust with 211) each of pulverised slaked lime and powdered naphthaline. For use on the roosts and droppings boards, to keep down lice and kill red mites, lice liquids are excellent. Tliore are manygood ones advertised, and you can make one cheaply at home if you care to take the trouble. Simply dissolve in kerosene all it will take up of crude naphthaline Hakes. One gallon of kerosene will dissolve about one pound 6f naphthaline. Apply to roosts and drop hoards in the morning after the fowls leave the roosts. It should have several hours to dry before the fowls occupy the roosts again.: Any lice killing liquid will blister fowls which roost on perches wet .with it. LIBERTY FOR GROWING CHICKS Although there are many successful poultry-keepers on a small scale who have very limited space for thenfowls, it is nevertheless a great desideratum in rearing that the chicks shoal'd have ample space for development. Matured birds, if carefully looked after, will stand a largo amount of confinement, but with growing birds the case is entirely different, and, although many are successfully reared in small -spaces, it is none the less a fact that ample liberty is a very important factor in their development. When first hatched, of course, two ’or three square yards of run is all that is required, hut by the time they are a week or ton days old three or*four times ns much will lie bettor, and in a month they want much more. Chickens six weeks old do Lest in a free run where there is plenty of undergrowth, which will protect them from the sweeping winds so prevalent in the spring-time .which try them very severely. Moreover, they learn to forage in such surroundings, arid' will find a 'profit 1 deal of their own food. For chicks up to six weeks old nothing suits them so well as a kitchen or flower garden for a run, and as long as the mother hen, if any, is kept cooped up, they will not do much * barm in that time, but afterwards they scratch too much, and make great havoc among the teaseler plants. N SUBDIVISION. Not less important than liberty is Subdivision. ' Up to two or three weeks old it is generally considered that fifty chicks may he kept together, and some poultry-keepers will coniine twice that number to a single brooder and run. As a matter of fact, if only half that number be kept in each run and brooder, there will ho\ a decided improvement in their progress over that of colonies of fifty. At a month old on no account should, more than that number be kept together, but from that time on ample space should be provided, they need l>o no further subdivided, so long as there is ample space for sleeping. The sexes should he separated as soon as it is possible to distinguish them, and the further the pallets are, kept from the cockerels the less fighting there will ho amongst the latter. Some poultry-keepers have the pullets, and cockerels arranged in alternate yards, so that tlio latter will not fight through tiie .fences. As a matter of fact, fighting will he much less frequent if the pullets are out of sight and sound. Of course, youthful battles have some effect in retarding development. FEEDING SETTING HENS. ' Few things are more provoking than the restlessness of a broody hen, which has apparently settled down to business, and lias been given eggs to sit upon. Yet in many cases the fault is not entirely upon her side. There can he no doubt that the brooding feeder, if such it can be called, creates a nervous tension on the part of all hens, and consequently it takes very little to upset them. They become impatient of many things, and one of those is feeding, and this notwithstanding that some hens will scarcely come off the eggs to food. Of course, individual dispositions diff. even with hens; some are greedy,- ■ nt. some are not. To the former, .he feeding of fowls within hearing while they remain unfed is distinctly disquieting, and often induces them to fidget about, with the consequence that eggs are broken, the nest made '.uncomfortable, and finally they refuse to sit. This may be avoided by always feeding the broodies first, then there will he no lear of’ such disluroanco. This may bo the easier done because hard grain is all that they rcauirc, ill fact, soil food should not be given to them at all. MOULTING FOWLS. Fowls naturally moult every autumn ami during the time they arc changing their feathers they require a good deal of attention, or otherwise thefr condition may afterwards give trouble. T he birds during this period do not cat so heartily nor so much i„- e at other times, and it is, therefore, I all the more needful to supply them 1 with the very best kind of food. } Some unthinking people, seem to grudge feeding their hens while they are moulting simply because they arc cot laying, and, therefore, they give them short .rations and those of an ■inferior quality. Needless to say, , this is a case of being penny wise and bound foolish, for a little extra cxj pend it lire .undci- those circumstances is amply repaid later ou, when a good I moult has taken place. A good hi:-;- [ unit meal should Do used freely during this period, and supplied hot. 1 Some poultry-keepers go so far as to

give this kind of food twice a day, always taking care to have a little Irnne meal .mixed in with it. Buckwheat, with a small quantity of hemp seed is the grain most frequently recommended for use during'this trying time of the fowls’ existence. If the moult is long and difficult, some boiled linseed should also lie given along with the soft food made from the biscuit meal. This tends to nialpe the moulting easier. lu addition to those special measures with the food, it is sometimes advisable to give the poultry a tonic, which is administered by means of their drinking water. Such a tonic is made by dissolving IHi of. sulphate of iron in two gallons of water, and adding to it twelve drops of sulphuric acid. One tahlsspoonful of this mixture put into every pint of . drinking water will he found to raise the tone‘of ‘the 'bird's partaking of it. Those not desiring to make up their own mixture can pn'rolpisc-a very suitable ' oho'! froih , their ;local corn merchant’ at a ‘ reasonable price.

N.Z. UTILITY POULTRY GLUB’3 COMPETITION,, PULLETS, T. Kennedy, S.W. (37) 81G Misses Bradley (37) ... ... 80(5 G. H. Robinson, 13.0. (30) ... 792 A. R. J3ro\vno (35) ... ... 770 Hcretaunga Poultry Co. (37) ... 748 Heretaunga Poultry Co. (31) ... 710 A. R. Browne (36) ... ... 738 A. Tisch (33) 723 ; DUCKS. Hcretaunga Poultry Co. (34) ... 829 W. Knight (28) 821 A. R. Browne (33) ... ... 775 P. J. Keller (20) ... ... ... 700