POULTRY NOTES.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11717, 28 August 1906, Page 4

POULTRY NOTES.

(By "Chanticleer.") "My fowls are.<laying now eggs have come down in price.'* The above remark is commonly heard just at this season- That they did not lay when eggs were dear was most probably the fault of the owner. Just think why they are laying now. It is spring, and tho thing to do is to make it spring all the year round for the fowls. Clean out the houses now. You can do with the manure for the garden. Put some fresh straw in the nests. Also some insect powder or other vermin destroyer. The hens often dislike the nests because the vermin make them uncomfortable. See to the drinking water as the warm weather comes. A little Epsom salts in the water occasionally will be of benefit. If the weather should be showery or cold, ns it often is in spring, a good roup cure added to the water will prevent colds. Young chickens are especially liable to take cold. Make the chickens grow now. It id all they have to do at this stage of their existence. Remember you will want them to produce eggs next winter, and you must start now. Winter eggs are like autumn harvests — one has to prepare for them some time before. Feed the little ones on all the good things you can gefe. Crushed grain, meat, meal, very dry mash after the first; week or so, plenty of green food, grit— all these are needful. See that you mix their food with the most useful of all instruments — judgment. Let them scratch for thoir grain in some litter. The habit of working for their living cannot be acquired too young. Keep them free from vermin. The incubator hatched "chick has the advantage there. His mother cannot cover him with a crop of lice immediately he is out; of the shell. It is pleasing to note by the adverisement of at least one local poulterer that fowls may now be bought by weight. Hitherto the man who grew a heavy plump bird had the grim satisfaction of being able to get just as much for it as the man who did not grow his at all, but simply let it grow itself. If, on the other hand, it were always bought and sold by weight there would be some encouragement to produce the really good article. "We hope the custom of selling poultryjby weight will obtain exclusively. Another point in this connection is that of quality in table poultry. At present, producers of table poultry of first-class quality, like, say, the Houdan, is acknowledged to possess, get no more for them than producers of inferior stuff, such as the White Leghorns, for instance. If our local producers were to contract with someone now for regular supplies, and make known lhat these things were to obtain for the future the public would soon become educated to the custom, and things would be better all round. The producer would bring out a good article, and the housewife in town would get a good article. At present she will pay no more for a heavy bird than for a light one, and no more for good quality than for inferior, and the consequence is she often gets a four-teen-year-old hen with about enough tough skin on the breast to hide the bone, and try the best set of teeth going. A-...