POULTRY NOTES

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3253, 10 November 1932, Page 6

POULTRY NOTES

SOME IMPORTANT HINTS

If amateur poultry fanciers realised as fully as professionals 'do the value of charcoal, backyard fowls would be more healthy than they are. Charcoal is the finest liver pill known. It can either be supplied to a flock in lump form, being kept in a hopper, so that the birds can he'p themselves when so inclined, or as a powder, and dusted over the mash ingredients before water is added to them. THE FOWLHOUSE.

If you are engaged in poultry farming on the intensive system, and are about to build a new house, do not make the house too high; 4 feet 6 inches at the back and 18 inches higher at the front is sufficient. The birds then will be warmer in winter, which is very essential for high egg productions. You may think the house is too low at the back, but remember that your perches are there, and you very seMom have to go to the back of the house. Arrange your perches, using 3 x 11 battens, 2 feet from the ground, all on the level. A good style

for perches is to hang them from the roof with fencing wire, or drive S-inch pipes in the ground; then drive a 6inch nail through the perch, so that the nail will rest in the pipe, thereby making it easy to check red mite or vermin.

Arrange the nest boxes at the front of the house. Petrol tins with one side cut out make a good nest, with about 2 inches of coarse sawdust in the nest tin. Pine sawdust is to be preferred, as the resin in it. is a help in keeping vermin away. It is better than straw, for if an egg becomes broken the sawdust takes up the moisture and helps to keep the fowls from eating the eggs. Keep a plentiful supply of straw on the floor; have it at least 6 inches deep, and, when broken up, put in some more. Plenty of straw supplies the fowls with exercise, and this means more eggs. Feed all the grain into the scratching straw, and always see that the fowls have a plentiful supply of fresh water and a good supply of grit, both flint and shell. Always aim at growing plenty of green feed. A good plan for anyone starting in poultry is to cultivate a patch of lucerne, which is one of the best stand-bys there is. Grow' also a small patch of barley, oats, silver beet, and carrots. By growing these different plants you can give the fowls a change of green feed, which they appreciate. See that you keep only fowls that are profitable. Cull keenly and frequently, as one fowl not profitable takes away the profit from three others that are laying. CORRECT FEEDING. The amount of food .for a fowl cannot be definitely fixed. Give them all they will clear up. While this is a good plan, however, a man having charge of a large number can hardly spare the time to watch them. A hen that is laying will consume more food than one which is not laying; but the food supplied for laying hens must be different from that supplied for fattening purposes. A hen to be in a good laying condition must not

be over-fed, but in a good, healthy condition. Experts who make market culture a spec.ality agrea that about one quart of soft food in the morning,

a pint of gram at noon, and a quart of grain at night will keep 12 hens in good condition. The food must be of such a nature that will give bone, muscle, and elements for producing Meat, rightly fed, is important, if given not more than three times weekly. Green-cut bone is splendid for producing health and eggs. The evils of over-feeding are apoplexy, failing dead from the roost, egg-bound, soft-shelled eggs, etc. Study the question of food and the art of feeding thoroughly.

A HEN'S AGE.

A beginner is always at a loss to tell the age of a hen. To the experienced one the general appearance of a bird tells h ; m at once if it is young or old. The most conspicuous sign of age is the appearance of the legs. A young hen's legs are always smooth and fresh-looking; an old hen's legs are generally hard and horny and more or less discoloured. The combs and wattles of a hen are more dried and more scurfy than those of a pullet. The whole appearance of the latter should be graceful and light, whereas the hen looks staid and heavy.