THE POULTRY KEEPER

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14764, 1 October 1921, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE POULTRY KEEPER

By "Moorftrw!."

CHICKEN NOTES. (Continued.) Artificial Broodino. —Strict cleanliness should be observed and overcrowding in the brooder must be guarded against. In using heater! brooders an even temperature must be maintained; about 80 or 83 degrees is a desirable range of heat. The chickens should be educated to go under the brooder after each meal before being allowed to run outside. Otherwise they will huddle together out in the run and eventually contract a chill. Take care that the chicks receive ll sufficient ventilation in the brooder, for ample fresh air is the most necessary thing for the well-being of the youngsters. Marking the Chickens. —If it is intended to improve the quality of the stock, it will be necessary to know exactly from which bird or birds different chickens have come, and it is thus necessary to have some system of marking the chickens. The most desirable manner of marking small chicks for future identification is by toe punching. This consists of cutting a small circular hole in one of the webbed sections of the chicken's foot. The operation is done with a chicken toe punch, a small instrument which costs less that 2s. By toe punching, chickens from sixteen different strains may be run together, and yet at maturity they may all be classified according to their strain. Regularity. —Observe . strict regularity in the feeding of the chickens. Endeavour to arrange things so that they are kept, if anything, a little peckish, and ihus always active and ever on the look-out for food, and meal time. Provide Fresh Ground. —The youngsters must be kept on fresh ground all the time, for it is nothing short of lunacy to endeavour to raise chickens on sour, tainted soil. If the rearing is being done in a coop, place the coop on a stretch of grass and move it as soon SS each particular patch shows signs of wear. The necessity of ample range for growing stock cannot be too often emphasised, for the robustness and general quality of the mature specimen will be affected to « great extent by the amount of range alloted it, when a growing bird. If it is true that half the breeding goes llown the throat, then it is quite certain that a highlybred bird cannot be as good as it should be if it is not reared to the very best advantage. If the chickens must be kept in a coop, move the coop every day or two. Clean conditions and fresh ground are the secret of successful chicken raising.. Weaning.—Conditions should now be favourable for weaning chickens, and at this time of the year, unless the weather is specially cold, chicks should be able to do without lampheat in the brooders at four weeks, while those reared under hens may be moved from the coops into small houses, where they wil-l soon take to sleeping under cool conditions. This is much better for healthy, well-feathered birds, and continuance of warm conditions only tends.to make them delicate. Re sure that sleeping-houses arc well ventilated, while avoiding draughts. THE BROODY HEN. During the week a hen that had been sitting and died on the nest was brought to me for examination (says a southern writer). One had only to give a mere glance at her condition to see that vermin was the cause of her death. Deprived of liberty, cooped in dark quarters, herself in a feverish condition —what favourable conditions for the propagation of vermin if they already exist on the broody! Many varieties of these pests actually live by sucking the hen's blood; her vitality becomes lowered; some, driven almost desperate by the ravages of these pests, will desert their nests and ruin the eggs; others, with maternal instincts more developed, will remain until death, following exhaustion, relieves them from their misery. The obvious precaution is to dust your birds with insecticide before entrusting them to a sitting of eggs. It is my invariable custom to again dust her on the seventeenth day of incubation, so any that may originally escape are thus caught. This, because her duty will soon be to hover the young chicks; and if vermin are so disastrous to adult life, how can you expect the youngsters to thrive under such conditions? Never take chances in this direction. Command success. VALUE OF EGGS. In the Old Country and in America people often meet with the legend, "Eat More Eggs." The Canadians are also advocating greater consumption, and an official publication makes the following declaration: "Eggs and milk are natural foods—the only foods, in fact, that contain all the elements for the growth of the young. A newlyhatched chick will live for days upon the yolk of the original eggs. A nation's trreatest asset is a high degree of public health. Eggs and milk have those elements absolutely essential. The use of eggs and milk in abundance would do much to promote growth, maintain health, and resist disease." JOTTJNGS. Dryness, sunshine, and a dust bath are indispensable to the health and comfort of fowls. A Nelson man who keeps poultry in his orchard found one of his hens sitting on an improvised nest of grass and rubbish, trying to hatch apples. That beats "Wee Macgregor!" It is considered inadvisable to give sitting hens green food. Sound maize is generally recommended for their sustenance during this period. The leason why green food is wjth-held is its laxative nature, and the increased risk of the nest being fouled. This theory has been an accepted one for many, many years. The prediction that this year poul-try-keepers would be faced with a surplus of eggs above the demand was made by Mr E. C. Jarrelt, Government poultry instructor, in addressing « gathering of poultrymen recently. In view of this, he said, producers would have to look for an export demand: in fact, one private agent in Auckland was arranging to send a consignment of eggs from New Zealand. Take special pains to keep the young stock growing this month. If, through carelessness in feeding, exposure I" extreme neat during the day or overheating' at night, the birds receive a check in growth, weeks of careful handling later on may be required to overcome this. The returns for the year will never he as good as with' stork that has grown rapidly and regularly to maturity. Tin' emhrvi chick, unlike other animals, is enclosed in a shell, and c.innol derive nutriment from its mother; consequently it must be built up from the stores imprisoned with it, and these stores must of necessity be derived from the food with which the slock birds are fed, so that the they lay will be nutritious rather than plentiful. Cive them plenty of green Is.lulT. turn them out to cross, and do I p,-,t. F tall feed them more than can bt I •ivoided.