Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1886-11-02
POULTRY POINTS.
Iron Rural Home. /

meat and substitute this preferable
diet.
Give the young turkeys meat three
times a week, and force them in
growth as much as possible, in order
to secure large size by Thanksgiving.
Incubator chicks are increasing in
the markets every season, and yet
the prices are still very high during
the period between Christmas and
June.
Whitewash the hen coops now in
order to clean them thoroughly and
rid them of lice. Use carbolic acid
with the whitewash as disinfectant
and preventive of lice.
Never burn Your oyster shells for
the poultry. 1t is easier to feed them
in this form, but their value is i'm
paired by burning them. Simply
breaking or grinding them finely is
all that is needed. Always keep a
supply on hand, and you will have
little trouble with thin shells.
Ifyou have hen that walks like
a Penguin, and is broken down be-
hind, the cause is too much fat, or it
may be that all egg is broken inside.
1t is difficult to remedy the evil, but
care must be taken in feeding to pre-
vent the recurrence of the trouble in
your fowls.
1t is very bad plan to use con-
crete (or any hard substance) for
flooring to pOultry-houses, unless it
is covered with earth. The fowls, of
course, cannot scratch, and it keeps
the feet constantly con the stretch"
owing to its unyielding nature. We
should very much prefer the bare
ground.
Pick over your fowls and avoid
breeding from the poorer specimens.
If you have not already culled your
1Ocks, attend to this very soon. Weed
them out. Set the imperfect ones
aside to fatten by-and-by. Select the
best cockerels, and the finest-shaped
pullets for sale, or for future stock
birds, as breeders.
A black-and-tan terrier may be
useful to clear your poultry building
with rats, or at least to spread terror,
in their ranks, so that they will move
out. The fowls will get used to him
in short time, and they will not
even leave their feet on his account.
Ordinarily, of course, dogs should be
kept out of the fowl yard, but reg
ular "poultry dog" is good thing to
have.
Farmers Home Journal
The early moulting hens are the
ones that furnish eggs during the
winter. The ordeal of shedding the
old and growing full coat of new
feathers is trying one and during
this period they need little addi-
tional care. Warm food of mornings
with pinch of sulphur twice week
and two or three drops of tincture of
iron in the drinking water will aid
nature very much in the process.
PREVENTIVE FOR GAPEs.
An enthusiastic poultry breeder,
living at Colesburg, KY, sends the
following as preventive for gapes
in chickens and it is well worth a
trial: "Take an old sauce pan with
handle and stove steamer which
you can attach to the sauce pan by
the wire hook. Place tobacco in the
pan, with fire on it, and smoke comes
out freely through the holes. This
place in the box with hen and chick
ems, the smoke is inhaled by them,
which appears to kill the worms in
their wind-pipe. Do this every
morning till they are five or six weeks
old, commencing as soon as they are
Matched"
POULTRY ON THE FARM.
Farmers make the best fnanciers.
The reasons for this are too plain to
everyone to mention. The men to-
day who are making from three to
ten thousand dollars per year selling
eggs and pure bred poultry are all
farmers and stock rsisers. Every
farmer has leisure time enough of
evenings to do his reading and writ
ing, and then the poultry shows all
come at the dull season on the farm.
The cost of keeping hundred fine
chickens on farm ia comparatively
nothing and the culls that are taken
to market more than pay all the ex-
penses. If fine stock is raised for
market purposes alone, their great
weight, as compared with the mixed
hens, make them very profitable. But
there is no use marketing good speci-
mems by the pound, as every breeder
who can satisfy the people that he
has pure stock will have no trouble
disposing of it.
A subscriber living at Valley Sta
ton, KY, writes that through neglect
the lice have taken possession of the
hen house and remedy is asked for.
Your treatment must be heroic. Take
absolutely everything out of the
house, don't let single piece remain
that will afford lodging for a single
louise. Carry these off 10 a good dis
lance, pour coal oil over them and
set il on fire. Make the fire go over
every inch of surface. Now turn
your attention to the house. Make
up lot of whitewash as thin as you
can apply. Strongly impregnate it
with carbolic acid, then sail in. Put
in every crack and crevice and don't
be afraid to use it freely or of spilling
little. When this coat dries, go
over it again. The day you do this
shut the house and do not let the
poultry in for three or four days.
Procure about fifty cents worth OF
Persian Insect powder, in the bulk,
at Louisville. Use an old pepper box,
and in the evening when the chick.
ems go to roost, take them one at q
time, hold them by the legs with
the head down and sift the powder
in the fluff, under the wings and
through the feathers of the back, and