The record-union., 1891-01-15
Poultry Pointers-Pure and Tn
adulterated Twaddle.
ADVANTAGEOUS RESULTS OF RoTA-
TION OF CROPS
Preparation of Spring Lambs for
Marl1et-How to Select Good Layer
Preserving Running-Gear of Farm
Vehicles-General Notes.

WIltl1lS UPON llO SuDjNCp VI Oulhiy
Pointers" says: ''What q vast amount
of pure and unadulterated twaddle about
poultry gets into the papers every year!
Only the other day / read a longwinded
article on the care of laying hens in Win
ter, in which the writer laid down set of
rules and regulations that positively
would make hen laugh herself hoarse if
she could have read it. ] would not be
afraid to bet my overcoat, even this carly
in the season, that the writer of the afore-
said article never owned half dozen hens
in his life. In order to carry out his in
structions, a person would be obliged to
keep his hens in the parlor and hire q
French cook and veterinary surgeon.
The various feeds, condiments and chem
ical compounds he recommended would
give brass weather-cock the flim-fam
inside of week. The paper that con-
tained the article is one of the good old
miscellaneous sort with an agricultural
annex, and 1 am well satisfied that the
field larger than a hower-pot in his
life, or he would never have allowed
such stuff to decorate his department.
zone of the most prolific themes for
amateur poultry raisers is the diseases of
fowls. The number OF remarkable cor
dials, eliXirs, eXpectorants and panaceas
brought to light every year by these art
lists is simply amazing. l believe that
every combination of bad-tastlng, ILL
smelling and otherwise disagreeable and
disgusting Slops, powders and paStes that
human ingenuity under great stress
could devise has, at one time or another,
been showed forward as a dead-sure cure
for cholera or roup in poultry.
"A rising young poultry prince once
told me confidentially that he could cure
any case of hen cholera in the world in
half an hour with one of the simplest and
most abundant articles in all nature.
With great deal of coaXing and wheed-
ling, and promise to disclose the name
of an infallible remedy for scaly leg, / in
duced him to whisper the chief title OF his
valuable restorative into my ear drum.
1t was ker0senei a dose of half a tea
spoonful would, he assured me, cure
every case without fail. You don't sayn
/ exclaimed, with a gasp. why, the very
same cosmetic will polish off scaly legs in
the highest style of the yarnisher's art
About year afterward his fowls caught
the simon-pure cholera, and though he
dosed them literally with three different
brands of kerosene every one calmly and
irresistibly expired.
Another young man who knew more
than his father, one day informed me in
a remarkably important and decisive
manner that he had cured whole droves
and great flocl1s of cholera-smitten hogs
and poultry with neat little discovery of
his own. This remarkable discovery,
afterwards learned, was simply a MKT
ure of quinine, sulphur and water
three tablespoons of quinine and six of
sulphur well stirred into barrel of
water. For hogs, one quart was added
to every bucket Of slop given them. For
poultry, the feed was wet up with it. The
genuine disease got into lot of hogs in
tho UininjtU and hQ w Offprl6 q trnndiU
sum by their owner to cure them. With
great pomp he drove over and proceeded
to mix and administer his great discovery.
A couple of days afterward he returned
with black eye, and nothing more was
ever heard of his discovery. The pugil-
listic owner of the swine planted them
and then invested in sheep.
IF, owing to lice, foul roosting quar-
ters or improper food, a few hens in
flock die, and the rest NOPE about little,
1t is straightway pronounced cholera, and
they are dosed with some concoction of
drugs. Then their house is cleaned out,
gravel, clean drinking water and a change
of food are provided, and in a few days
they are all right. The remarkable cure
is laid to the concoction, and the new ply
sician proclaimS to the world that he has
got onto an infallable remedy for chicken
cholera, and a recipe for the same can be
had for consideration.
THE fact is, if fowls are decently
housed, fed, watered and cared for, they
will never get sick. In order to make
them SO it will be necessary to introduce
disease among them from some other
flock. Keep disease out of flock, care
for it properly and there will be no neces-
sity for resorting to concoctions of 'roots,
barks and yarbs."
MANY poultry keepers take great de-
light in fiercely condemning corn as feed
for poultry. If the corn and cob are
fv,Nl 4
feed grown. Corn by itself is too fatten-
ing, chiefly because it satisfies the fowl
sufficiently to make it lazy. Poultry fed
on corn will spend most of their time lol-
ling in the sunshine. This sort of food
and occupation is conducive to fatness
and laziness, which is invariably followed
by disease. Corn and cob meal and whole
oats mixed and dampened with hot water
makes one of the best winter foods for
fowls that l know of. Add plenty of
gravel or finelybroken crockery, clean
water, scraps from the table, vegetable
and apple parings, and any other green
Stuff that comes handy, and your hens
will be healthy and lay enough eggs to
pay fair profit on their keep. Scraps
from the table, peelings, etc., would cut
but small figure with the person who
keeps two or three hundred fowls. Such
a party should grind his corn and cob
meal twenty or thirty bushels at a time,
then add the oats. Before feeding add
one-fourth its bulk of fine cut clover hay,
dampen with boiling hot water and cover
up tightly for an hour or more. If there
is better and cheaper food for the chief
daily meal of yarded fowls have not yet
discovered it.'
HOW TO SELECT A GOOD LAYER,
How many, poultrymen can pick out d
good laying hen from a strange flock?
Not many can do it; yet it can easily be
accomplished after short study of
makeup and characteristics. There
goes hen with thick neck, large head.
ill-shaped, walks listlessly about, SEEM
lngiy with no purpose or intention in
Wow. She doesn't care to scratch but
hangs around the hen-house, evidently
waiting for her next feed. She gets up
late in the morning, and goes to bed
early in the evening. That hen NAV be
put down as very poor layer. The eggs
OF some OF the other hens go to help pay
her keep. Here comes another hen. She
walks briskly, and there is an elasticity
in her movements that denotes that she
has something in view. She is neat and
natty in appearance, small head, with a
slim neck, nicely arched or curved. She
forages and scratches all day long, and
may be too busy 10 come for her evening
feed. She is at the door in the morning,
waiting to be let out. She snatches few
mouthfuls of feed, and is off to the
meadow, looking for insects. Before she
gets out in the morning she generally de-
posits her daily egg in the nest, or re-
turns after short forage. She is neat,
clean and tidy, with brightness and a
freshness pleasing to the eye.
That is the hen that pays for her feed
and gives a good profit all the year
round. The writer has noticed these
traits since boyhood, and knows that
they are infallible. BY studying these
traits, any man may in few years, by
selection, have a fine laying flock of hens