Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1913-03-28
Poultry Notes

Cement floors should be well
covered with straw. The bare floor
is too hard and too cold.
Keep the grit, shell and charcoal
boxes filled, also fill the water foun-
tains twice day in winter, says The
Fruitman and Gardener.
A cabbage hung where biddy can
| peck at it will not only balance her
ration, but furnish entertainment
for her as well.
Roosts so narrow that the birds
must be continually straining to
keep their balance will cause them
to lay soft shelled eggs.
Roosts should be made low or near
the ground. Heavy fowls can not
fly high, and light fowls injure their
feet in jumping from a high perch.
Allow every hen from four to six
feet of floor space; better six. Ten
inches each of roosting space is not
too much. The roosts should be
placed at least eighteen inches
apart.
One poultryman reports excellent
results in egg laying from feeding
oats. The oats are cooked about a
half hour at night till thoroughly
boiling, then placed in the hay box
and biddy has them soft and hot for
her breakfast.
| There are various methods used
for Ventilating poultry houses, but
the best and simplest is to allow the
fresh air to come in unobstructed
except by a muslin screen. Remove
| the window sash and tack on mus
lin in its place. Enough air will
enter to keep the house dry and
sanitary, but there will be no breeze,
even in very stormy weather.
When fowls produce deformed or
soft shelled eggs, they should have
all stimulating food withheld from
them for a time. Hard grain should
take the place of soft food and some
EPSON salts, about a teaspoon, add
ed to every pint of drinking water
supplied until cure is effected. If
narrow perches are used, replace
them with wider ones.
| In breeding for eggs, the main re-
quiremen is first class, healthy, Wig
orous stock. Such fowls we'll man
aged and properly fed can not help
but produce eggs. We must have
vitality and constitutional vigor IN
fowls that are to be any good as
egg machines or as breeders. Only
first class stock should be kept for
such purposes.
Food has a great deal to do with
the production of eggs. A hen is
only machine for turning various
kinds of food into eggs and unless
we furnish this material we need
not expect to get many eggs, for it
is from this that eggs are manufac-
tured.
| Hens should be allowed to run out
of doors freely during the winter ex-
cept at such times as they might be
In danger of freezing their combs.
| They may be kept confined with per-
tect safety during any period of Sc
we're weather if they are kept busy
scratching in straw to give them ex-
ercise.
Charcoal is a health promoter for
the fowls If you will put some ears
OF corn in hot oven and let them
burn quite black and feed when the
grain gets cold enough you will per-
haps be astonished to see how greed
lily the poultry will partake of the
| charred corn. Give such a feed ev-
cry two weeks. We do not mean
that the fowls should have to de-
pend on the charred grain for the
meal, but an opportunity to eat what
they wish from the cob
TO barn sulphur in poultry house
tirst remove all combusti BILE matter.
The put an old iron kettle into a
dishpan and place on four brick In
the middle of the house. In the ket-
tie put some cobs which have been
soaked in solution of one part of
pine tar to four parts of kerosene,
sprinkle the sulphur over the cobs
and set on fire. Be sure to have
everything arranged 80 as to beat
hasty retreat from the room and close
the door quickly, as the sulphur
fumes are suffocating. Sulphur
burned in this manner will penetrate
every crevice as well as covering the
surface and aids wonderfully in puri-
tying the building and In destroying
poultry vermin. One pint of turpen-
tine NAV he addad 70 tha baIf