Evening star., 1915-06-13
Poultry Yard Notes.

High prices for all kinds of feed are
making many poultrymen reduce their
flocks to the minimum. 1t is not to be
expected that prices will be lower un-
til the new crops are on the market,
which will not be for several months.
Meanwhile the poultryman who can do
so should hang on. if possible he should
enlarge his plant and increase his
flock The sending of thousands of
hens and pullets to market certainly
means a marked reduction in the out
put of eggs and dressed poultry next
fall and winter, and that in turn means
enhanced prices.
Poultrymen all over the country have
complained for several months of the
fact that, Notwithstanding they must
pay much more for all kinds of feed
than was the case eighteen months ago.
prices of eggs and dressed poultry have
not advanced They say that while the
20 per cent higher than it was less
than two years ago, the eggs them
selves bring only what they did when
feed was much cheaper. On this ac
out of business. even some of the larger
ones. while fully IS per cent of the re-
naming plants have cut down the
number of pullets.
Many poultrymen hold that a little
ground yellow mustard added to the
mash, either wet or dry, is beneficial to
the fowls. Not too much of the condi
ment should be used, but only enough
to add a little zest to the ration. 1t
should be mixed thoroughly with the
dry material, in about the proportion
of teaspoonful for each twenty-five
hens.
to get plenty of worms and insects, the
meat ration must be maintained dur
ing the summer almost the same as in
the cold weather. Cut green bone is
the best. being better than beef scrap
or meat meal Care must be taken,
however, to see that it is absolutely
fresh and sweet. otherwise it will GER
tainly set up serious internal troubles
in the flock.
The practical poultryman will waste
little time trying to cure a fowl that
has developed bad case of roup, or
in doctoring an egg-bound hen. In
neither case is the result worth the
trouble. Even if apparently cured. a
fowl that has had roup can never Le
used safely as a breeder, while it is
almost certain that germs of the dis
ease, remaining in the fowls system,
will be thrown off, to infect other fowls.
The egg-bound hen is done as a layer;
never again be profitable fowl. 1t
is far better, quicker and more humane
to cut the heads off such ailing birds
and either burn the carcasses or bury
them two three feet deep.
Every surplus male on the place
should have been sent to market before
this time: if it has not been done, at
tend to it at once. Males are useless
in flock except at breeding time: at
other seasons they simply consume feed
and make trouble. During the hot
weather infertile eggs the ones
that keep; others, in a day or SO, de-
velop blood rings or spots and quickly
spoil. Most markets. besides, are be-
coming educated up to the point of de-
manding infertile eggs, for which
somewhat higher price is willingly
paid. If it is intended to mate some
pens for the purpose of producing
August or September Matched chicks,
all well and good, but meanwhile sepa-
rate the males from the hens and pull
let's. and dispose of all that are not
wanted.
Scientists have computed that sin
gle pair of the lice that infest poultry