Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-03-18
CHICKEN RAISING
BY uZZIE 0 THOMAS
Answers to Enquirers


am getting, there is renewed inter-
est in the poultry business. The
price of eggs for the table is three
times as much as it used to be, and
it has been folly to cut down the
flock because feed has been twice as
high. A dozen eggs can be sold and
the money will buy pound of steak
or two days feed for the whole
flock Of 25 hens, if they have any
range. We find the hens an adj
vantage in getting the grubs out Of
the garden. The Farmer gave it a
thorough blowing month ago and
the next day "the floods descended"
We have broken forty years rec
ord for rain and snow. Not a field
plowed when oats and rape should
be ready to use.
But now to answer questions.
What incubator is best? Don't think
that you can get a good incubator
for nothing any easier than you can
feed a hen on nothing, or make a
scrub hen a profit. I like hot water
incubators because they seem more
reliable in sudden changes. I sup
pose I've paid out as much as any
two others on cheap incubatorS and
lost as many eggs in them. I know
what I can do with a firSt-class in
cubator, but I've always wanted to
be able to recommend one that would
not be too expensive for the farm
er's wife tt buy and use early and
next spring. But I've given it up.
Under twelve dollars, excuse me.
Some of my friends use the round
ones with excellent result, but they
are not cheap ones. I know some
that sell for twelve dollars that give
fairly good results. Even last year
one could get good one for that. I
know two kinds that sold for that
and one had brooder, but the same
sorts are now fifteen and eighteen.
But you must not forget that forty
chicks eight weeks old would bring
a fancy price right now. I know
that a great many people say that a
machine that will hold sixty eggs
isl as expensive to run as one with
double that capacity, but the farm
flock or fanciers flock can furnish
fifty eggs as fresh as you need them,
and a larger machine would be only
half full, I think two small ones
better because you can handle forty
chicks easier than a hundred, and
it's waste to hatch chickens and let
them die for lack of growing space.
They will crowd unless you keep
everlastingly with them.
The next enquiry is: What did
you say would kill hawks?" A tea
spoonful of powdered nux vomica in
pint Of meal. Make a crumbly
dough and feed the chicks night
and morning three times in success
sion, then once day till you get
the hawk. 1t takes one chick to
kill the hawk, and it also kills
rats, dogs and cats. 1t is a fine
tonic for hogs, so don't get the idea
that you can kill the chicken ca ting
sow with it. But a pinch put in
an egg will settle the suckegg dog.
And a pinch of calomel in an egg
will make dog so sick that you may
be sure it never will want another
egg.
Nux vomica is a fine tonic for peo-
pie, so you need not be afraid to eat
are feeding it to the youngsters
At this season you may have some
with black combs. That is bad liver,
their indigestion has about got the
best of them. I use one mild liver
pill for that one and give all Of them
a thorough purging. A tablespoon
full of Epson salts to three hens,
mixed in a crumbly mash. 1 first
40 in
then I am sure it is eaten. Only
once or twice year do I use this
quantity of Epson salts, and I give
it early in the morning. The usual
quantity once week, for the hot
months, is one teaspoonful to four
hens. If the weather stays sunny,
after you give this first big dose of
EPSON salts, give the flock some
sulphur mixed in meal and water.
The next question is about sore
head. 1 do not think that it Is sore
head at this season. Damp roosting
quarters and crowding gives roup
and canker. Keep permanganate of
potash in the drinking water. At
least once g. week scald the drinking
vessel and make the water deep
wine color. When a head seems
SW6llSu put 1t III d LII cup Oh Oiu
glass of the purple water, keep the
head down till bubbles rise. That
means the fowl has drawn the medi-
cine up it's nostrols. Then grease
the head, ears, and throat with car
bolated vaseline, give piece as big
as your thumb and put the sick fowl
in a place where the others will not
take the disease. But all the medi-
cine and care will not avail until
you give them dry quarters and see
that they are not in a draft.
Scaley leg comes next. L find
crude oil, black oil some call 1t, the
best thing yet. Lard and coal oil is
good, but it sometimes takes more
than one application. The thick black
oil gets in the scales and stays there
Don't let it get on your setting hens,
nor on the eggs you expect to set
Apply with an old tooth brush and
paint the roosts with it for mites and
lice.
There are some other questions but
I must write personal letters as this
is all the space. I always answer
by letter inquiries concerning sick
birds Before the baby chicks hatch
make up your mind that you will
not feed them for two days and
that a little fresh buttermilk will be
their first taste even if you have
to use a fountain pen filler and open
their mouths