Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1892 — THE POULTRY-YARD. [ARTICLE]

THE POULTRY-YARD.

Ground Hones for Ponltry, Ground bones and cut bones are different. A fresh, green bone cannot well be ground. It may be crushed or pounded, but not easily ground. Hand-mills are in use that permit of grinding bones that have become hard and dry, or have been steamed and heated, but the green bones must be pounded or cut in fine pieces with knives. There is a great difference in the value of fresh bones from the butcher and those that have been exposed until they are dry. Green bones contain quite a proportion of meat and cartilage, and are greedily eaten by all classes of fowls. Poultry Note*. The Mottled Java is a very good fowl for market and they are fair layers. Japanese farmers are usually great lovers of poultry and breed large numbers of market fowls. In Tokio you may see them driving and sometimes carrying in coops supported on their

heads a flock of marketable stock. They always sell live poultry. ■Corn contains 86 per cent, of heat and fat forming elements so that it is very poor egg food Good second crop clover contains twenty times as much lime for shell material and pound for pound it is worth more as an egg producer than either wheat or corn. The young women of Hammonton, N. J., are competitors In raising chickens and the town has more poultry than any other in the State. One has had as many as 8,000 broilers under a single roof at once, besides 2,000 hens. This town has sent 65,000 birds to market in one season. If you want the poultry to be tender and juicy let it be fattened quickly. It should be well fed during the months previous to going into the fattening coops; then two weeks of liberal feeding will make the meat heavy and just right for the popular taste. Dry pick all fowls for the table. It does not destroy the texture of the skin like hot water. Broilers also look better not shriveled up in appearance. Disease in winter and vermin in summer are the obstacles encountered in poultry keeping. No poultry man is free from them, the most careful breeders having more or less trouble iu this direction. Your experience is no harder than others’, so don’t be discouraged. A cross of a White Wyandot cockerel of good breeding with a White Plymouth Rock hen will In a number of the offspring bring a Wyandot comb which is more compact than that of the Plymouth Rock and less liable to freeze in winter. This cross also means good layers. Some authorities suggest warming the drinking water for hens in winter. This is absurd and of little value. On cold winter davs, how long will it remain tepid? One would have to heat the water every half-hour to meet this suggestion. Tho little a hen drinks of the coldest water will never hurt her. A bird afflicted with cholera lives but a few hours, the disease being so contagious as to mow down an entire flock in a week. Two tablespoonfuls of sulphur in proportion to ten quarts of soft feed twice a week with clean pure water supplied will prevent most of the trouble from this disease.