Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1912 — NOTES from MEADOWBROOK FARM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NOTES from MEADOWBROOK FARM

By Willam Pitt

Mark layers with leg bands. Incubators are always on the Job. Be sure there are no lice on the hogs. All farmers should keep pure-bfed poultry, Duck feathers may also be made a source of profit. Normal churning temperature Is around 62 degrees. A special inspection should be made of the stables. ■ The hen which lays an egg and does not cackle is a—turkey. It costs no more to take good care of a good fowl than a poor one.

Gibwing pigs should receive, where it Is possible, some buttermilk. long-headed farmer is the one who has hay to sell in the spring. Whether for eggs or meat, skimmilk Is one of the best and cheapest foods. In fitting horses for hard work increase the grain ration, but not the hay. Chickens hatched in an incubator can be reared either with hens or with a brooder. Open pails of water and swill have caught more, than any rat that ever lived. Two parts oats and one of bran make a well-balanced ration.for pregnant ewes. On the average, eleven pounds of cheese can be made from 200 pounds of skimmilk. r

Look out drafts under and through the floors. They are about the worst kind. A news item says that 12,000 dairies are used to supply London and its suburbs with milk. Feed the ewes carefully at first, and increase the ration as the lamb requires more milk There are usually some ewes that have served their days of usefulness and better be discarded. Breeding for a special purpose tends to develop an animal that will be in harmony with her function. See if the entrance to the hives Is choked with dead bees. Rake them out but do not disturb the live ones. Much of the illness and loss in the first and second weeks of the chicken dfe is due to carelessness the first 48 lours. Cows that are well cared for and well protected are not seriously affected in their yield by the cold weather. Dairying is rapidly becoming a science. It is' being Studied more extensively than almost any other line of farming. ' i ' Dust young turkeys and their mother once every two weeks with Insect powder until they are at least six weeks old. Corn stalks are plowed under with no harm to succeeding crops—provided the stalks are first thoroughly cut by double disking. Pure bred poultry consumes less Teed, produces more eggs and is worth at least one-fourth more to the farmer than mongrel stock.

In growing a heifer for the dairy muscular vitality is wanted rather than fat and this is obtained very largely from the skim-milk portion of its diet Among the essentials of the successful care and management of a farm flock of mutton sheep are that we treat them in a manner adapted to their nature. Use medicine and very moderately among your chickens. Remember, true strength and recuperation come from the digestion of nutritious food, and can come from no sther source. Everybody recognizes that cream is’ a perishable product but with a great many their knov'ri? o of the subject ’tops riebt *»•>♦:- ■ -