742 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



low such an object, and therefore I can not 

 think that it is a very common thing for a 

 chicken to hurt itself by swalloAving such 

 objects, although it might happen at times. 



HOT TALLOW FOE THE RED MITES, ETC. 



Dear Mr. Root : — I have followed your poultry 

 articles with interest, being particularly interested 

 in the article about " convergent " yards. Some time 

 ago one of your correspondents wrote that he pre- 

 vented mites by coating his roost-poles with hot tal- 

 low once a year only. I had lately bought a farm 

 that had a chicken-house very much infested with 

 red mites. I had been painting my roosts once a 

 week with crude petroleum scented with sassafras 

 and cedar oils. I substituted the hot tallow, but one 

 week later found the mites in quite increased num- 

 bers. I resumed the petroleum, and now have them 

 almost exterminated. An application of tallow fol- 

 lowed by petroleum once a week is a very good thing 

 indeed, as it makes the poles more slippery than the 

 petroleum alone; but I don't think the tallow alone 

 will do the business. 



Charles A. Johnson. 



Battle Creek, Mich., July 25. 



WHY HENS PULL AND EAT EACH 0THER'.S FEATHERS. 



As I am making the Rhode Island Reds a spe- 

 cialty I write you in regard to feather pulling and 

 eating. I am a subscriber to Gleanings, and enjoy 

 it very much, and suspect you know something about 

 hens as well as bees. 



Cuba, N. Y., Aug. 25. Mrs. C. E. Pettit. 



My good friend, there are two or more 

 reasons why hens should pull feathers from 

 their mates, and eat them. One is that they 

 are lacking animal food. Give them beef 

 scrap or gi'ound meat. The other is they 

 are j^robably shut up in too narrow quar- 

 ters, and lack gTeen stuff. Give them all 

 the lettuce and cabbage, etc., they want, 

 and also give them a mash containing salt, 

 but not too much. Salt about as much as 

 we do our food, then let them run outdoors 

 in a large yard where they can get bugs as 

 well as green stuff, and I think they will 

 get over it. 



A 25-YEAR-OLD HEN; A SUGGESTION IN RE- 

 GARD TO A " NATURE " BROODER, 



I give place to the following, clipped 

 from the Farm and Fireside, because it tells 

 us how old a hen may live to be, and sug- 

 gests also a brooder for chickens on na- 

 ture's plan. 



A hen owned by the writer, and having quite a 

 remarkable history, has recently joined the majority 

 of her kind. I bought this hen in 1890 for half a 

 dollar. She was just a plebian yellow hen, without 

 family or reputed pedigree. "Is she young?" I 

 asked of the seller. "She's not old; she's not lay- 

 ing," was the reply. 



I scanned her feet, as a buyer does a horse's 

 mouth, to guess her age. I concluded she had seen 

 a couple of summers or more. I therefore believe her 

 to be at the time of her death, in April, 1913, about 

 twenty-five years of age. She made good her repu- 

 tation as a " fair layer." 



She began to fail in strength when about ten years 

 old. But she kept on laying and rearing her broods. 



That is, she laid irregularly, and in 1912 one egg 

 only. Her eggs had ceased to be fertile for several 

 years, or after she began to look old. 



" W^hy was her life prolonged?" She would 

 mother any brood from quail to turkeys, at any age 

 offered, even after she was too crippled to scratch 

 for them. In her later years a brood of young fowls 

 was always given her in the autumn to insure her 

 own safe passage through the winter. These chick 

 ens thought the mother hen hovered them, and were 

 satisfied with the warmth always obtained by cud- 

 dling; but it was the vitality of the young which 

 kept the old alive. 



Of course, this does not prove that any 

 old hen would receive any kind of chicks of 

 any age, but it looks that way. Once in a 

 while we find a hen that is that kind of 

 mother; and we are told that capons will 

 care for chicks all right. A hen that will 

 take any brood of chickens from an incuba- 

 tor, or which are left motherless for any 

 other reason, is very handy to have in the 

 poultry -yard ; and one such hen put in a 

 barrel will take good care of as many as 70 

 day-old chicks, as I have told you. The 

 ones outside will change places with those 

 inside, and keep quite comfortable, even 

 during frosty nights. 



PERMANGANATE OP POTASH FOR POULTRY. 



If I am correct our leading authorities 

 agree that a little permanganate in the 

 drinking-water — just enough to color it a 

 little — is a benefit in warding off contagious 

 diseases. 



The following from one of our i^oultry 

 journals (I regret that I can not say which 

 one) suggests something else, and it also 

 tells how to get it at a low cost. 



I find in using permanganate of potassium in the 

 drinking-water that it eats or keeps away the slimy 

 substance that otherwise adheres to drinking-vessels, 

 especially in warm weather. If you wish to get it 

 cheap, go to the man who takes care of the fumigat- 

 ing in your borough, county, or township, and buy 

 a pound from him (if he will sell it). Here I can 

 get a pound for 22 cents, whereas to buy at a drug- 

 store it costs 50 cents. It is burnt in the fumigating 

 of houses for contagious disease ; and if the Board 

 of Health handles it, it comes cheap. 



A " BOILED DOWN '•' POSTAL CARD. 



You may recall that I have sometliing to 

 say about this in our issue for Oct. 1 ; and 

 our good friend Madeleine E. Pruitt seems 

 to have fallen in with my suggestion. 



To Our Homes for July 15 I will say, " Amen." 

 New baby here— girl. Madeleine E. Pruitt. 



Abilene, Tex., Aug. 18. 



It might be a little impertinent to ask 

 the question ; but there are quite a few of us 

 who would like to know just who is the 

 mother of that girl baby. May God bless 

 her and the mother too. 



