150 
Most people give their poultry at-some time 
or other one of the many spices 
Vard. that are advertised as likely to 
make them lay well, but in too 
many cases this spicing of the food is over- 
done and a large proportion of the diseases 
to which our domesticated poultry are 
subject in this 
country are due 
to disorganisa- 
tion of the liver 
brought about 
in two ways— 
one by feeding 
on oyer-stimu- 
lating spiced 
foods, and the 
other by giving 
too much 
starchy food, 
such as maize. 
(ner is imo 
doubt that dur- 
ing the moult, 
when fowls are 
ragged and bare, 
and also during 
cold snowy 
weather, a little 
spice acting as 
a tonic to the 
organs of diges- 
tion improves matters, but whatever spice 
is given it should never contain Cayenne 
pepper. That is the spice generally used, 
and it is the worst possible thing that 
poultry can have, for it does not warm 
them, it merely sets up internal irritation 
and retards rather than promotes laying. 
A little saccharated carbonate of iron added 
to the soft food will do far more towards 
filling the egg basket than any amount 
of spice. 
Harly hatched pullets ought now to be 
starting to lay—especially those which belong 
Th 
Poultry 
[N.B.—Photographs intended for these columns 
34, Paternoster Row, E.C.”] 
Photograph by C. Reid, Wishan) N.B. ie 
BROWN LEGHORNS. 
Animal Life 
to the Leghorn breed or to one of the other 
varieties which mature very rapidly. When 
a pullet is thinking about laying she “springs 
her comb”—as is the technical way of 
expressing the rapid shooting out of the 
comb noticed in the long-combed varieties. 
Pullets which can be brought on to lay 
now will con- 
tinue to do so 
steadily through 
the winter pro- 
vided they are 
kept warm—by 
which I mean 
kept in shel- 
tered places, not 
in pens through 
which the cold 
winds can sweep 
unchecked. <A 
little fibrine 
meat or a httle 
crushed bone— 
ordinary house- 
hold bones 
smashed up— 
will help to 
make them lay 
well. Young 
pullets never 
lay very large 
eges—their first 
“clutch” generally averages a size not much 
larger than a pigeon’s egg. The largest eggs 
are produced by hens in their third season, 
but the second season is considered the 
most profitable because then they lay the 
largest number of eggs and these always 
average a good size. Pullets which show 
signs of beginning to lay should now be 
removed from older birds that are still 
moulting and from any young stock which 
may be left, so that each lot can be fed 
and attended to separately in the interests 
of all. : 
——— 
\ 
o) 
should be addressed to ‘‘The Editor, AnimAL Lire, 
