CARE AND FOOD 



49 



should be covered with a stout slide. 

 When you catch the thief raise the 

 slide and as soon as head pops out 

 push slide down and hold it fast, a sharp 

 blow with an axe or hardwood billy will 

 quietly put an end to the thief and 

 he can be planted to enrich the grape 

 vine while you are sure that no more 

 chicks go that way. We knew one 

 cat to take forty chicks in one day, 

 then the box trap was used and the 

 losses ceased. 



Where there is plenty of yard 

 room combination fencing will protect 

 against cats and also give the chicks 

 a good run. Use one roll of one-inch 

 mesh chick wire 18 inches high to stake out a circular 

 corral or enclosure for chicks. Outside this fence stake 

 up with thin plastering lath a flimsy fence of one roll 

 of two-inch mesh wire netting two to three feet outside 

 of low netting. Stake loosely by weaving lath in net- 

 ting and driving into earth on alternate sides of wire. 

 Use enough lath to hold fence erect but not to make it stiff. 

 This gives a wire fence too high to jump and with no posts 

 that can be climbed, for the lath is too flimsy and will bend 

 when cat tries it. Fence is moved when necessary. We 

 have used this successfully but some cats will dig under and 

 must be trapped. 



Rats cause losses and will frequently kill and hide a 

 large number of chicks in a single night. Make the coops 

 rat proof. Raise coops and boxes often and kill any rats 

 found underneath. A good rat dog is a great help. Traps 

 are seldom effective and poison is not safe in chicken time. 



Lice and mites are best fought by free use of a good 

 insect powder. Dust hen and chicks whenever lice are 

 found. Keep the coops clean. If mites get into woodwork 

 use a strong creolin solution to wash the woodwork and get 

 it well into cracks. Kerosene may be applied to coops and 

 boxes to kill mites but if used the coops must be well sunned 

 and dried before the chicks are again allowed to use them. 



Diarrhoea and the Remedy 



Pure food, plenty of green food, pure water in clean 

 vessels, cleanliness and clean runs with comfortable quarters 

 are with fresh air and sunshine the best disease preventives 

 for young chicks. With common sense management if you 



Fig. 3 — Covered food trough for young chicks 



provide the foregoing you need not 

 •fear disease. In hot weather diar- 

 rhoea may put in an appearance, but 

 by prompt measures it may be quickly 

 checked. Usually sour food, sour 

 runs or filthy drinking water or indi- 

 gestion from careless feeding is the 

 starting point of the trouble. Re- 

 move the cause or avoid it by good 

 management and the trouble will no 

 longer worry you. Plenty of charcoal 

 is one of the best preventives. 



Hot days and cold nights may 

 start up diarrhoea when all ordinary 

 precautions seem to have been taken. 

 Look around for the cause and re- 

 move it if you can find it. Get the flock on to fresh, 

 clean ground. Scald the drinking fountains. Be sure 

 that the drinking water is fresh and pure. If in doubt 

 look up the source. It won't do to give drinking, water 

 fouled with the wash of a barn yard or chicken runs. 

 Don't allow the stock to drink from filthy surface puddles. 

 Be sure that they have shady shelters in which to get away 

 from the glare of the hot summer sun. 



If charcoal and the addition of middlings to mash food 

 won't stop the diarrhoea, try five drops of creolin in a pint 

 of drinking water. If that fails withhold all food. Inspect 

 the beef scrap used. It may be the cause of the trouble. 

 Boil a little white flour for four or five hours. Use this to 

 thicken some scalded milk until same is thickness of thin 

 cream. Give this to chicks to drink and allow no other food 

 for twenty-four hours. Return to regular ration gradually 

 and do not feed beef scrap for one week. Flour thickened 

 milk should be lightly seasoned with salt, nutmeg and ginger. 

 Should trouble persist after trying home remedy call in an 

 experienced poultryman to help locate the trouble and ad- 

 vise you. 



Sore eyes and shght colds may be prevented by housing 

 stock in fresh-air quarters and keeping coops clean and free 

 from dust. The use of air-slaked lime on floors of coops is 

 dangerous and should not be practiced; it is liable to cause 

 catarrhal troubles through the inhalation of the irritating dust. 

 Vaseline rubbed into cleft in roof of mouth and under 

 lids of eyes will stop catarrhal colds if taken in time. The 

 cause must be sought, found and removed. Overcrowding 

 in close coops is a common cause of trouble. 



CARE OF YOUNG POULTRY 



ONE SHOULD NEITHER OVERFEED NOR STARVE GROWING CHICKS- 

 CORN IS GOOD FOOD IF PROPERLY FED— ONLY ONE GENERAL RULE 



MRS. B. F. HISLOP 



IN CARING for young growing chicks, many persons over- 

 feed, giving them, an unbalanced ration, while others 



actually starve the growing birds. If the chicks are 

 permitted free range on the farm, one need not go to the ex- 

 pense or bother of supplying them with all the extras, such 

 as meat meal, vegetables, etc., as the city or town breeder 

 must do. The farmer's wife only needs to see that the 

 growing birds have good water, grit and shelter, though they 

 should be fed three times a day while young with some good 

 chick food mash mixed with sweet milk, which with the in- 

 sects they pick up supply meat enough for them. 



One can easily mix suitable chick feed at home, if he 

 wishes, using equal or nearly equal parts of corn meal and 

 middlings, with a small per cent of bran. Mix this with 

 sweet milk, or even with sour milk if it is not too stale, though 



we prefer sweet milk. This food will furnish the chicks with 

 all the elements needed for their growth. As they grow 

 older, of course, they should be supplied with some coarser 

 grain. There has been so much said, condemning corn as 

 a chick food, that we have been almost afraid to feed it, but 

 every farmer's wife (they are the ones who supply the 

 chicken meat) knows that corn is all right and that it is the 

 grain that puts the meat on the chickens. Of course no one 

 would expect to feed corn exclusively, but it is our opinion 

 that more chicks have died on account of the lack of corn 

 than from too much of it where it was fed to them in right 

 proportions. 



Vary the Food 

 There is no one food that is so good that it can be fed 

 exclusively. Growing chicks permitted to range with the 



