t) 
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1 Supr., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 281 
10. Suourp [ Keep Mare Brrps or Buy Eaas ?—Certainly, keep male 
birds for getting strong chickens for home use, and pick the-best and earliest 
cockerel for the pen of winter layers if you want early chicks. One or two 
extra pens are useful for keeping old birds while moulting. 
Hinrs on Heanru.—Make your houses convenient for clearing off 
droppings each morning, and cultivate the ground once or twice per week, 
especially after heavy rain; this I consider important, and will prevent 
unpleasant smells. 
With a small number of fowls, and constantly changing their ground, and 
bringing sharp sand from road gutters or the river, and providing green food 
and clean houses, there should be no sickness or loss. My plan directly a bird 
refuses its food is to put it in a grass pen for a day orso, and if it has looseness 
of the bowels keep it without water, except once or twice per day. I have not 
used any of the many nostrums adyised during the past year, and only lost one 
bird during the hot weather. 
The shady side of the garden should be used in summer, and sunny side in 
autumn and winter; and in hot weather a “damp dust bath” should be provided 
by digging a part of pen the day after soaking in with water. 
‘When I started I was told the tick would come in spite of all my care. I 
consider | have conquered, and I put it down to the free use of sulphur, and a 
5 per cent. solution of crude carbolic acid applied with a spray pump, as a 
regular “ Foul” yard with tick is not far away, and I consider the 4s. 6d. spent 
on. a sulphur bellows money saved. My mode is to go around all the fences and 
houses wherever there is wood with the bellows, and blow sulphur in all parts—- 
Eachange. 
THE PLYMOUTH ROCK. 
Tose who wish to possess a really good all-round bird should give the 
Plymouth Rock a trial. The Plymouth Rock has been bred in England for a 
number of years, and has gained a well-merited reputation for most sterling 
qualities. The hens are excellent layers of dark-shelled eges—the colour 
varying considerably—and are very steady sitters and capital mothers. 
As table fowls they are good, though objected to by some people on account 
of their yellow legs—a prejudice that is absurd, considering the quantity and 
quality of their flesh. ‘They thrive well on any soil and in confinement. “They 
are fine birds in appearance, with shapely bodies and bright yellow legs and 
beaks, and single combs of medium size. The barred variety is blue, with bars 
of a deeper blue-black. Some of the chickens often come black, so that the 
purchaser of eggs for setting must not think he has been swindled if he does not 
get all blue chickens. There are also white and buff Plymouth Rocks, but 
neither is so popular as the barred variety. 
Wheat is better for fowls than maize. It does not make them so fat, and, 
considering the number of eggs that can be secured by using it, is altogether a 
more economical food. 
Tincture of iodine is said to be an infallible cure for warts on fowls. The 
tincture, which is very cheap, should be brushed over the warts with a feather 
every other day. 
TURKEYS AS SITTERS. 
When “broody” hens are not to be procured, turkeys can always be trained 
to sit at any time. ‘Take a turkey hen off the roost, and train her to sit. Ina 
very few days she will remain quietly on the eggs, Turkeys are always ready 
to sit as soon as the eggs are ready for them. 
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