May, 1910. 
3y LY ry 
The £5. d. of Fowls. 
Poultry-keeping is a good business if 
you treat it as business. Most people 
play at it like a gaine of chance, ‘That’s 
why they so often lose. 
A hen is a customer of yours which 
buys food and hires shelter. For this 
she pays, chiefly in eggs. 
If you can’t tell at any moment how 
the account stands between you and each 
hen, you are working for failure, not for 
success. 
If you like to look upon poultry- 
keeping as a charitable institution for 
the maintenance of cocks and hens, well 
and good. It’s no business of others how 
you waste your money. 
Tf, on the other hand, you ‘are in’ for 
making money, you will make it cer- 
tainly if you follow the golden rules of 
all sound business: Study the cost of 
production and study your markets, 
Buy what you require in the cheapest 
and sell what you produce in the dearest 
markets, 
Study the cost of production, A hen 
which lays only six dozen eggs in the 
year is not worth the trouble of keeping. 
Sell her off, and get one which will lay 
double the quantity. 
How to Raise Ducks. 
Ducks’ eggs must be dampened during 
hatching, whether under a hen or in the 
incubator. They should be dampened 
once each week during the first three 
weck: and the fourth week about three 
times ; lukewarm water must be used. 
When hatching you may assist them 
if they are slow in coming from the shell 
and it will not hurt them in the least, 
They should be taken from the nest as 
soon as dry, when it is warm, or the hen 
might squash them. It is not necessary 
that a hen should run with them if you 
They do 
not need hovering more than a few 
nights. 
It is important that they should roost 
ona floor and not on the ground when 
young, : 
The feeding should receive careful 
attention. 
Never feed anything the first twenty- 
four hours, then commence by giving 
have a little place for them. 
them new milk. After feeding milk a 
day, add moistened breadcrumbs, and 
soft cheese mixed with sand; sand is also 
kept on the floor of their houses and 
runs. ; 
Let them out of the house the third 
Sonteeeneemneeeennneeeeeeenmer ne a 
31 
day and commence giving them water 
and add corn meal, bran, and a little beef 
scrap to their feed, and feed in this way 
two weeks, 
Always give ducks a wet feed, and 
never feed corn meal alone, as it will kill 
them. 
After they are two weeks old give them 
plenty of green food, such as cabbage and 
lettuce. It is a good idea to sow a small 
patch of rape for them. This bulky 
food rushes their growth and reduces the 
feed bill, 
Plenty of fresh water must bo provided 
for them, but they must not get very 
wet when young; later on it will not 
hurt them. It is not necessary to have a 
stream of water to raise ducks; for if you 
allow young ducks to wash and swim as 
much ag they want to you will lose 
them, 
Feed five times a day for the first two 
weeks, until the fifth week four times, 
and from then three times each day. Give 
coarse meal, adding more bran and beef 
Scraps, never forgetting water and plenty 
of green food. Continue this systom of 
feeding and management and you will 
raise 95 per cent. of your ducklings. 
Keg Eating. 
The poultry breeder has many troubles 
to-contend with. One of them is the 
habit developed by many fowls of eating 
eggs, This is a vice most difficult to 
cure. Some poultry breeders fill egg 
shells with cayonne pepper and mustard, 
and this reinedy is effective in some 
cases, but does not do anything in other 
cases beyond causing a mild surprise. 
After the fowls have got over their first 
surprise they continue to cat eggs as 
before. Nowadays many makers supply 
nests which are made in such a way that 
wien an ogg has been laid it rolls away 
out of the reach of the hen, In many 
cases the only real cure is to kill them. 
CORRS EAL AND ORWNAMEN- 
TAL PRINTING of every descrip- 
tion in first-class style, on the shortest 
notice, and at cheapest rates, at the 
Australian Gardener” Printing Works, 
Serymgour’s Buildings, 20 Waymouth 
Street, Adelaide, 
