1 May, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 361 
there is a great difference in their looks and usefulness. It is a waste of time 
and money to breed and feed poor fowls, when good ones can be had at fair 
prices. 
There are some farmers who claim that the hen-house should be cleaned 
out once a year. Others more extravagant manage to remove the accumulated 
manure twice a year. Can the poultry-houses be kept too clean? We think 
not. Clean them out every month at least. Better still if you would do it 
every week. 
During the summer months the fowls should only be fed once a day when 
they haye their liberty, and when kept confined in runs they should be fed 
twice a day. More than this is unnecessary—in fact, may be injurious. If the 
fowls have given to them all that they require they will become lazy, and will 
not trouble themselves to obtain natural food—which, by the way, is much 
more beneficial than is artificial—but if, on the contrary, they are kept hungry, 
they will forage about for themselves, and by this means save a lot in the food 
bill. 
It was at one time supposed that the more dirt a fowl ate with its food the 
better ; but we now know that when the hens want dirt they will procure it 
without any assistance. We know also that eating dirt produces disease, and 
the careful poultryman will never feed soft food in any manner except in a 
trough or on a board. 
The surest remedy for gapes lies in their prevention. Give the chicks dry, 
clean quarters with proper food and clean drinking water. Some hold the | 
chicken in the fumes from burning sulphur. Others swab the windpipe with 
the tip of a feather wet with a solution of carbolic acid or kerosene, both of 
which are much more troublesome than prevention. 
Fowls, in a state of health and with proper facilities for dusting, do not 
suffer from lice, neither do they breed disease; it is when a fowl loses its 
ordinary activity that the vermin unduly multiply. Directly a fowl begins to 
mope, or an old fowl gets lazy, then the lice are active. One such lazy fowl 
will infect others,so that care and intelligence are required to regulate the 
matter, and to use insecticides when necessary. All sick fowls and moulting 
ones require a little attention. A good way is to have disinfecting powder in 
all dust baths. 
Poultry suffer for water on many farms. Other live stock are properly 
looked after in the providing of water, but the poultry must get it any way they 
can. The hens that have to depend on their water supply by getting it from 
filthy pools will sooner or later succumb to mysterious diseases. Watch the 
flock on a warm day and note how much clean, fresh water they will drink. | 
{hen you will wonder how those that are cruelly compelled to partake of filthy 
water exist as long as they do. 
The flavour of hens’ eggs depends largely upon their care and food 
consumed. The food which goes to make the egg, perhaps within twenty-four 
hours, must carry with it to some extent its own qualities, good or bad. If we 
will feed a Jaying hen on onions we can taste them strongly in the egg, the same 
as milk from a cow that is fed on cabbage or turnips will taste of them. The 
same may be said of eggs that are from stale, unhealthy, and impure food. 
Although’ fresh, they will be unhealthy to eat, while those from clean grain, 
fresh meat, pure water, and grass, will be pure and healthy.—Australian Harm 
and Home. 
FOWL TICKS. 
We have received two letters on the subject of the poultry tick on which 
a paragraph appeared in our March issue. We then stated that as “far as we 
knew” the tick had not yet made its appearance in Queensland. We have 
