362 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 May, 1902. 
kept poultry in large and small numbers for many years and have never had 
experience of the tick. Indeed this is the first time we have heard of the 
presence of the scourge in this State. 
Mr. Thomas Thomasson, a breeder of fancy poultry at Rockhampton, 
states that the ticks have caused great losses at Longreach, in spite of all 
precautions taken in the way of disinfection, galvanised iron poultry-houses, 
swinging perches, &c. 
Mr. H. G. Barnard, manager of the Union Bank at Bogantungan, tells 
the same lugubrious story concerning the ravages caused by the tick in 
localities on the Central Railway line, where the true fowl tick is very 
numerous. But Mr. Barnard has been successful in banishing the pest from 
his poultry-houses by adopting the following plan :— 
“T noticed,” he writes, “that at night the fowls were very unwilling to go 
to roost, and several times have seen them walking about in the middle of the 
night, but as the weather has been terribly hot I put it down to that. How- 
ever, several fowls died and the rest were picking all their feathers off. On 
examination I found small ticks on them. I then inspected the fowlhouse 
and found it a mass of ticks. I set to work and boiled a large iron pot with 
water; the pot held seventeen kerosene tins of water. With this I drenched 
the house from the top to bottom and scalded millions of ticks. That they 
were quite dead was evidenced by them lying on the ground two days after, 
and I examined them. I hope with a few applications of the same kind to 
quite get rid of them. JI also made a dip of arsenic water, two tablespoons 
of arsenic to five gallons of water. 1 then dipped all the fowls. They now go 
to roost properly and appear much stronger, and a few days ago some of them 
could hardly walk from weakness. Several selectors in this district have got 
rid of their fowls owing to the ticks.” 
BREEDING AND FEEDING FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 
By tHe POULTRY EXPERT, Queensland Agricultural College. 
As the cold weather, with possible high prices for eggs, will soon be here, 
the present is the time to look to the moulting hens. Hens that have com- 
menced to moult should be fed liberally, so that they may commence laying as 
soon as possible. arly hatched pullets, not required for exhibition, may now 
be pushed on, and should soon be laying. 
In the morning, as early as possible, feed pollard, mixed thoroughly with 
water into a crumbly mass, not sticky, but so that it will break into pieces when 
thrown down. In the evening, feed good heavy oats or wheat, with barley or 
maize for a change or for wet, cold days. If the fowls are penned up, give 
them a little cooked meat or green-cut bone; the latter is preferable, as it 
contains plenty of mineral salts and fat, besides being very rich in albumenoids ; 
and, as the egg is chiefly composed of the above three constituents, bone feed 
cannot be beaten for egg production. It should be fed at midday. 
Feed just sufficiently to keep the fowls in good ordinary condition, not too 
fat, or they will get lazy. A good plan is to feed the grain at night in a corner 
where there is some litter or straw, the fowls are then obliged to scratch for it. 
Care should be taken to breed from the best layers only. It is surprisin 
what can be done in a few years to increase the laying qualities of any breed o 
fowls by judicious selection. The cock, also, should be of a good laying strain. 
Then, having bred some good laying pullets, selecting the best layers each year, 
and feeding as above, not forgetting green feed (cabbage, lettuce, &c.) and some 
grit, success is assured. 
