1 Aue., 1901. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 201 
Rats in a storehouse can be caught with these traps in a similar way. 
Supposing the poultry food is kept in casks, as it often is (empty casks, which 
the grocer will generally sell at 6d. or 9d. apiece, make excellent bins for a sack 
of meal or corn, and if stood on a dry floor will last for years), and rats begin 
eating it from the top, set a couple of traps in a meal cask full to within a few 
inches of the top. Just cover them with meal, placing them 3 or 4 inches from 
the edge. When the rats return to the cask they jump in unsuspiciously, and 
one will walk into the trap. This plan seldom fails, and by covering up all the 
casks but the one with the traps in it they are bound to go to it. 
Catching them out of doors, if the steel trap fails, is by no means easy. 
There only remains poisoning, and a certain risk invariably attaches itself to 
this means. A favourite dog or cat not infrequently finds the poison before 
the rats, in spite of all precautions. The safest poison, if poison must be 
resorted to, is plaster of Paris, which can be bought at any chemist’s. It isa 
white powder, should be mixed with an equal quantity of poultry meal, sharps 
or barley meal, and three or four saucers of the mixture should be put down in 
places which the rats frequent. The rats, it must be confessed, do not die 
painlessly, for the stuff, once swallowed, turns into a hard mass and causes a 
stoppage. But it kills them, which is the main thing; and a poultry-keeper, 
after a rat has wantonly killed a dozen ducklings in a single night, need feel no 
tenderness towards these bloodthirsty brutes. The advantage of plaster of 
Paris is that wandering fowls, dogs, and cats, or any quadruped will not touch 
it; and it has the additional merit of cheapness. Phosphorus paste is another 
effective poison, if used fresh. A threepenny bottle of it, spread on bits of 
bread and butter, will kill many rats, and it has great attraction for them. 
When the weather is warm enough for poultry-keepers to dispense with 
bottom boards to the coops, 1-inch mesh wire netting should be used in its 
place, unless the coops stand on perfectly level, hard ground. A rat will not 
burrow under level, hard ground, but, if the land is unequal and there is a tiny 
hole owing to this cause, he will enlarge it and insinuate himself through. It 
is best to use loose pieces of netting to protect the coops, and turn them up at. 
the edges, as this saves knocking nails into the wood. Bricks set round the 
coop will protect it from rats, but the netting is safer. The front board 
should always fit securely. When the coops are home made this point should 
be remembered. 
Ducklings and goslings must be protected from rats till quite big, as they 
prefer them to chickens. It is when rats have tasted blood in the poultry yard 
that they are most troublesome, and will even chase and kill chickens in broad 
daylight. If the young stock are securely protected at night, and no food is 
left lying about, there is far less fear of rats developing into adanger. To put 
it bluntly, it does not pay to raise poultry if rats decimate the stock, and if the 
poultry-keeper is not clever enough to keep down loss from this head to an 
insignificant number he had far better give up poultry raising altogether. 
FAVUS IN POULTRY. 
Favus in poultry forms the subject of a leaflet issued by the Board of 
Agriculture. ‘The disease is due to a minute fungus which attacks the comb, 
wattles, and necks of birds, and causes the feathers of the latter to fall off ; 
sometimes one side only on the neck may be affected, becoming quite deplumed, 
whilst the other shows no signs of invasion. As a rule, it is the comb that 
suffers first and most from the attack. The disorder is common to man, the 
cat, dog, and rabbit, and is particularly prevalent in rats and mice. It is rarely 
met with, however, in human beings in England. It is very destructive in 
poultry-yards, and, being highly contagious, often spreads with great rapidity. 
A single diseased cock soon contaminates the whole run, and several outbreaks 
have been traced to a new male bird from an affected yard. Care should be 
taken in handling patients, as the disease can be transmitted to man, on whom 
it is not so amenable to treatment as in birds. It is probable, however, 
