1 Noy., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 3038 
food. She will sometimes get off the nest and pick up grain while stretching 
her legs, but a good sitter will never allow her eggs to get cold owing to her 
long absence. 
When the chicks come out of the shell, it is not necessary to feed 
them for the first twenty-four or thirty-six hours, because, immediately 
before hatching, they have absorbed the yolk sac into their stomachs, and this 
contains sufficient nutriment to sustain them for the time mentioned. At the 
end of this time they should be removed from the nest to the coop, and their 
first feed should consist of hard-boiled eggs chopped fine and mixed with fine 
breadcrumbs or, better still, biscuit-meal. Breadcrumbs are liable to make 
them scour. You should just barely moisten the food with a little milk. 
Don’t make it sloppy. After three or four days, leave out the egg food and 
give biscuit-meal. Always try and vary the food, as the chicks will relish a 
changed diet and grow bigger more rapidly. Boiled rice with a little bone 
meal and oatmeal soaked in hot water are good for them. At the end of a 
couple of weeks give them some small grain. Panicum, buckwheat, and wheat 
cracked small will be eagerly picked up by them. See that there is always a 
plentiful supply of clean water for them. Never coddle them. Let them have 
pienty of fresh air. If they are kept in, keep them in a large yard, and do not 
orget to move the coop to a fresh spot every day, as nothing taints the ground 
quicker than chickens. Green food in the form of lettuce, chopped cabbage, 
garden refuse, and onions chopped fine should be given every day. Fowls have 
no teeth, so that they cannot masticate their food. The want of teeth must be 
supplied by grit of some kind. Fine gravel, pounded oyster-shells, and pounded 
pss are good material for grinding the food in the gizzard. Do not give your 
owls much maize. Maize is too fattening, and fat fowls become lazy, and do 
not lay well. Always keep fowls busy. Scatter grain amongst barnyard 
litter, and let them scratch for it. The hardest workers are always the best 
layers. See that they have plenty of shade and a warm shelter to run to in 
cold, windy, or rainy weather. Provide them with a dust bath. It keeps the 
birds clear of vermin. 
Here are afew things you cannot do. You cannot expect eggs from over- 
fat hens. You cannot make a profit from mongrel hens, nor from unhealthy 
fowls can you expect healthy chickens, nor many eggs from an old lazy hen. 
Without grit, green food, and animal food you cannot expect your fowls 
to be healthy. You cannot expect good profit from them unless you feed and 
care for them properly. 
In this small book, I cannot go very deeply into the subject of poultry- 
raising ; but I think | have said enough to put you on the right track, and you 
can afterwards gain more information from other sources. 1 will now give you 
a list of diseases which poultry are liable to, and the causes of them :— 
Roup: Planted by “ only a neglected slight cold.” 
Cholera : Caused principally by over-crowding. 
Diarrhea: Damp houses, filthy houses and runs, and bad feeding. 
Canker: Dampness and filth. 
Diphtheria: From roosting in draughts and damp houses. 
Ulcerated Throat: From roosting in draughts and damp houses. 
Consumption : Neglected cold. 
Apoplexy, Vertigo, and Epilepsy : Overfeeding. 
Sore Eyes : Damp houses. 
Costiveness and Constipation : Improper food. 
Soft and Swelling Crop : Overfeeding. 
Indigestion and Dyspepsia : Overfeeding. 
Pip and Bronchitis: Damp quarters. 
Black Rot: Result of indigestion. 
Soft Eggs: Overfeeding. 
