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Show POULTRY NOTES. Jf roots and ensilage improve the health of animals, and1 cheapen the cost of the food, they will do the same thing for fowls. It is too expensive to feed grain exclusively, when the winters are long and severe, anil as the hens prefer a variety of food, they should have it. All grains this year are especially high in price and their use should hk curtailed as much as possible. It is the mixed food, the combination of various elements, that enables the hen to provide the different differ-ent substaneds that make up the com- r bination called an egg. Lime, phos- H phatcs, nitrogen, magnesia, and water, H arc elements that arc absolutely cs- H scntials and many foods contain an Jfl excess of sonic kinds and a deficiency jfl of others. When a mixed food is giv- jfl en, there is a partial balancing of the fl needed elements, and the several var- fl ieties assist in digesting each other, fl thereby avoiding waste of undigested fl food. A quart of commcal, added to fl half a peck of cooked turnips, will fl provide a better meal than can be pro- fl cured from cither the cornmeal or fl turnips if fed alone. Finely chopped fl ensilage, or clover, or alfalfa, small fl potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, or fl any succulent, bulky food', served with fl an admixture of a variety of ground fl grain will provide the hens with a fl larger supply of egg elements and en- fl tail less cost for food than when the fl hens arc fed entirely on grain. fl The Maine Agricultural Experiment H Station is now mailing bulletin No. H 159, containing an account of mcth- fl ods and devices in the breeding of fl pedigreed poultry. To keep pedigree fl records of large numbers of individual V fowls demands adequate methods and fJ appliances for the work. Bulletin No. 159 describes first a new trap nest; m second a pedigree -egg distributing jft table for storing eggs awaiting incu- m bation; third an incubator basket for T2 keeping track of pedigreed eggs dur- J ing incubation; fourth a device for 1 mechanically banding chick leg bands, I and fifth a system of keeping pedigree I records. On account of its technical nature, this bulletin is issued in a limited lim-ited edition, and is not being sent to the general mailing list of the station. Until the edition is exhausted, however, how-ever, a copy will be sent to any interested in-terested person application. w The poultryman finds at times that he can not wash every stain from his basket of eggs with water h'ut by rubbing rub-bing the stains with home-made cider vinegar every trace of the blemish will be removed and leave the egg clean and shining. He should always be careful that his eggs are clean when he takes them to market. If he does not receive a higher price for clean eggs than for dirty ones, he certainly ought to. Kansas Farrper. 1 |
