Show POULTRY 0 U TV axt SPECIAL FEED FOR GROWING BROILERS care Is necessary to obtain the best results there are generally considered to be two broiler seasons one near the holiday season and one near gaiter laster time the popularity of producing two or three pound young chickens Is increasing each year alth the devel of this enthusiasm have hane come a number of new problems not hereto fore encountered in any large degree cites a writer in wallaces wallace s farmer winter broilers are reared either on the floors of brooder houses or in the more modern battery brooders broaders bro oders there Is less difficulty for success with floor brooding but the battery method seems to present reactions that are difficult to analyze cannibalism and feather picking are problems in all confined systems of brooding but seem to show great er aggravation in batteries the battery plan of management has developed a new obstacle or dis ease commo commonly termed hock dis ease or slipped tendons the ten don at the hock sl ps out ot of place and the leg turns to one side it has often been confused with leg weal ness or rickets but this is an error rickets results from deficient mineral assim dilation and can be corrected by some vitamin D carrier such as cod liver oil or sardine oil experiments at the pennsylvania ohio and united states government experiment stations chov showed ed that slipped tendons were caused by too much mineral intake and more par ticul arly by not having calcium and phosphorus in the proper balance or relation with each other in order to handle this situation rations for broilers are now so con strutted ted that there is one and one half to two times as much calcium as phosphorus and not more than a total of I 1 per cent of both the job of growing chicks to broil broll er size indoors Is an extremely arti artl facial one and the ration must be ad austed to meet the unusual conditions leg weakness blindness bother young old birds leg weakness may be a disease of young or old stock manifesting itself without discoverable cause or it may be an accompaniment of other bisor ders that show this weakness as a part of the symptoms observable says a correspondent in the rural new yorker protruding vents barly in pullets laying heavily show birds unable to stand up under the strain of such production blindness may accompany chronic coccid losis or other chronic affections or may seem to be an affection of the nerves of sight not dependable upon any a known disease elsewhere about all that can be said of it in many cases Is that it Is A disease of the optic nerve unless autopsies reveal a definite disease or definite diseases to account for the mortality in the flock it will have to be ascribed to the lack of con vigor and overcome come it if at all by greater attention to that feces sary ingredient of flock welfare very possibly at the expense of such heavy egg production as layers are now forced to cut poultry mortality cleav heavy pullet mortality has long been recognized as one of the major problems ems for the Tyman reports 11 H kauffman poultry extension specialist of the pennsylvania state college on many farms it has been found that 40 to CO 60 per cent of the pullets fall to complete their first lay ing year these figures come from surveys made in several different states the birds either die or are removed from the flocks because they are poor producers culls or market hens may be partially counted as mor as many fall in production be cause they do not have sufficient stamina to stand up under heavy production there are however some vigorous hens that fail fall in production because they are by heredity poor producers pastures for poultry poultry raisers in england use caal pastures for poultry they use rations lower in protein and yet get good growth and egg production As protein Is the most expensive part of the ration any method which permits lower protein feeding Is important to the climatic conditions tn in england are more favorable than in this country for providing green range for poultry throughout the year A system used there is to keep a large number of hens in portable houses cull old hens five years of experimental work at the university of arkansas college of agriculture shows that it is not profit able to keep th average hen more than three years these records show that all birds gave their best prodoc tion their first year and decreased in production each succeeding year in these experiments production decreased 67 per cent by the fourth year and in some cases as much as 70 per cent was noted by the end of the third tear ear |