Everyday Questions And Answers
Will you please state how old pullets must be before their eggs are reliable and strong
for hatching. — H. H. Berry, Tenn. Eight months old for Mediterranean, ten months old for
American breeds. Better mate them to a cock bird. — Ed, I am housing 20 S. C. B. Leghorns
in a house 12 x 6 1-2 X 6 with two windows 2 x 2 in the south. Walls double boarded with
tarred paper between. No ventilator. Combs froze last winter. I wish you would kindly
inform me in the next No. of the Hen how I could alter house so that combs will not
freeze. — M. A., Iowa. Your house is too tight. In Maine they use open front houses with
success, also in Canada. When loosed at night in cold weather, the moisture from the
fowls clings to the wall and produces damp heat; this causes the birds to catch cold and
will also make it easier for combs to freeze. If you have a gable roof to the house, fill
the upper part with straw and cut a small opening in each end of the gable, cover these
with canvas. Your windows are too small and tight. Make your windows each two feet wide
by four feet high, have upper half 2 x 2 of cloth, lower half of glass, fix the glass so
the window can be opened on fair days, but close at night. — Ed.
I have been losing some chickens and still have some afflicted from the effects of eating
pumpkin seed. My neighbors say it is pumpkin seed killing them. They have free access to
the pumpkins and eat heartily of them. It is only this year's chickens that are
afflicted. They first seem to lose the use of their legs, then sometimes they act like
their back was broken; then they will take a spell of fluttering around and fall
backwards and tumble around ever which way.' Can you tell me what ails them? J hey
sometimes live a month after they get this way; their combs stay bright and red and they
are as hearty as usual. I have been bothered with this disease before and it comes in the
fall of the year. M. E. B.— Tenn. We have fed lots of pumpkins to our chickens, without
bad results. We have heard of pumpkin seed effecting the kidneys but never of their
effecting fowls. We believe your fowls have been poisoned. We lost three in the same way,
though much quicker. Suppose you put up a couple of pens, give one all the pumpkins and
seed they will eat, give the others no pumpkin. That will probably show if the trouble is
caused by the pumpkin seed. Please give me some information in regard to the White
Orpington breed, as a layer, as a setter and as a table fowl. How do they compare with
the White Wyandottes and Barred Rocks? I mean in size as well as other qualities. From
what I know of the breed, they must be very much like the White Wyandottes. Please tell
me if this is true of them. Any additional information you can give me on this subject
will be very highly appreciated. — E. B. H. — Va. It is claimed by breeders of the White
Orpingtons that they are excellent layers, especially in winter.'' As table fowls they
are probably better than Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes.
On account of their Dorking blood, they have longer keels and more breast meat. As
broilers the White Wyandotte is better. Through the success of Kellarstrass with this
breed and his sale of five for $7,500 to Madame Paderewski, the wife of the pianist, a
great deal of attention has been attracted to White Orpingtons. They are a fine fowl, the
only drawback to their beauty being the color of. their legs. To the ordinary observer
there is very little difference in the shape of Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and Orpingtons.
Orpingtons are the largest; weights are, Cock, 10, Hen 8, Cockerel 8, Pullet 7; for
Plymouth Rocks, Cock 9 1-2, Hens 7 1-2, Cockerel 8, Pullet 6 1-2 ; for Wyandottes, Cock 8
1-2, Hen 6 1-2, Cockerel 7 1-2, Pullet 5 1-2. If you admire the White Orpingtons, you will
probably succeed with them when you try them.
FACTS ABOUT GAPES
Gapes are produced by a small worm which is a parasite on
the common red worm which the chick eats. Gapes are worse in wet weather because red
worms then come out of the ground and are eaten. The gape worm hurts none but small
chicks, into whose windpipe it makes its way after being swallowed. The reason chicks do
not have gapes everywhere is that there are no gape worms in some places. There is no
special cure for gapes. You may draw the worm out of the chick's windpipe with a
horse-hair but this takes too much time. The only practical way is to prevent the trouble
by keeping the chicks on a wood floor, or sheltered dry ground, where they can get no
worms till eight weeks old, when the parasites cease to hurt them. Moving your brood to
fresh ground often has the same effect. It would always do so, if you could be sure the
new place were not also infected with the gape worm.
WORMS IN FOWLS
There are various kinds of worms that work destruction in your
fowls. You often think it is cholera when it is some deadly species of worm. It is said
that no less than twenty-five different kinds of tape worms inhabit poultry. The way to
get rid of these pests is to thoroughly clean up your premises. If you have any sick,
isolate or destroy them. To those not too far gone, administer half a teaspoonful of
epsom salts to each fowl on empty crop and follow with teaspoonful of turpentine. Every
few days give more turpentine.
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