Poultry-Raisers, Write for Your Paper.
[What Ails the Pullets?]
Dear Fanny Field—Please be kind enough to tell me what ails the pullets? We have fifty or sixty spring pullets hatched in April and May, from which by this time we expected to get eggs plentifully, and it stretches our patience to get only from one to five eggs per day. They have an underground room with only the front exposed, well lighted, and we have fed them till they are fat.
We feed them a warm breakfast of potatoes and bran, or oats ground, with a little pepper occasionally, then an hour or two later oats, and again at night oats or corn, about three times a week. Plaster, coal, and gravel are liberally supplied. They have milk and now and then powdered bones, or refuse meat, cooked.
By an accident a fine one of over four pounds’ weight was killed, and I had supposed she ought to lay as she was one of my earliest, but on investigation I found eggs from a hickory nut down to shot eggs, that were black or dark and hard, and I readily conjectured if the rest were like her it was not strange we had no eggs. Please tell us the cause and cure.
Our fowls are mixed, light and dark Brahmas, Leghorns and everything you would get by changing eggs with the neighbors. We have added Plymouth Rocks of late, having more of them than any other. We save the best Rock roosters each year. It is the more surprising as our fowls usually lay well.
Please help us if you can, and oblige a subscriber.
Mrs. C. H. R.
Marengo, Iowa.