Your chicks have eaten soured food, decayed vegetables or tainted meat. Baby chicks are just like other babies and the same care should be used that their food be always sweet and fresh. Wet food should never be given chicks, nor raw meat nor anything the least bit tainted or stale. Put a teaspoon of coal oil in each pint of drinking water and see to it that the latter is kept pure and cool. Mix a teacup of sulphur with enough bran or shorts for each 100 chicks, moisten with sweet milk and feed it on clean boards, what the chicks will eat up clean in some, twenty minutes. Give them one feed of this each day for three days if the weather is dry. Clean the brooders and runs daily, then dust white with air-slacked lime and cover the lime with a sprinkling of clean sand. Rake and clean up the yards where they range and never let them eat any of their grain or food out of dirt and filth. You cannot doctor such small chicks and must depend upon the coal oil in the drinking water. Keep the water fresh, but add the coal oil until the chicks are relieved. Open-Front Chicken Houses. In what direction shall I face open-front poultry houses? North or northeast is the proper direction to face the open fronts of poultry houses and coops in the Pacific Coast climate. The prevailing winds are from the south and southeast in the winter, and from the west and southwest in the summer. The occasional north winds or "northers," may be called dry winds, in fact, are an indication of dry weather, and so do not harm the fowls even when cold. We like the upper half of the north-end or slide of our poultry houses open with inch-mesh covering the open space and the eaves extending several inches as a protection. In case of an unusual storm from that direction, one thickness of burlap may be tacked to the edge of the extending eaves, and to the lower part of the opening. This will admit plenty of fresh air while breaking the force of the wind. We also have a large trap door for the use of the fowls, in the solid lower part of the open end, and the large door, for cleaning and sunning the house, in the west side. A Point on Mating. I have fine roosters a year old this April; would you advise keeping them for mating with the same hens next season, or do you advise selling each year and getting fresh stock? The young males will be all right to mate with the same hens next season - that is, if they come through the molt with vigor. They will be just two years old and at their best. The molt is the test for both, hens and cocks. If they show no signs of ailing or weakness during that period, it is proof of the proper stamina and vigor. Age for Mating. At what age may a cockerel be mated with hens? From nine months to a year is the proper age to mate a Leghorn cockerel. Cockerels of the larger breeds should not be mated before a year old. White-Yolk Eggs. Why are eggs watery and light-colored?