The Poultry Yard.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 505, 24 January 1906, Page 5

The Poultry Yard.

USEFUL HINTS

The neglect of selection for layers was always the chief cause of failure under the o'd management. This system (or shall we caU it waut of system 1) was very unprofitable. .Fowls which laid few, and frequently no eggs, were fed month in and month out, and gave absolutely no return for the food they consumed. No wonder people said that poultry would not pay with such examples as these under their notice. <:>

However, gradually by the means of a pratical book or two published on the subject, and articles deaiing with poultry keeping as it might be, this condition of things has been altered. There are still some who do not pay the required attention to the points which mean failure or success, and it is with the object of pointing out a few of these, with the hope that the right ones will see them, that we are penning this article,

As we have frequently said, unless a hen lays enough eggs to pay for her keep, and a good many over to meet the cost of purchase or of rearing, she will not justify her existence. Every hen shon'd show a profit, otherwise she had better be killed, as the other birds will have to earn their food, anj by keeping lazy hens the average profit on the year's working expenses will be reduced.

Poultry-keepers would do well to take more care over ibis. They are frequently inclined to purchase birds because they look nice, without any regard to their laying qualities. It is much better to keep ha i a dozen fowls which are bred from a really good laying strain than k is to have a dozen, eight of which are poor iavers. The birds must pay for the food they eat and therefore those which cannot lay enough eggs should be cleared out, We are frequently very grieved for poor people who, reading that fowls can be made to pay, and having a Jittle ground at their disposal, purchase fifty or sixty birds from someone who is giving up keeping fowls, or who wants to sell them for some reason or other.

Mora often than not, these are just a collectioa of poor layers, got together in a promiscuous fashion, and their new purchaser feeds them week after week, and gets nothing at all in return for their food. All this sad experience oould be avoided if the purchaser would first of all satisfy himself thai the birds he was buying were ' proved ' layers.

Instead of buying a large number like this, it would be much better and more profitable to purchase a nice little breeding pen of a cock and six or eight pullets from a good laying siirain, and sell some of their eggs, setting the remainder to get a number of pullets to increase the stock. There is a great deal of false economy amongst poultry-keepers, for, ia the first place, they do not feel inclined to pay prices which will ensue the purchase of birds which will yield a profit, not realising that it is better to buy two or three good layers which will quickly yield a return and enable the purchase of two or three more to be effected, than to have a-pen full of unprofitable fowls, costing originally the same as the fewer birds, but weekly adding to the initial outlay by the food unprofitably consumed ; and then, in thu second place, there is false economy again in the purchase of soft roods, which consist largely of husks I and (Just, and grain which contains ' nothing more than a poor sustenance

! for the fowls. [ The egg season in connection with I Government testing is now at au ond, and Mr Burke, the Government grader, has returned to his work grading poultry. Last ssason Mr Burke tested and put into the cool stores 29,712 dozen eggs. Besides these there were close on 10,000 rejects, It will ba seen by this that farmers should take more caie in seeing that the eggs aie collected every flay, and not be allowed to become stale in the nest, causing loss to themselves.