ABOUT THE FOWLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 62, 15 March 1922, Page 8

ABOUT THE FOWLS.

. WHAT THE CENSUS HAS TO TELL. HALF THE HOMES HAVE FOWL YARDS. • More than halt the households in New I Zealand (says the '"Dominion") do not ' j need to trouble about the price of the ■ j breakfast egg, since they keep their own ' J fowls. Tliis is one of the interesting 1 j facts revealed by the recent census. The '! returns show that some 145,993 New 1 i Zealand households keep poultry. Of L these households. 84,534 are in counties and 61,-lpO are in boroughs. Poultry is a term that covers fewls, ducks, geese, and turkeys, but the fowls form the ' great majority of the flocks. The actual ' figures are: Fouls 3,491*507, ducks ' 379,988, geese 40,234, turkeys 73,22(X Taking fowls only, there appear 3,491,567 ' in 143.1)9 (locks, giving an average of i about two dozen per flock. But 30 per cent of the households in the enumeration have not more than 12 birds per ' house, and another 40 per cent of the I households have from 12 to 25 birds. ' A comparison by years has its value reduced by the fact that the census is not always taken at the some period of the year. Mortality is very high in the poultry world at certain periods of the year;" particularly round the Christmas season. The census returns show that there -were 3.091,009 poultry in New Zealand in 1021 and 3,405,033 in 1910, I but as the 101G census woe taken in October and the 1021 census in April, the comparison does not convey much information. The 1911 census was also taken in April, and gave a total of 3,887,383 poultry. Auckland province has 40.102 flocks of fowls, Wellington 25,545, Canterbury 25.513, Otago 14,772, and Southland S,SI9. The four largest flocks are to be found in Wellington province, two of them being over 3,000 foivls each, and two others between 2,000 and 2.500. Auckland's largest flock numbers between 1,750 and 2.000, and Wellington has three flocks in this group.