POULTRY KEEPING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1922, Page 19

POULTRY KEEPING.

! PRACTICAL ADVICE. (By R. J. TERRY.) J As those notes are written with the . intc7|tion of forming a portion of a I series of articles upon practical poultry j keeping on utility and commercial lines, it might be well to briefly etate who the -writer is and what he has done in this particular direction. For a period of fifteen years he had control in the Tasmanian Department of Agriculture as poultry expert, and fulfilled many other duties, including that of Commissioner, but always retained his old title of Poultry Expert. The most interesting fact to the poultry public, however, is that when he first took up his duties that State was importing eggs, and when he left there was a surplus for exportation. Further, it was generally recognised by the trade and the providore of big shipping companies that the eggs received from that State had greater keeping qualities than it was possible to find in those from any other part of the world. The reason for this, which is simple, will be disclosed in subsequent articles. I want to etate right here that there are few big fortunes made by poultry people. It is only a few who have the gifts, or practically a sixth sense, or instinct, who can successfully 7 run a large poultry farm. There is, however, a medium but absolutely certain incoir.o for those who are workers, especially for the methodical man or woman who is content to start in a comparatively small way and gradually increase their plant as they gain experience. In addition to those whose aim is eventual livelihood, which nvans hard study, there is a very pleasant source of pocket money for the farmers' wives and daughters without interfering in any way with other farming pursuits, and, ac I will show later on. is, in some cases, decidedly helpful to other operations on the farm. There i*. again, another class of poultry keeper for whom I intend to cater largely, viz., thp suburban householder, who finds it a hard n>atter to make ends meet, and to whom a few shillings or a couple of pounds per week wc.uld make all the difference between a struggling existence and a certain amount of pleasure. I Hin going to Hfln-.it at once that there lias !>een. and will T>e, a large number of failures nmonget those engaged in poultry keeping. Perhaps one of the chief riasons is the prevalence of a generally accepted idea that, a person who has hen n failure in every other walk of lilY can, as h last resource, turn witli succors t<l poultry keeping. Most townspeople vfeit the country, or epend holidays on the farms, only under the best condition?— Hint is. in the summer time. They Fee the fowls laying heavily, and Nature is :>t Unit time supplying a large amount of fond. Naturally, balancing the ration ami the farmers'" mistakes in feeding, and they are apt to get the idea that poultry keeping would be u>uch < asier than their present job in the city. The conditional in winter are quite different. Then they will find the birds not laying, and that they have to be fed' and loolci'd after during wet and cold (lavs. Then there are the persons (and unfortunately in many case? women), who have a eiu.ital of only £200, or less, 1 am] have boon told (or beeama influenced (by what they have read), that this is sufficient to start poultry farming. The : statement is not only absurd, it is also j cruel. Thorp is the rent of land and j buildings, erection of enclosures, incu- i liators, etc., the stock of birds, plus food j ami clothing for themselves for eight or' nine months until the returns start to I come in. Another source of failure is the physical wreck who takes up noultryfarming, looking for a soft job. Last, but not least, there is the eonBumptivc. The consumptive should uot iv any circumetanoee take up poultrykeeping. I can bring a mass of evidence

and personal knowledge 'which proves that tuberculosis can be communicated from poultry to human beings and vice versa. The largest and most successful number of poultry keepers will always be the suburban householders who utilise the scraps from the table and thus ol>tain eggs for a shilling or less per dozen, instead of paying the grocer 3/ to 3/8. Quite apart from the pocket-money thiM obtained there is the broader view of increased food production for the Dominion. Politicians and the Press are con* tinually driving it in to ug that production must be increased. Xoiv, I am making the statement in all seriousness that in our suburban back yards we can produce food equal in feeding quantity to a cheep per month per yard. In Tasmania I have visited placed on the West Coast, where the climatic conditions are I'ery bad and they measure the rainfall by feet, not inches, and found that the yards of eighteen miners' cottages out of twenty in one street produced for a month egge equal in feeding value to eighteen cheep. It is the realisation of the value of things, small in themselves, which makes for success or non-succese in poultrykeeping. One often hears a farmer say "there is nothing much in keeping poultry if one grows abundance of feetV In fact, he is quite proud •■»! the fat condition of hl a hens killed, b/r complaius that they are bad layers. H» misses the point, which is that Nature intended the hen to lay an eeg which would latch a normal chick. The chic!i in all cases has a frame of bone, and that has to be grown out of the constituents of the egg. Xow. why farmer*' hens lay without any trouble" in spring or summer is the fact that they have access to grasses and clovers which have far more bone-formins material thfn any grain. It i e a physical impossibility to feed fowls on grain alone and <ret a hen to produce 200 egeshells and 200 frames for chicks if she !<s not supplied with the material to do this; but I am now touching on an important subject which had better be left until another time.