POULTRY KEEPING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 43, 20 February 1926, Page 24

POULTRY KEEPING.

(By B. J. TBKBY.)' I

TO CORRESPONDENTS. JR. (Te Puke) asks If It Is a. bad thine for Runner - Ducks' to have access to •water all day in which they can swim.— Yes, a certain amount of food is lost by the exercise of swimming; Ducks are seldom in good condition where they have much swimming. I do not mean that they are not healthy, but it is not commercial duck-keeping to give them access to the water all day. HTJNTIiY writes mc re the article on line breeding, and asks mc if It can be further extended.—Yes, you may make any number of extensions or branches and bring them together again if you feel sufficiently confident to do bo. Always remembering that it is as easy to stamp a bad point as a good one. You are evidently an enthusiast, -so it will be probably safe in your case. PERCHES (Ellerslie) has built a house, and the perches are two inches wide, the tops slightly rounded off. but has been told that the surface should be . three inches. What do I say?— You are quite correct. The birds would not be as comfortable on a three inch as on a two inch, unless there was considerable rounding -off of the three inch. The bird has to clasp the perch with its toes to really rest comfortably. MANUREWA is troubled on account of her fowls having water blisters on. "the face, especially round the eyes, also between the toes.l —lf there Is no acid or acid . fume about the place the birds may have been stung with insects, sand flies or what are locally known, as flying ants. ■If on the other hand there is any pus. or the blisters are decidedly raised, as round - nodules, then write mc again at once. , ■ WEST LYNN writes that they have a difficulty In getting a fresh egg supply. If eggs become below one entiling and ■ sixpence the producers' pickle them, and if eggs are scarce it is a favour to get them at retail prices. How many. birds would* have to be kept to produce six dozen eggs \ a week?— About 18 young hens should 1 produce the number of eggs you require if properly fed. You can keep the birds in a .comparatively small space providing it is roofed over bo that it is dry. Have four • inches of dry scratching material on the floor. Buy the young hens from a farmer .if possible. If they have been running, at liberty and not too well fed they will respond to the better feeding. F. (Devonport) encloses a sample of old Glaxo, of which he has a quantity. Would it be fit to give to poultry, If so, in what quantities? If too stale can it be treated in any way to make it suitable? Also if 1A sugar can be fed to fowls in either .large or small quantities. You are always taking a risk in feeding milk products which are stale. The sample you send has a decided rank cheeeey odour. You might try feeding it at the rate of a pound and a-half to ten pounds of dry mash. Of course you can wet the mash after adding.it if you wish, but I am inclined to think if fed to laying hens the eggs would have a Blight musty flavour. At' the first sign of any bowel trouble discontinue its, use and put some germicide in the birds' drinking water for a couple of days. I would not advise giving sugar. Sugar only makes fat. It has no other feeding value, and In nearly all cases fowls are too fat. .The only way In .which you could use sugar, to advantage would be if you. were feeding large quantities of. mash containing albumen meal, which makes lean flesh and whites of eggs, the sugar would then be opposite and help form fat. and thus a portion of the yolk of the egg. 808 (Kohimarama) has a White Leghorn pullet, one leg of: which seems • paralysed. It flutters round on the grass, feeds well, and otherwise seems healthy. It is possible that the bird has got caught by one leg, and what you would term its hip joint may be out, that is ■where the leg • connects with the -back of the bird. Feel this place and compare it with the other side. ■ If the toes are cramped or drawn up the trouble would be rheumatism. If neither of these, para- * lysis resembling infantile paralysis. There have been a number of cases during the last twelve months. If it is feeding well it may recover. ■ DUCKS (North Wairoa) has \ drake with a perpetual shiver, mainly noticeable in the legs and part of the body. Six ducks,.lay eggs without shells frequently. They were knocked off laying as I suggested previously, two now lay ■ a strong shelled egg, but the four perslst in laying thin shelled.-—The young ■ drake may have been injured in the head, neck or back, .which has affected nerves or spinal column. If he does not get better within a reasonable time, kill him. Give the ducks that lay the thin shelled ccga a little vinegar in the mash for a while. This may seem strange to you, but the effect of the vlneear is to dissolve readily shell in the gizzard, and so a greater supply is available. In some cases it does the trick. The number of egffs laid by your birds is very good indeed. You are, going along the right lines to build up n valuable strain. M.B. (Wanganui).—lt is no trouble but a pleasure, but the editor, would say .there was too much free advertisement In the reply, so I will/ write you.

ARTIFICIAL EGOS.

My attention has been drawn to various discoveries made by scientists during the last, year in America with special reference to the Massachusetts Institute of Technolcgv where It is announced that one of its professors had discovered a means of making from bwrf serum a protein food which can be used as food as a "substitute for the white of, an egg, and also provides a "cheap water-proofing and adhesive materia). Boston has evidently been working on the same lines as. they announce a new food product made from glomulin and albumen. It is claimed that a quantity of the new food equalling the albumen content of the white of an egg can be produced for half a cent, virtually a farthing. Mixed with egg yolks it can make omelettes and scramble 1 esgs. Some few poultry keepers who bave spoken to mc on the subject seemed at first to think that this would be a

tremendous set back to commercial poultry keepers, but, I say there is nothing to fear. In the first place my readers will notice that the "yolks of eggs have to be mixed with this artificial white to obtain omelettes, scrambled eggs, etc., and as it is highly improbable that we shall ever induce hens to give us extra yolks in place of the white of an egg it seems unlikely that there will ever be a glut of yolks to be mixed with the artificial white. Further I do not think America can be taken seriously as regards her manufactured food pfqduetions. I should say it was the biggest food fake country on the face of the earth. America is the largest consumer of natural' eggs of "any of the civilised countries. > Some years ago an attempt was made to manufacture eggs. The constituents as near as possible, contained in the ' yolk of an egg, were placed into a i machine' which froze' them into round balls. These were then given a thin coating of a. substance, the foundation of which was gelatine. The albumen was then added, the whole again frozen and covered with, a membrane and afterwards with a composition resembling plaster. It was thougbt quite a lot of in the laboratory, but commercially it would have been a failure, and we have not heard any more of the- experiment for years. But- your average scientist who gets crazy on one particular line, is apt to miss some of what he thinks smaller -things, but which are absolutely essential and this especially applies to food products. Further one has to remember that the albumen had to be obtained from m&it, and at the low cost quoted it would seem that tHis albumen was probably obtained from meat of very low qual.ty, whereas if we feed albumen in some form to a hen or a vegetable albumen to a cow, Nature' intends that, albumen to cither develop offspring or to feed offspring, therefore it is of the best, although the parent's frame may suffer in its production. America has also manufactured wooden nutmegs, and wooden raspberry seeds for raspberry jam making. Man has done wonders' as regards machinery, appliances,- etc., but I have yet to know of a'• laboratory-prepared food which really equals, let alone surpasses natural products, or in other words, Nature the chemist keeps miles in front of the human chemist, but in all these experiments there are lessons to be learned if we study them sufficiently. ■ ARTIFICIAL CHEESE. A few years before the war all my evenings were devoted, to study and research. Naturally data were exchanged with various parts of the world. For at least two or three years before the Great War, German chemists were experimenting with a view, of augmenting the German food supply and amongst other, things that were attempted was the making of artificial cheese. It was the thought of scientists, and a natural thought till one goes very deeply intoNature, why should a cow. be used to produce milk, butter of cheese, when it was really produced from the food> she consumed, and wasted part of that food in converting it, or that is what they claimed. So an emulsion or stew "of "certain foods was made the foundation' for which was Soya beans ( these beans contained a large amount of protein and fat, from memory about 33 per cent). After the emulsion was made it was kept at hflood heat and the. digestive juices added to it. Then eventually it was found neccsary to inoculate it, as" it might be, termed, with lactic acid. Cheese was really made from this product and I suppose from a laboratory point of view, would be termed a big success, but again, it was not a commercial success and the human world would have obtained the same nutriment by eating cooked Soya beans and drinking a little buttermilk. But as I have remarked, there are lessons to be learned, and so the experiments of -feeding a certain amount of Soya bean meal to cows durj ing shortage of food or when "on poor pastures, or during cold weather, with very beneficial results. No, poultry keepers need not worry about artificial eggs or white of eggs. What we have to worry about is how to feed the substance to the hen in the cheapest possible manner so that the hen (in this case one of Nature's chemists) gives it back to us in a purer form and of higher value. For instance: If skim milk, buttermilk, etc. cost you little or nothing, convert it into curds and pass the albumen contained therein through the fowl; she will give it back to you in the form of white or an egg. ; Another illustration: Say a bullock's liver costs you ninepence or a shilling. . It. might contain six ounces of albumen (I am taking it roughly I don't think it would be more. I mean dried albumen.). You must remember the liver would be. composed of about eighty per cent of water, and this six ounces of dried albumen would be about the same quantity as there would be in three pounds of eggs if the whites were dried. As the albumen is the most necessary thing for egg production and eggs at the present time - are worth two shillings and sixpence per dozen, or one shilling arid e.ghtpence per lb, you will see why it pays, to feed albumen- and not worry about American food exploiters.