POULTRY KEEPING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 98, 28 April 1933, Page 12

POULTRY KEEPING.

SEASONAL NOTES. BRAN EXPERIMENTS. (By ORPINGTON.) To grow well and feather and mature at the right time to attain first-class honours in show pen or laying contest young stock must have good food, good housing and good management right through the season. Just now food should be on the bulky side unless the birds are backward. Otherwise early pullets will be forced too much and may lay double-yoked or soft-shelled eggs or even suffer from prolapsus of the oviduct, which is shown by a stretching and protrusion of that organ after laying. Should this happen, isolate the b'ird immediately or others in the pen will damage her irrevocably. Wash the part with a cotton wool pad dipped in mild disinfectant solution and replace. Plenty of green food is a very suitable way of providing bulk in the diet of early hatched pullets, and bran also is very useful. A year's experiments have recently been completed at the farm oi | the Scientific Poultry Breeders' Association, England, as to the advisability of the extensive use of bran for poultry, it being probably the very cheapest ingredient available for the make-up of laying mash. It has been held by many than bran was too fibrous to take a large part in the diet of layers. Identical pens were fed 40 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent of bran (by weight) in mashes otherwise the same. For the year, laying in the first two pens was the same, but those receiving 40 per cent bran were healthier and laid a bigger proportion of winter eggs. Laying in the 10 per cent pen was decidedly lower. Such experiments were carried out with both intensive and free range flocks. In the latter case, indications suggested that 40 per cent bran iii the feed prevented autumn moulting. However, as Mr. Tom Newman, director of the experiments, always warns us, one or two tests are not conclusive. Also, as Mr. Kissling, Massey College, points out, results must depend on the quality of the other ingredients of the mash, some samples of pollard being much nearer bran or more floury than others. Still, bran does contain valuable vegetable protein and minerals. Also, a certain amount of fibre is required for body functions. But even feeding bran and greenstuff, the birds, either growing or laying, are much better to have lime, in 'the shape of shell grit, always before

them. Slatted Floor Houses. For the suburban poultry-keeper, or where there is little land, the usual semi-intensive, open-fronted house is the only sort. Have eave ventilation at the back which can be closed if necessary against a south gale, and a wire-netting door, if possible, inside the wooden one, if it is at the end of the house, so that the latter can he hooked back and left open in hot weather. This also allows morning or evening sun into the house (according to its position), which may prove valuable when birds have to be kept intensively. But for farmers or any poultryman with land for free range birds, excellent results have been gained in health and vigour of growing stock, and layers kept in a ridge-roof type of house, rather like an ark. These should be 9ft by 6ft at the largest; 6ft high at the ridge, and 3Jft or 4ft at the eaves; and with a floor of wooden slats, wide and lin apart. The whole shed should be lift to 2ft from the ground, allowing it to be on wheels or skids if it is to be moved. It requires no perches, the birds being found to sit comfortably, not huddled, but spread evenly over the floor at night. Trays can be slipped into slots like drawers, underneath the floor, from outside, for the purpose of catching the droppings. These are readily removed for cleaning. If the houses are to be moved frequently, and the birds used for manuring farm land direct, the sides of the house should extend below the floor for a foot, to prevent draught. Ventilation is easy with an overlapping ridge. This form of house takes us back to a very old-fashioned farm type, but with the very great difference of having floor and roof ventilation where the old type had none at all.