POULTRY KEEPING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 70, 23 March 1934, Page 12

POULTRY KEEPING.

EGGS WITHOUT SHELLS. A WINTER PROBLEM. (By ORPINGTON.) The sliell-less egg trouble is a very real one, and difficult to solve.. The numbers of shell-less eggs produced in a single night on a large egg farm detract greatly from the profits, for the simple reason that the greater number of them arc produced in the winter. That lack of shell-forming material is the cause is perfectly true to a point, but if the preceding egg and tlio one following a shell-less one are perfectly shelled the contention hardly holds good. Every breeder knows that frequently the bird that laid the shell-less egg at night laid a shelled one during the same day.

The yolk in its travels down the oviduct eventually reaches a certain position, there it reposes whilst the lime secreting glands pour forth the secretion that will harden into a perfect shell. Why it should leave this tract of the oviduct before the process is complete is a case for investigation.

In the majority of cases the egg enters the section the afternoon or evening before it is laid, remaining there until the next day, when it is eventually laid. It would seem that once having reached this tract the egg cannot remain there because the following one has ripened and gone through all the processes so quickly that the second egg, by its weight pressing on the egg already in the tract, causes the muscles of the oviduct to exert the necessary effort to expel the unfinished egg.

The following egg then entering the tract is normally shelled. The rapid ripening appears to be due to variations in feeding; it is perfectly easy to cause an epidemic of shell-less eggs. The remedy which will control, but not entirely prevent, shell-less eggs appearing is the more thorough mixing of the ingredients of the mash, and the distribution of it.

It often happens that when the mixing of a dry mash is sampled, an extra supply, of meat or some other rich part of the diet is seen. This is a clear case of bad mixing, and if given to the birds in that state would probably result in a number of imperfectly shelled eggs being produced. To feed so carefully and sparingly that no shell-less eggs could occur would be to deprive the egg producer of a good portion of his profits, because egg production would suffer accordingly. The medium must be found and less left to chance. —The "Poultry World."

BIG HENS AND BIG EGGS. Big hens lay big eggs, as a general rule. Canadian poultry records bear this out. Among the birds on which records were kept, the average weight of eggs from White Leghorns weighing under three pounds was 23 ounces to the dozen. Leghorns weighing between three and three and a half pounds produced eggs averaging 23.4 ounces per dozen, and hens weighing four and a half pounds or more produced eggs weighing 25 ounces per dozen. The larger birds also produced more eggs than the smaller ones.

This docs not mean that the big hen or a big pullet will always lay a big egg. It only shows that on the average the largest birds lay the largest eggs, and that it is advisable to cull out the very small pullets.

In a series of experiments at Cornell University, Dr. E. W. Benjamin showed that females laying small eggs, or males from small egg females, invariably transmit to their progeny the tendency to lay small eggs. Eggs that are undesirable in size and shape from a marketing standpoint may hatch well, but they should not be used.