POULTRY NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 251, 22 October 1937, Page 14

POULTRY NOTES.

VALUE OF FREE RANGE

ENCOURAGE FEATHERING.

GOOD HOUSING IMPORTANT

(By OR PI NT; TON.) Although it is hardly true to say that the well-feathered young pullet is bound to "be a good producer, yet there is a very decided connection between plumage and production. In fact, it is safe to say that the pullets that show tight plumage and are well clad early, are likely to be the l>est layers and certainlv the healthiest birds.

The quicker and easier chickens make their feathers, the quicker they will go ahead in growth, and reach production. And there is no kind of special feeding that w ill'assure easy feathering for the young stock and the tight plumage that spells good busines*.

Grass range is especially valuable at this time of tin- year, when the grass is at its he-it and the earth teeming with injects, slugs, etc. The usefulness and health of future layers is made or marred largely during the growing period, whether they are chicken* or ducklings. After having started ehiek rearing in the most "natural" possible way and trying intensive and scini-intensive chick rearing for years, then getting back to unlimited grass free range methods, the writer is convinced of the value of the latter.

Stale Rnns. There is, of course, the drawback that chicks can readily pick up coccidosis on range. They can pick it up even on wood floors through its being tramped in with dirt, but it is far more easily controlled in houses because they can be thoroughly cleaned, where earth cannot.

The term "free range" is very often taken to cover quite a small wire netted run for poultry, but for the purpose of this article I intend it to convey unlimited range or at least runs that are sufficiently large to retain grass that grows to sweeten and clean the ground the birds run on. While layers can be reared and kept most successfully in sheds altogether or with "part time" runs in use. where this is necessary on account of lack of space in the suburbs, it always seems poor policy to lind them run like this (as they so very often are) on the farm. Farm poultry keepers often do not realise that, intensive ]>• >111 - try plants they have seen near the cities use carefully balanced rations of many ingredients and put in <|iiite a lot of labour cleanin«r sheds and tuns and sowing the latter in green feed or grass to keep them sweet. All this should be unite unnecessary on the farm, but it is not if the hens and chickens are kept in immovable sheds and confined to wire netted runs that are so small that they are either bare of grass entirely or what there is has grown coarse, rank and useless with overfeeding on fowl manure. This sort of thing is seen more often where there arc hundreds of acres of pasture over which the poultry could be roaming, than where space is genuinely limited.

Housing Young Stock. In order to have the growing stock a way on range while their future laying shed is still occupied l>v old birds, a cheap "summer-time" shelter is needed. Kven where several hundred fowls are being reared chickens do better in fairly small units, and if houses or arks that can be easily moved are used, they are more likely to enjoy healthy, clean land. In the South such temporary arks are perhaps better to be made of wood for the extra warmth, but there they are more than ever worth while because the growing birds can be moved on to stubble after harvest and find most of their own food for some weeks.

In a really mild climate arks covered only with tarred bags can be made weather proof and are warm enough. They should have a frame work floor covered either with {in wire netting or slats, on which the birds will perch at night quite happily. Further, reared under these conditions they still perch quite naturally if given perches anv time after 10 weeks. If a hurricane lamp is fixed in the middle of the floor of a 6ft x sft ark and a large size umbrella hung above to radiate the heat down on their backs, even three weeks' chicks can be entrusted to such a shed in the North —and do remarkably well. At five weeks they need no lamp and feather up well. Although 200 chicks could be put in an ark this size at five weeks, they grow so quickly that unless the roosters are to be taken out before 10 weeks, it is better to start off with units of only 120.

NAVAL PROMOTIONS.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) W KI.LINGTOK, Thursday. Revised regulations covering the Xew Zealand Division of the Royal Xavv have been gazetted. Their underlying object is to make more definite provision relating to promotion to warrant rank, time on probation, discharge by purchase. the promotion of stokers to commissioned rank, and the deferred pay of officers and men. Many regulations are necessitated as a result of the intention lo have eventually 100 per cent New Zealand ratings.