POULTRY RUNS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23971, 11 June 1943, Page 6

POULTRY RUNS

Sir, —The statement from Mr Bobby about poultry runs as reported in "The Press" of Thursday will surprise many people. Mr Bobby is only a new arrival and cannot be acquainted with the facts of the position. I know two cases where there was definite interference from Government officials following registration of flocks of 60 and 100 poultry. In the latter case the owner was told that her building was unsuitable and her feeding was wrong. She produced her store dockets of eggs sold and the officials had to admit that the production was well above the average. The result of such interference was the sale of most of the poultry as has been done in hundreds of other cases, with the resultant egg famine. Do away with registration ,and encourage farmers to keep poultry and we will soon have plenty of eggs.—Yours, etc. OBSERVER. June 4, 1943. ["lnstructors have no power to interfere in any way with the internal managements of plants, other than on questions relating to existing sanitary conditions and questions regarding eradication and control of disease in poultry," said Mr L. Cocker, poultry instructor of the Department of Agriculture, in reply to this letter. "The wdrk of instructors is purely in an advisory capacity. The Poultry Runs Registration Act, 1933, provides machinery clauses on the registration of poultry keepers, owning 25 birds or more, who sell eggs, the registration revenue to be used for the organisation of the poultry industry. It does not contain any clauses or regulations covering the internal development or management of poultry plants. It is questionable if the facts quoted in the letter are correct, as all the instructors work without selfinterest and only for the industry generally. In the particular case staled. iwhen the production was well above average, there must have been some other valid reason for selling out."J