POULTRY FEED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25138, 20 March 1947, Page 8

POULTRY FEED

STANDARDISED MASH MAY BE ALTERED

WHEAT DIFFICULTIES NOT OVER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 19. The poultry industry’s feed difficulties are not yet finished, according to the Assistant-Director General of Agriculture, Mr R. B. Tennent, who officially opened the conference of New Zealand registered poultry keepers to-day. Mr Tennent reviewed the wheat position, and suggested that the composition of the standardised mash might have to be altered. The world wheat position, he said, was still very serious, and investigations were now going on to consider the best means of distributing the wheat supply. The tendency had been for New Zealand’s wheat acreage to drop, sq the country had to look overseas for supplies. New Zealand used approximately 12,000,000 bushels of wheat a year, and of that 4,000,000 bushels was used by the poultry industry. Negotiations with Australia, and the five or six million bushels produced from the country’s own crop should ensure that the supply position would not be as bad as might be expected. “I can see no relaxation of the regulations covering the standardised mash,” said Mr Tennent. If distribution was to be ensured, the standardised mash would have to be continued, and they might have to consider a revision of the composition of that mash. If that were done it would be only out of dire necessity.