1200 Fowls Burnt In Five Sheds

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 1

1200 Fowls Burnt In Five Sheds

Fire burnt about 1200 fowls and five fowl-sheds on the poultry farm of Mr S. B. Stockdill, Trents road, Prebbleton, yesterday afternoon.

Mr Stockdill and his family were out when the lire began, but a neighbour and nearly 100 persons from a nearby car scramble meeting saved approximately half of the 2500 fowls from the burning sheds.

The Lincoln Volunteer Fire Brigade, men on the Paparua County Council fire tender and men on a tender at the car scramble, fought the fire and saved several other fowl sheds and about 4000 laying fowls. A neighbour, Mr Z. Myerhoff, was putting up a fence on his property when he saw smoke coming from Mr Stock-

dill’s property. He saw that one of the five sheds, containing 2500 fowls, aged from six to 20 weeks, was alight. Mr Myerhoff telephoned the Lincoln brigade. “There was a stiff wind from the north-east. The fire started at the east end of the second most northerly shed,” said Mr Myerhoff. “I began letting the fowls out from the west end of the sheds. They were in pens of 80, in colony wire cages for growing birds. Clouds of smoke rose, and within minutes the officials of the Sock-burn-Hornby scramble club arrived. “They were splendid. There must have been a hundred persons there. We opened the doors at the west end of the sheds. The fowls were stupified by the smoke, heat and excitement. “We ripped the backs off the cages and shooed and threw fowls out like madmen. “There were hundreds of fowls all over the place, with people rounding them up and guiding them to other sheds and a garage with bits of wire netting. I think we had about 600 fowls in crates in a garage at the end.

“The fire spread rapidly and we could not get to the east end of the sheds because of the heat,” said Mr Myerhoff at the scene last evening. Mr Myerhoff and the help-

ers tore scrim from a shed full of layers. The fascia board along the shed was charred but the firemen managed to save the shed and fowls.

Four of the burned sheds collapsed, and the fifth was burned out. Mr Stockdill is insured against fire. He said that he normally took 2000 dozen eggs a week to the egg floor but that the fire would mean a big loss in production.