THE POULTRY INDUSTRY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1168, 1 July 1911, Page 9

THE POULTRY INDUSTRY.

(By Chantecler.)

North Island Association. We cordially welcome any effort that will l\elp to ilevelop the poultry industry and tlio formation of a North Island Utility Poultry Association at Palmerston was undertaken, with the object of helping towards that end. The meeting was not largely attended, and nothing definte was placed before the meeting. The trouble with poultrymcn is they are wanting in unity, and aro split into too many sections, with tho result that no definite work is done. What the half dozen representatives who gathered at Palmerston intend to do. is not very clear, but the multiplicity of associations is a mistake, and little good will result. There are many good men in the poultry business who would give a lot of time to organise.- ■ tion, but they receive little encouragement, as producers get together in cliques, and, instead of helping, seek rather to retard. However, there is room for good Bolid work, and poultrymen will watch for results from the new association. If it is intended to gather together, form it.«lf into an association, and then disband, it will not be anything new for those who study the spasmodic efforts of men in this, as in other branches of human exploits. Egg-laying Competition. Though no mention was mado in the report; of the meeting, one of its objects was to consider the holding of a North Island, Egg-laying Competition. A few producers start the cry, and expect others to follow. Another competition is not needed in New Zealand. If there are any who have timo and money to spend, of course a competition will afford a splendid avenue for the purpose. The competition at Blenheim collapsed, and could ; not pay its prize money. The one at ' Nelson died out after a year's work, and the Cambridge Competition Company lost their money, and closed down, while the promoter of the first two duck competi- ' tions lost money, and "gave it up." If ' theso lessons aro not sufficient, let pro- | nioters go ahead, and add another to tho ' list of failures. The present competition ' finds it difficult to fill.their pens each [ ycar.though supported by generous dona- ] tions and heavy entrance fees. '

What Will Competitions Teach? Competitions have closely approached the completion of their work. They hare shown us what breeds can lay best, how many season's laying can be obtained at a profit, what is the best system of feeding, and what records -may he expected. What more can bo done? While the pneral averago improvo slightly, individual scores do not improve greatly. The cost of an extra competition in Now Zealand does not warrant the trouble and expense to which promoters would have to go. There are many more important things that need doing, and tho new association could employ its time better. Education in the methods of marketing, assisting poultrymen to co-operate for better all-round prices, and cheaper supplies, and dissemination of general poultry knowledge are far more worthy of support than the holding of a competition that will entail enormous work and expense, and find its results of no more value than wo haro already obtained. I oultrymen in New Zealand are' just beginning to understand tho value of corn, or what, wo term maize. Years ago fanciers who fed lazy old hens that would lay about 50 eggs a year, found afterwards that, maize Was too fattening for poultry, with the result that that bit of : lore has' been handed down to us as a dogma that no One cared to dispute. However, this season, poultrymen' are using maize more freely, and with splendid results. It is a food;that keeps up the system and vitality Of'layers'more than any other grain. Mixed maize and wheat in equal parts > 3 ; thii;writer's,.choice. =,:'i,The ; : maize< is cracked,-and then mixed'with the wheat. 1 Fowls eat it in preference to wheat, and the coming year will. show a great increase of sales in'maize. One merchant, who usually sold .about 50-sacks a year to poultrymen, has this season, sold over 400 sacks.

Which Incubator to Use. A correspondent who (for a change) sent a stamped envelope for reply, has asked tho question: > Which is the best incubator to use? The Standard makes are Tamliu, Jubilee, Agphers, and Prairie State. Either of them give good results. Tho trouble is more often in tho breeding stock rather than the machine, when bad hatches : aro recorded. Birds,: which are-weak'-in- constitution, will produce weak"chickens." Badly fed,'neglected birds' cannot give, good results. A good machine often gets the blame when it is the eggs that are at fault. Given good eggs, and (with tho instructions) follow either of tho above machines—that ought to givo good results.. Turning and cooling, even temperature, and sufficient moisture are tho main features of running a machine successfully. Feeding for Egg-Production. The market poultryman endeavours to promote egg-production, especially in autumn, because at that time prices aro better than at any other time. To secure eggs at this or any.' other season, tho poultryman must so feed his hens that that will lay out of tho season natural to them. The wild hen laid a few eggs in the spring, and was non-productivo tor the remainder of tho year. The ordinary hen of to-day lays anywhere from G to

250, according to her individuality and capacity to produce eggs. Almost everyone who has used a . trap-nest, has discovered wido variations in the productiveness of his hens, even when all of them were of the same strain and closely related. The most accurate.general returns available givo the average egg-production of tho hens of America as being somewhere near five dozen a year for each hen. This wo consider too low an estimate, but in the absence of any other figures wo must work on this basis. Assuming that half the hens lay fewer than sixty eggs and the other half more, it isplain that they could soon increase this average by discarding the drones; by selecting the best for a scries of years, they could, in the end, double, triple, or quadruple the average/as. it now stands. This is readily proved by our'experiences in Australia in regard to .the laying contests. From theso wo have found that years of "' careful breeding will certainly increaso tho average number of eggs laid, but that, despite all this-breeding, there will bo individual "duffers" in the best, laying strains. We believe the competitions justify us in placing the average egg yield of the Australian hen at at least

130 per annum. That was the average, attained at the first contest, and wo attribute the gradual rise since to the fact that this was normal production, while subsequent improvements were the result of careful breeding with this object in view. ISo amount of statistics gathered with the agricultural returns will chango our ideas in this direction, for in two vears we have seen enough to justify us in believing that the methods adopted in tho collecting of same are so haphazard as to Tender the results utterly untrnstworthv and useless. 'What we can and desire" to emphasise here, however, is tho fact that the competition (inures are the result of breeding not feeding; the result of careful selection of parent stock, not to some newly-discovered or re-dis-covered system of feeding, for practically the, same system has been in vogue =inco the commencement of the contests. Were wo able to say otherwise—were wo able to lay down in'black and whit", say, "the 130-ogg-averago diet" and "tho 180-ogg-avoragc" for comparison by our readers —we should be able to save considerable, space and argument. However, wo must accept facts as they are, not as we would like them. . ftverv living animal requires first a certain quantity of feed to keep life going. There is a constant waste from the rejection of the inert matter, winch has served its purposes, from the sy-tom, and this 1)0 replaced every day in the year. Then thers is the- or.rrgv rtqiiired to maintain animal heat, which requires feed; for the heat of the bodv is maintained by tho burning feed. The quantity offered is called the "food of maintenance." .After this quanlitv is supnlied, the remainder goes to adding to. the weight of the birds, by filling out the muscles, or storing fat on the body, or the production of eggs, Purther than this, sonic of the

feed may actually be wasted, ami pass with the excretions without- having ever served any useful purpose. It is probable that waste, of this kind is constantly {joins on, for we rarely feed a ration that is absolutely balanced so that it contains every element in proper proportion, and unless we do this some of the elements are wasted. So difficult is it to arrive at absolute conditions concerning nutrition, that the very best information wo have has been derived from experiments from which conelusions are deduced by indirect methods. However, it has been found in practice that tho. food tables may be depended upon iii compounding rations to produce profitable results, and that this is. the point to be considered, so it matters but ■little whether we understand exactly what.occurs during the process of elaboration from feed to nutritive compounds which are changed into blood, and used for the support of the several parts of the body or tho production of eggs. If wc feed our pullets a ration which will best promote egg-production, we shall also feed tliem that which goes to the building up of their bodies so as to make them vigorous and healthy. This is true because the egg contains all the elements of nutrition for a perfect chick, and .is probably the best example of a perfectlybalanced food product we cab find in nature, In "order to know what to feed,.,we must either experiment for.ourselves or. adopt the simpler and easier way of relying on the experience of- others who have been successful. If we do thisVe find a ration composed of one part protein to four or four and a half parts corbohydrates lias been proved to produce good results. It should bo remembered that a "ration" is feed enough for a whole day—that is, a mixture of such foods as should be used in ono dry. Before we can figure rations, we must know something of tho chemical constitution of tho feeds at our command,. in order to be able to mix them so as to secure a proper nutritive ration. From the best analj-ses obtainable, we have made a table of the constituents of each of the common • foods available, from which it is easy to arrive at tho proportion of protein to carbohydrates in any ration.—A.H.