SINGLE PENS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 18, 20 July 1935, Page 29

SINGLE PENS

Originally most of the contests singlepenned each entry, but with the advent of the Massey College contest in 1931 trapnesting was introduced in order to obtain individual scores at a lower entrance fee. Certainly the single-pen system is the best since it allows visitors an opportunity of comparing one bird with another very easily and it appears that most birds will give slightly higher egg scores when individually housed. Each gullet has a shed measuring not less than eight feet deep and three feet wide,; with her own nest, water, and feed tin. But since it is desirable that entrance fees be'reduced the trapnest. flock system has proved so popular that not only has the college difficulty in filling the available single pens, but the Auckland contest has converted its whole accommodation into flock teams under traps. There each team is housed separately, making use of three old single pens to take a six-bird team. Trapnesting must be thoroughly and carefully managed if it is to be of any, value at all as a means of obtaining accurate individual scores. In the first place, the traps must be, well constructed and work without any difficulty. Secondly, great care must be taken to avoid any floor" eggsi. Many of the pullets sent to the "contests have been in the habit of laying their eggs 'on the floor, and .for the '.first... few weeks a keen watch must be kept on all the pens: for any pullet that decides to lay on the floor.. - It has been found that once such birds have been lifted into a trapnest, they seldom, if ever, lay on the floor again. Careful records from the annual report of Massey College show that the number of floor eggs collected' during the full year total less than 1 per cent,, so that this aspect presents no difficulty-