EARLY PULLETS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 19

EARLY PULLETS

POINTS IN MANAGEMENT The. normal hatching season is not until spring arrives but with presentday methods many chicks are hatched far earlier. Some of our most successful poultrymen maintain that their July-hatched pullets show the beat profits as commercial egg producers and it is with the management of these early pullets that care should be exercised now. In rearing chickens the ideal is first to force growth so as to put the chick well on its legs; then, during the growing period, to promote the growth of a large frame, strongboned, well-fleshed and feathered. Once this is achieved egg production can be encouraged, but to expect steady egg production from undersized, precocious pullets is to expect the impossible Once the oviduct commences to function, the pullet may be likened to a delicate piece of mechanism; upset her and the works will go wrong and egg production will cease.

Early laying should not be encouraged. / Normal maturity for a White Leghorn is from 5J to 61 months and for an Australorp about a month longer, though many of these high eggproducing Orpingtons lay sooner than the average Leghorn. During the period about a month or six weeks before egg production is due to commence the pullets should be fed mainly on grain. If they are on free range, this can be scattered in long grass to good advantage. Three meals a day are better than two provided early and late feeding is possible, and the grain fed should be of a mixture, not all of one kind. Barley has been cheap during the past few years and many poultrymen are using a large proportion, but it is the writer's opinion that too much of this grain can be fed. Young stock do not prefer it though they will eat it if forced to, while adults will always leave barley in preference to other grains, even when fully accustomed to it.

CULLING IMPORTANT. The pullets should be permanently housed and managed similarly to their autumn and winter treatment about a month before the first egg is expected. Once egg production starts in earnest one meal of mash should be given daily with about 5 to 8 per cent, of additional protein. It should be remembered that mash is forcing, i.e., egg producing, and grain is fattening,! and while good average egg production is desired care must be exercised to! see that the body weight of the pullets is not only kept up but increased,! since bodily maturity is not reached until some months after laying commences. Once let the pullet draw on her bodily reserves in order to produce eggs and she will slip back into a moult and spell from laying. Autumn egg production is unnatural and it is a mistake to- expect more than 50 per cent,, production from the pullets. Casual high bursts of fast production will usually be followed by correspondingly lower production. All flocks of pullets should be graded for age and size as much,as.- possible and heavily culled even for commercial egg. production. The smaller and weaker pullets may thrive better if kept on free range and in smaller units, but a proportion are only useful for table birds.

It will be found that those pullets which commence to lay first will oe the best layers but they will nearly always lay small eggs and will seldom .develop into useful breeding stock. Those that lay near the middle of the mass (assuming that all of the pullets were hatched at the same time and reared under the same conditions) will prove the best birds. The last to commence laying will lay the largest eggs, but they will not be fast layers and in the heavy breeds they will be of the beefy type which puts on too much fat at the least excuse. Thus for stud breeding and the selection of the ideal breeding hen, it is desirabla to know the age of all pedigreed pullets.