FALSE MOULTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 24

FALSE MOULTING

AUTUMN CONDITIONS

Many novice poultfykeepers are puzzled because their pullets are ■ not producing eggs. They read that 'in order to obtain a supply of eggs during the autumn months pullets must be obtained since the adult hens are busy moulting. But pullets will not infrequently go into an autumn moult, too. In aiming at autumn egg production weather and feeding conditions are against growth and stimulated egg production, so that artificial methods must be adopted. The large poultryman with many years of valuable experience has learnt how to care for his pullets in order to obtain 50 per cent, production from them for at least three of the autumn months, which in the poultryman's year extend from March to June. '

By hatching early and late and by different management, some pullets will be laying early, some normally, and some will commence only about now. Those that lay soon after the New Year will continue to lay well tor three or four months when the great bulk of them will go into either a partial or complete "false" moult, as it is called. Sometimes these pullets are sold to unsuspecting buyers, who, of course, cannot get many eggs from them owing mainly to the fact that they have already' laid their autumn quota and also to the fact that any change in the management of a laying pullet at this time of the year will almost certainly cause a false moult. Late-hatched pullets are conu ing into lay now and provided these have been well reared under ideal conditions, they are usually the most pro-' fitable ones. . But many late-hatched pullets do not have the best of chances in their growing stages and so do not develop into large-bodied, useful layers. Very often their • parents are weakened by several months of hard laying, then these-later chicks must. follow on after the earlier ones in sheds and yards which are at the least not fresh, if .not actually disease-' infected,. Again, weather conditions are not usually very favourable to latehatched chicks (this season excepted) since young stock of any kind grow best when the days are lengthening, and when there :is an abundance of Nature's foodstuffs, such as' tender grass, - insects, and roots. ' Dry, very warm weather tends to stuntr the latehatched pullets and they' often take much longer to mature than their earlier sisters. ■" ■

Thus the position is difficult and even experienced poultrymen have trouble in securing maximum egg production' from their pullet flocks. So, of course; eggs increase in price until the' older birds start to come into production again and then once prices decline th^y usually drop quickly. The middle of June will see an easing. of high prices with a sudden drop coming any time soon afterwards. Some consider that eggs will reach 4s per dozen retail this year, but as consumption declines rapidly with higher prices this may be rather too much to expect. ~ .:; ,