HEALTHY FLOCKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 24

HEALTHY FLOCKS

PROBLEMS IN BRITAIN

The official report of the. Poultry Technical Committee of Great Britain, issued by the British Ministry.of Agriculture and Fisheries, is now available. The committee was set up in 1935 to investigate the distribution of hatching eggs, day-old chicks, and breeding stock, with particular reference to the reduction of poultry mortality. The committee travelled widely and took considerable time to bring down their report. Very briefly the story told is that the English poultry industry grew too quickly after the Great War. 'Reading between the lines one presumes that the management of most farms is seriously at fault, and this point is endorsed by visitors from New Zealand who frequently remark that the standard of management of poultry farms is as high in this country as that in any other country visited. "We are fully satisfied," state members of the committee, "that the industry cannot, by its own efforts, bring about within any reasonable period the radical improvement that is needed."

The total value of the poultry industry to Britain i s estimated to be £30,000,000, while the annual loss from disease is estimated at £4,000,000. Recommendations are made that "immediate and drastic action" be taken, that control be enforced at an estimated annual cost of £110,000, and that compulsory registration be enforced at once.

This last point of registration gives food for thought, for in New Zealand poultrymen have been seeking registration, and although the Act already passed makes it necessary for those keeping more than 25 adult fowls and who sell eggs to register annually, the whole structure of the scheme so ably originated by Mr. J. N. McLean broke down because of the fact that the majority of the eggs produced come from those who keep very small flocks, and the Act was pruned to avoid taxing small flocks. Actually, nearly 95 per cent, of the eggs produced come from flocks of less than 50 fowls (Fawcett, 1929). If the industry is to be allowed to control itself, which has nothing to do with Government control, then all who keep fowls must register and pay their share in organising expenses.