POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 4

POULTRY NOTES

[By TJnLrrr-FAXCT.]

J A timely hint just now,, seeing that the ! cold weather is approaching, is: Visit the poultry-house to inspect for draughts. It may be found that one of the wall boards has slipped or cracked, or thero may be a knot-hole, so that a direct current of air strikes the birds when on their perches. It. will not take long to lose every bird in a house if such a draught is allowed to continue. Another hint to suburban poultry keepers is that small, back-garden runs are apt to become sloppy in the winter, and that birds do not lay well if all day long they stand in mud and slush. The best thing to do during the -winter is to confine,the birds entirely to their scratching sheds, where they will lay much better than they would in the above conditions, even though they*- had an extensive grass to range over. Having turned the fowls into the scratching shed for the winter, the run (if it is a small one) should be dug over and the earth thrown up rough, go that the- rains, snow, and frost mav sweeten it. ' ■** , Si.v whit* leshorns owned by Mr G M'Doiinell. of Melbourne, which"are making a good record at the Parafield (South Australia) egg-laying/ competition, have found a purchaser at £lO each. The pTice is high, but not a record. In the early days of the laying competitions Mr A. H. of Adelaide, wa3 offered £IOO for the eix White Leghorns which won at Subiaco (West Australia) in 191011. He wisely refused the offer, and,' taking the birds home, netted from their eggs and stock close on £I,OOO. The six White Leghorns mentioned in the foregoing paragraph as belonging to Mr G. M'Donnell have laid over the period of April 1 to March 1 1.526 eggs—enual to 254£ eggs in 11 months, and if they repeat for the following four weeks their performance of the last week under report—viz., lay 29 eggs per week—thev willeach have laid 273| eggs in the 12 months—not a record by any means. A writer on the other side is not far off the truth when he says : " Don't say 'I can't pick the layers,' because you know, you. know, you really can't do "it: as a matter of fact, no living man can do it and keep it up. Some of the cracks keep going for some time, but they come down-sooner or later; which is a good thing, J>y the way, for it lets the: other fellow m. The trouble is that vou can't see the works inside, and although the. outside is the same to the keenest and most experienced eye, it is a common thing to have five champions and one • auffer in a competition pen. This is the reason why men come and go in the=e competitions." There are, however, indications which are, though not infallible, _ a fairly safe guide. For instance, a lay-' mghen has a large moist vent, showing a dilated condition and looseness, as compared with the hard, puckered vent of a non-laying hen. The whole abdomen is dilated as well .as the vent, so that the pelvic arches are widespread and the keel is forced down away from the pelvic arches so as to give large _ capacity. The more eggs a bird is going to lay the following week the greater will be the size of the abdomen, ine actual size of the'abdomen is, of course, influenced by the size of eggs laid and the size of the bird. Heavy "production is shown by the quality of" the skin and the thickness and stiffness of the pelvic arehes Pat goes out from the slnn and body with production, so that the heavy producers have a soft, velvetv sfcin that is „ot underlaid by layers of . hard tat. The abdomen in particular is sott and pliable. The sternal processes are ywv prominent, and are generally bent outward. The thicker and blunte- the pelvic .arches ancll the greater the amount ot hard lat in the abdomen the less the production or the longer the time since production. One of the finer indications t-ut yet one of the most valuable in picking the high layer, is the fineness of the head and the closeness and dryness of feathering. The head of a high'laver is tine. The wattles and ear lobes fit' close to the beak, and are not loose and flabbv The face is clean-cut. The eye is full round and prominent, especially when seen from the front. The high layer t Jo U tr r r^ at is J H l6 feathe " »e dos r the l d ,aftor heav y Production tho oil does not keep the plumajre relatively a S Bkek and sh 4 t thl £* TO* omeS '» I " TOrn and 'threadbare, n? cont \ wata *V a "d lobes enlaree oi contract, depending on the ovarv "If the comb, wattles, and ear lobes are'larinll, and smooth, or hard and waxy the imp the bird » laying only .lightly, but is not laying at all whentbo° comb • s dried down especially ,at mouitingtiiPtLtthoTv,'- 3 wan *V ? an "Plication - tion. When a bird stops lavinjy in the summer she usually starts moulting Th* ater a hen lays in the summer "or the longer the period over which she lavs hfh e e a U, V '' ni }° h6r Produc"so th=t the nigh producer is the late layer, 5? t{«e n tLf 16 3te r illter - Th « fcnrth Tn. T.l , 'iV !e " has oeen moultingor th« 1!T k -r in ? Can he determine* bv i»-* boilt . s « weeks to completely renew the primary feathers next to" the a*«l feathers, and an . additional two rSwed 0 - ° aCh SULse<l " ent Pri»«T to S

Black Orpinrtons were first produced in England in 1876 by William Cook They TV™ 6 Irom bla <* "Porta from the and Langahans, and were improved year ' Jf ß Vk " ntll i he bea ? tiful birda that ™ «ee to-day are the result Jmcy meat, lay a large number of brownf«™ r *^ d are 6aid to be immune from climatic changes. Mr Cook also introduced the White Orpington. He got them by mating White Leghorn cocxs with Black Hamburg pul- «.♦*-/♦ 3uv Cr<^ sed - f Jullets were " then mated to White Dorking cocks. Several years 01 careful breeding produced the fine birds that we know to-dav. Buff Orpingtons were'the next breed manufactured by the English breeder. He started m by mating golden-spangled Hamburg cocks with colored . Dorking hens. The cross-bred pullets were then mated to buff Cochin cocka, and successful cultivation produced the buffs that are found everywhere at the present time. It is reported in the Australian pa.pers that,-encouraged by the success of his - , Black Orpingtons 'at different laying com- . petitions in progress, Mr R. R. Christie

J has decided to ecnd over a, team of sh: j Black Orpington pullets and two single birds to compete in the forthcoming laying competition of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Society. Blistered lobes (says the" 'Feathered World') are very apt to appear on MinoKcaa and other Mediterranean breeds. You can do very little to prevent this, for blisters appear even under the best of attention and management. The weather is mainly responsible for the appearance of blisters, cold piercing winds being especially detrimental, and therefore it is imperative, if you wish to beep them fairly good in lobes, to keep them protected from . the biting winds of winter. When blisters once appear prick them, and at once thoroughly dry up the escaping liquid. Then dress with oxide of zinc or seme good face creanj or powder. High tail carriage is beginning to bo mentioned as an indication of high-grade eg? production. I have referred to it myself as being the opinion of this or the other authority, and must admit that, altho'o»h, as a fancier, whilst culling a hightailed bird as unsuitable to breed from, I have kept it amongst the general stock because of its laying power. One swallow does not, however, make a summer, and I agree with "Utility," an Australian writer, wjien he remarks: " The fact that a bird is high in tail carriage is nearly always due to the different structure of the bird or to the muscles being: contracted, and one cannot advance either of those as indicating prolific ess production. I have seen most of the White Leghorns and Black Orpingtons that have put up the highest vearfv laying records in Victoria, and- none o"f them had abnormally high tail carriage. Jjft us take, for instance, the Japanese Bantams, which have tail carriage which touches the back of the head and neck. No one has ever heard of these Bantam hens producing 280 and up to 335 eggs in a year, or of the variety being anything more than ordinary ecrg producers. The argumen m favor of high-tail hens being the be.ter layers does not appeal to me. And until the statement is borne,out by facts T cannot accept it as carrying anv weight whatever in denoting prolific egg •producers.

In Great Britain men who are -not breeders, and who are known as higglers, obtain surplus l,i r( j s f rom farmers and breeders, generally to fatten them up for he market Cockerels and old hens and birds doubtful as profitable layers are obtained cneap. and penned, to be fattened—to he, as ,t is termed, "topped off." No food is ted for the first 24 hours, the object being to make the birds forget their loss ot liberty—caged as thev now are—in their' anxiety to get food. Thev are kent m semi-darkness, and given only soft food ot about the consistency "of porridge. This is fed to them twice a day. and thev are g.ven a* much as they can "eat up in about a quarter of an horn ; after that time any that is left over is removed. After 10 or U days of this the finishing-off process of cramming by means of a machine commences, and lasts for another 10 days The average increase in weight of cockerels is Irom to during: the trough feeding process, with an additional half" to three"quarters of a pound for the cramming period, and it is said that the last Alb or so increase is marked by a very noticeable improvement in the quality of the flesh In the course of a paper in the Victorian •.Journal of Agriculture' by Mr \ V D Rentoul. poultry expert, N.D.D.. the'following may be read :-" Because from time to time some misguided person fails to make a _ success of ponltrv-keeping on in-hly-prieetl building land virtually within brick area, the Press are 'inflicted with complaints about the industry " The complaints referred to are. of course, that poultry-keeping does not pay. I V : ou ld point out. however, that the reference is only _to poultry-keeping as a sole source nf hying, and' not to the keening of the tew birds that may be lodged in a back garden dear of rent, labor, insurance, and other charges incidental to a business concern, and to a great extent clear of food cost seeing that household scraos from n Kood.y proportion of the food required by a few birds. •' It was stated in a recent American pubicatiou that if every farmer kept 120 birds on ms farm the revenue from these buds would be worth 1.250.000.C00 dollars a year to the United States. Such prea faot. there can he no ouht but that ,f every suburban householder kent only half a dozen birds ih e revenuc-the extra purchasing power of the Lmted States derived from the prouuced-would be a lonir way more than double the amount mentioned .- for it ha, frenuentl.v been reported in American publications that the train loads of eec« that travel to the coasts are not the production to any appreciable extent, of the larms but that they come from the individual holders of few birds. What applies to the Tjmted States applies to Xew Zea-

Another remark of Mr Rentoul worth quouug and commenting unon is- "In view of the fact that the' majority of poultry-Keepers require regular payments irom the sale of their eggs, and to"enable them to, reap the full advantage of the very, high prices likely to prevail this coming _ autumn and winter for the tamnet recently made the sum oT £5.000 available as an advance against eg^ a placed m cool storage; and chamber space was reserved which perhaps might have been more profitably set aside for meat It must for ever remain a remarkable fact tnat not one egg farmer has taken advantage of one penny of this proffered loan! When the grant was first made e<w S were selling at from lid to lljd per" dozen, ancl the cool storace proposition showed every prospect of a net. profit of 8d or « 0 a dozen, or at least 15s a case. One <ellhvagency alone had an order for 6,000 000 eggs lor an individual sneculator who was willing to step in where the poultry farmer (aided oy a Government ioanl was afraid to tread. Now we read in the Press that because wheat has risen innumerable fiveguinea birds are being sold for table purposes !; The comment suggested by the loregoiog is : If the Now Zealand Government oiler similar help to the industry here the egs* circles will be able to take advantage of the offer. Outside of the' egg circles only the produce agents with capital at thfir command can undertake tho storage of eggs m large quantities, and they do not speculate in eeigs or anv other commodity, for that matter, solely' in the interests of the producers, as the e«<r circles or similar co-operative concerns will do.

Lr.i and Oyster Shell.—lt is a great mistake to suppose that poultry can thrive without a supply of these, and yet what a number of poulti y-keeuers never think of supplying _ them. In places where fowls are kept in great numbers thev generally clear the ground of all its natural erit. particularly if they are running chiefly on grass. Often it has been found that "Want of tnose necessaries has prevented birds from keeping in good health, and has hindered them from lx>ing a source of profit to' their owners. It need hardly he stated that some birds are much better situated than, others for getting a natural suppkoi such .material. When the ground i's naturally deficient in sharp grit it ought certainly to be regularly supplied. Ovster shell or old limo rubbish is also required in order that the birds may havo plenty of material wherewith to shell their esgs. Shell-less e<-~? are a, sure sign that hens are short of lime. Good flint grit and broken oyster shell can now be obtained very cheaply, and every poultrv-keeper should have a stock.