EGGS SCARCE AND DEAR

Evening Star, Issue 17325, 13 April 1920, Page 6

EGGS SCARCE AND DEAR

DUNEDIN PRICE 5 S 3d WHOLESALE. the wholesale price of eggs in Dunedin is now 3s 3d per dozen. Hens are “going oil’, ■ and though pullets have been doing a bit of egg-laying it is regarded as only a spurt. Dea-Vsra cannot supply half the retailers’ demands. The advance in price is, however, not merely due to scarcity. Ihe prime factor is the dearness of food for the hens. A man ’.vho is in a big way opened ills books to us this afternoon and showed a few comparative prices. In April of 1914, before the war, eags were at Is lOd and Is lid per dozen wholesale ; but fowl wheat, now hard to procure at 9s per bushel, was to be had for 5s 9d ; bran, then £5 15s per ton, is now £8; pollard has risen from £6 to £lO. It will be perceived from these figures that whereas eggs have’ not doubled in prica bj comparison with pre-war rates, feed ha* much more than doubled. Add to this that for the pick of a pen of pullets one now has to pay £l, and there is ample, justification for the poultryman’e argument that egg-raising is less profitable now than it was six years ago.