POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 18399, 6 October 1923, Page 20

POULTRY NOTES

(Bt UTILITY-FANCY,]

“Pineland.”—l advise you to interview the agent for the “Petaluma,” .Mr Wra. Oxley, Crawford street, and obtain the printed instructions for working the machine. '‘ Ducklings.”—You can feed ducklings just as you would young chickens. The soft food should not be too moist, but mixed so that it will break into small pieces when thrown on the ground. It is a bettor and cleaner method, however, to serve the food in saucers. I fancy your losses have arisen through your supplying the water in too shallow dishes. Ducklings should have a sufficient depth of water to enable to dip beak, eyes, and, indeed, whole head into it. K the water is too shallow the food sticks on the clown about their eyes, causes them pain and eye troubles, and they soon die. They must also have, grit. Ducklings, ns a rule, run from the food to the water, and then to the grit, and (hen back again to the food. Your let.ter dated 27th September reached mo too late for my notes of" the 29th (last Saturday), ami I am afraid by the time you read this the four ducklings you had left out of six hatched will have passed away. I hope you will have better luck in your next venture with ducklings. Anotho- shipment of eggs, in addition to the 60,000 dozen exported from (he dominion by the Corinthic, is being gathered at the chief centres, the Otago contribution being 500 cases, or 9,000 dozen. Mr Cussens, the flovernmeut expert, is superintending the grading of the Dunedin (junta., and is taking great care that none but the very finest specimens are packed for ex-

port. Only 2oz eggs are being sent away, and they must be even in shape, liavo air cells indicating freshness; shells must he

free from wrinkles, bulges, ole; there must be no sign of internal blood spots, and so on. Eggs ton large, as well as those lon small, are rejected, and also any that are not spotlessly clean. During a conversation with Mr Cussens at tho cool stores, where the sorting took place, I noticed about fifty cases, each holding thirty-six dozen eggs, and they looked such a fine lot that I was surprised fa learn that they were all rejects. lam convinced that only the. most rigid determination to make the consignments defy comparison in London with the best from elsewhere could account for such fine-looking eggs being classed, as they were, as re-

jects. Tho sorting is in tho hands of several men, each eagle-eyed for faults; and when speaking to those engaged in “candling” by means of electric lights I was fold that not a single had egg had passed through their hands. By means of the electric lights air cells, blood spots, and bad shells can clearly be seen. The packing is excellent wood-wool between paper at top and bottom of each case, provides provision against jars, card divisions keep tho eggs separate, and a card is placed between each layer. New boxes only are used. These eggs are intended to .reach tho London market in November or December, when prices are most worth while; but in view of the cool store charges, tho cost of sorting and packing, freight, etc., it is questionable whether there will bo much profit to the producers. The profit to tho producer is in maintaining profitable local prices during the plentiful season, and if this is done no doubt more birds will bo bred, with the result that there will be more eggs in tho scarce seasons, when eggs cannot be exported, and consequently cheaper eggs for the dominion .consumers. On the 18th of Last month a largo number of people interested in tho poultry industry met Mr and Mrs J. B. Merritt to bid them farewell on the eve of their departure for Great Britain, where Mr Merritt will endeavor to organise a market for the eggs now being exported. Mr William Oxley, avoll known hern in Dunedin ns the proprietor of an egg-pulping plant, and who, it may be mentioned, lin.s purchased Mr Merritt’s plant in Christchurch, presided at tho meeting, and paid a high tribute to Mr Merritt's services to the poultry industry, and wished him bon voyage and .success in his mission. Mr Merritt said the export of eggs would not affect the price of eggs in New Zealand during tho winter months, as the birds would still be hero and provide for winter requirements, and the eggs being sent away were a surplus which tho dominion could not consume. Nature a.nd Nurture.—Those of my readers who are interesting themselves in breeding problems may welcome the following explanation of the meaning of the terms “ Nature ” and “ Nurture ” given by Mr Arthur Thomson in his book on ‘ Heredity.’ He says : “ The fertilised egg cell implicitly' contains in some way which we cannot imago the potentiality of a living creature. If this rudiment is to bo realised there must be an appropriate environment, supplying food and oxygen, and liberating stimuli of many kinds. Surrounding influences —maternal or external —begin to play upon the developing germ, and without these influences the inheritance could not bo expressed, the potentialities could not be realised. Thus, tho organic inheritance implies an environment, apart from which it means nothing and can achieve nothing. Indeed, it is only by an abstraction that wo can separate any living creature from an environment in which it can live. Life implies persistent action and reaction between or ganism and environments. But while the inheritctU. nature and its possibilities of airtion and reaction must be regarded as rigorously determined by the parental, and ancestral contributions, the nurture—the environißtntal influences

-must not be thought of ns predetermined. In fact, the surrounding influences are very variable, and the nature of the young organism may bo profoundly j changed by them.” I break off quoting hero to direct attention to this last statement of Mr Arthur Thomson: “Nature may be changed by nurture.” It is a point well worth noting. The celebrated author proceeds; “Thus wo soon find it possible to distinguish between the main ; features, which are the normal realisa--1 tions of the inheritance in a normal en- ! vironment and peculiarities in nurture. | The characters of a newly-hatched chick stepping out of tho imprisoning egg shell are in "tho main strictly hereditary; but they need not be altogether so, for durj ing the three weeks before hatching (hero j has been some opportunity for peculiarij ties in the environment to leave their mark on the developing creature. Still more is this tho case with the typical mammalian embryo, which develops often for many months as a sort of internal parasite within the mother—in a complex and variable environment. And as life goes on peculiarities duo to nurture continue to bo superimposed on tho hereditary qualities.” Readers will gather from tho foregoing that heredity begins and ends with tho union of two cells—fertilisation. Nurture and environment begin before tho egg is laid. It continues during tho process of incubation, and, so far as breeding purposes are concerned, goes on till the birds reach maturity and reproduce their kind. Mishaps during incubation and bad management in roaring may mako it impossible for a bird to express its inheritance during its life work; but, wonderful to relate, its inheritance, and not its acquired characteristics due to nurture and environment, is handed on to the next generation. Mr Ernest Evans, in tho course of a paper before the Harper Adams College Poultry Conference, said (speaking of England): “If the poultry-keepers in this country can, with bettor methods of breeding, increase tho average annual production of eggs by ten per head of the female section of tho poultry population, and nearly '100,000,000 more eggs would be produced, and without any increase in the number of poultry kept.” Another speaker at tho conference (Mr Morrison) said: “The future of the poui-

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try industry depended on the reduction of production‘costs, and towards the lowering of these nothing was more helpful than tbo cutting of housing costs. To this end large houses were more than helpful. Largo houses were more hygienic, easier to handle, and any case of disease could he quickly spotted and dealt with. He felt convinced that in the near future large laying plants would bo established holding ‘no to 50.009 birds, and the production’ of these would largely dominate the importation of foreign eggs. Bat before there large plants would he possible much more efficient, labor would ho necessary. As the matter stood, t tie weak kink in the armor was chick mortality, which was largely a. matter of indigestion. .Apart from that, large house method stood four square to all the wind that blew, and from ins experience ho saw no reason to anticipate any trouble in the handling of mammoth flock's.” Have you ever seen fowls picking the limewash off the walls of their nonces? Tlavo they ever tried to cat the buttons off your sleeves? They want lime, and they are willing to turn out eggs if you give it to thorn. More than one-tenth' of every egg is lirnc; nothing else can take tho place of lime, and if the hen has not got tho lirno she goes on strike, first by reducing the output, and when tho ca’canny tactics fail to warn the owner that something is wrong she takes more drastic measures, and refuses to lay, while .she proceeds to store up a little supply to enable her to begin again. Three to four pounds of oyster shell per bird is estimated to supply all the lime necessary for a hen to lay to her full capacity. Culling Paves Money.—-I am not responsible for tho following; it is culled from an American paper; —■“ After years I of experience in poultry calling there are i still pou!try-raisers who tell you that ! there is nothing to it—that (ho only way to tell whether a lion will lay or not is to wait and see. Similarly there were people who refused to admit the world was not fiat, and who scoffed at (he radio. Tho culling of hens lias been reduced to an exact science. It is just as easy for an experienced poultry man to toll that hens will lay as it is for a dairyman to tell that a heifer will bo a milk producer.” I do not doubt (hat the earth is round, and I have never scoffed at the radio, but I do doubt (ho s l .'dement that culling has boon reduced to an exact science. Culling is necessary, but with our little knowledge wo probably make many mistakes in doing so. People who buy culled birds in tho market often find that they have secured good layers, and I hose who select from their supposed best birds those most likely to make a reputation at laying competitions often find that they had kept better ones at homo. No, culling is not an exact science, but there is a loti in it.