Poultry Notes

Evening Star, Issue 21518, 16 September 1933, Page 18

Poultry Notes

“ W.L.” asks: “ What causes birds to strain so much that their intestine comes out through the vent?”— This trouble is known as protrusion of the vent, or egg passage, and is usually met with in over-fed birds or those who have had pepper in their mash, but it is sometimes caused by straining to expel an over-large eg. One way of curing is to -wash the organ with warm water, apply olive oil, and, with the finger, gently return the protrusion, keeping the fowl’s head downwords, in order to assist the operation. After that, give a half-teaspoonful of Epsom salts to the affected bird (drop it dry down the throat). If the protrusion recurs, repeat the operation, and reduce the quantity of forcing elements in the food you serve. CHICK’S FIRST APPEARANCE. When the chick cuts its way into the world and emerges from the shell, its soft, downy coat is saturated with moisture, and the one thing most essential to its well-being is the warmth of it’s mother’s breast, or of the nursery tray of the incubator, as the case may be. It is, previously to hatching, supplied with food to last it for some considerable length of time by the absorption of the yolk, die last thing before it breaks the shell in the process of hatching. In this nay Nature has provided by careful brooding of the newly-hatched chick until it is thoroughly dry and strong enough on its feet to follow the mother hen in search of its food. One ( “ the most common mistakes of amateurs is to begin feeding the little chicks too early. As soon as they are thoroughly dry they can be taken from the nests and placed with the mother in the ''rood coop, when they should be provided with good, sharp grit and pure water, and left to themselves until they are at least twenty-four to thirty hours old. Some well-informed poultry men claim that seventy-two hours is still better, but it is a safe rule to never give a brood of little chicks food for the first time until they manifest their need by their insistent cry and restlessness that all poultry-keeper have noticed when food has been withheld beyond the regular feeding time. It is claimed that the yolk of the egg absorbed by the chick just previous to hatching is fully sufficient for the support of the chick until it is four or five days old, so the folly of feeding them so soon as they can be transferred to the brooder ought to be evident to all. COLOUR OF NEWLY-HATCHED CHICKS. Novice poultry people arc often puzzled when they purchase or hatch out sittings of eggs to find the chicks differently marked to the adult fowls, and are apt to think that a mistake has been made by the breeder they purchased from or that they have been purposely defrauded. Dealing with this subject, the colour of down in chickens, a contributor to ‘ Farm, Field, and Fireside’ (England) says:—

Where chicks are from the black breeds inexperienced rearers, expecting all black chickens, can hardly he made to believe that they can be pure when they see a good deal of white about them. Yet one often finds that in such cases there is more white than black in the youngsters. We see it in the flight feathers, and very often on the neck and on the under-fluff, while those having a good show of white on the breast and on the head are sure to have veriest adult plumage. Black Orpington chicks have mettled legs, which are almost black at the hocks, but lower down they are pinky yellow. In chickens of the barred varieties there arc no such markings. The back is black, and on the head there is usually a dull, drab, and sometimes a creamy mixture. In the pullets of such birds the grey is much darker than it is in th s cockerels.

In the Barred Rock there is a patch of grey on the head, and when this is seen it is a sure indication of very perfect adult feathering; the barring first appearing on the shoulders and then downwards on the breast from the throat.

In all chickens of the white varieties that have yellow legs the colour of the downs is in all different shades or degrees of croaminess, or they may be ot ii lemon hue. It-will he noticed with white-plumagcd and white-legged birds that the chickens from such hatched with bluish legs never get rid of the blue colour as they grow up. Buff birds of the white-legged varieties have a yellow or buff down on

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them, and if such have reddish-yellow legs they are usually found to come all right to the true colour. > On some buffs there may be a little black or white in the flight feathers, but these come to the true eolo’T later on.

In mottled plumagcd birds, such as the Houdan and the Ancona, the down is black and white. The Houdan can be distinguished by the fifth toe and the indicative hump on the lead. Between Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds there is not a great deal of difference. Rhode Island Reds have rather more white about them, and a patch of light brown on the back is an indication. This varies in shade in the birds, but it is always there. Salmon Faverolles can be known'from the muffling of the throat and the feathered legs. In colour they, are creamy white, and in the flights there is a touch of grey.

A USEFUL FOWL. Rhode Island Reds are good and useful fowls, and being a utility breed, their hardiness is noteworthy. Points to watch are that the body is long, broad, and deep; the nedk of medium height, and carried slightly forward. The cock’s colour is a rich, brilliant red, with back and wing bows darker red. Tail and concealed wing feathers, black. The recognised standard weight for cocks is Bllh> cockerels 7Jlb, hens fiilb, and pullets 51b. Faults are fluffy plumage or Cochin cushions in females, light yellow bills or black in bill, pearl eyes, long spike to rose combs, high or upright tails, and tendency to green in shanks. These birds had their origin seventy years ago in a cross between the males of the old Shanghai, the Chittagong, and the Red Malay, and the female fowls already existing at Little Compton, Rhode Island, in the famous Narragansett Bay, U.S.A. VERTIGO. , Adult birds suffering with vertigo run in. circles or flutter about without control of their movements. Hold the head under a stream of cold water for a time and give three grains of calomel and ten grains of jalap. Keep on low diet. COD LIVER OIL FOR'FOWLS. Put briefly, the subject is a wide one, Cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamins, is a body-builder and a tonic, and is particularly valuable for use in autumn, winter, and spring among chickens, layers, and breeding stock. The usual quantity is 11b (about one pint) _ to 1001 b of meal, provided the cod liver oil is of the best quality. It helps in preventing rickets among chickens, in increasing the egg supply from layers, in ensuring good fertility among breeders, and hatchability anil rearability of the young. It can be given to chickens almost from the first, at any rate in their mash at two weeks old, beginning with about half the quantity and gradually working up to 1 per cent. GOOD APPETITES. The birds that go most eagerly to their food and which eat the most are the best in the pen. It is true that some birds put most of their food to the making of flesh rather than to the production of eggs, and are not the right sort for the laying pen, but they are good birds all the same—i.e., the best for table purposes. THE CAMBAR. The Capibar is a new breed of fowl which shows sex-linkage—i.e., it is a breed in which the sex of the chickens can be distinguished at time of hatching. Subsequently to the production of this breed sex-linked chicks could only be produced by crossing to different breeds, and there was the necessity of keeping two pens for the breeders and another for the resulting pullets reserved for the laying pen. The Cambar was produced at Cambridge as a scientific curiosity in 1929, and was showij for the first time at the World’s Poultry Congress in 1930 't the Crystal Palace. Speaking of this new breed, Michael Pease, M.A., of the School of Agriculture, Cambridge, says:— The original Cainbars were very poor layers, both as to size and number of eggs; in any case, only a dozen or so birds existed, and the best of these fell far short of the industry’s utility standards of to-day. It was clear that improvement was not likely to be got by the straightforward method of breeding and selecting within the breed. Recourse was therefore made to the more tedious process of cross-breeding and extracting. In 1931 a score of such cross-bred Cambar pullets were raised and recorded, their trapping year having ended last September. They were all late-hatched (May and June), so that they did not begin to lay till December ; but nevertheless the Hock average was 152.6, as against 94.2 for the unimproved Cainbars recorded over the same period. Of the improved Cambars the best laid 183 eggs and the worst 110, and one died daring the trial; but it should bo remembered that'the pen was unculled; every bird that was correctly marked went through the traps. In 1932 many more extracted Cambars were raised, and about a couple of hundred are now being recorded. The records as far as they go show very marked improvement in egg size and colour—some of the birds are laying fine large brown eggs. But on the whole the winter laying records leave room for improvement; like its Campine ancestor, the Cambar is so far rather an irregular winter layer. Its strong point is the last lap; it lays steadily through July, August, and September, and even right into October—at least, the 1931 birds did (but that may have been due to their late hatching). An interesting new development of the breed is the silver variety. The Barred Rock was used for crossing with the original Gold Cambar, and, as would be expected, most of the extracted Cambar progeny were silver instead of the original gold. These first appeared last year, and are now being trapped, in the silver the sex difference is far more striking than in the original golds. For some reason there seems to be less darkish pigment in the silver downs than in the golds, and so the sex difference (due to the one and two doses respectively of the sex-linked barring factor) shows up more sharply. However, as the male chicks mature they darken up. and in the half-grown state they are not much lighter than the pullets. In the hen-feathered silver cocks (another Campine trait) the plumage of the rock remains darkish, like that ol the hen; but in the cock-

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feathered cocks the neck and tail hackles come in much lighter. Amongst the new Silver Cambars are some birds of a quite reasonable table size; it is hoped from these to build up a table Cambar in due course.

The Silver Cambar has another advantage in that the hen can be used for ordinary sex-linked crossing, both with respect to the silver-gold character pair (e.g., with a Welsummer male), and with regard to the barredblack character pair (e.g., w'th a Black Orpington); whereas the Gold Cambar hen can only be used with regard to the last-named character pair. It is hoped before long to enter a pen of improved Cambars for one of the accredited egg-laying trials, so that the new breed’s laying quality can be tried out against that of the usual standard breeds of to-day.

TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL PAPANUI EGG-LAYING COMPETITION. Leading Pens, Twenty-third Week Ended September 8 (160 days). Test I.—J. H. Shaw Memorial Challenge. Light and Heavy Breeds. Week’s Weight.

Eggs. oz. 3rs. Tl. J. Campbell (B.O.) 6 13 5 127 J. Ibbotson (W.L.) 5 10 5 117 6., Wheeler (B.O.) 5 11 5 116 W. Turner (W.L.) 4 8 3 112 0. M. Goodman (M.) 4 9 0 112 W. Stephenson (Blk L.) ..., 7 14 6 HI Test la.—Experimental. J. Campbell (B.O.) 5 11 14 137 L. P. Hawke (B.O.) 6 12 12 128 J. H. Jones (W.L.) 6 13 6 125 Miss A. MTutyre (W.L.) ... 6 13 10 12J W. Stephenson (Blk L.) ... ... 6 12 12 113 Test 2.—White Leghorn Single Hen (owner enters three birds). Week’s Grand Totals Totals. to Date. C. Bartley ... ... 5 7 5 129 123 113 H. Williams ... 6 47 117 109 130 J. Wilde ... . ..662 123 126 99 F. Hughes ... , ... 4 7 5 107 110 127 S. Dick ... , ... 6 7 6 91 123 129 W. Turner ... ... 5 5 6 100 118 118 Test 2a.—Experimental. A. J. Maclaine , 5 6 5 125 121 116 W T . Keen ... , ... 4 5 7 115 121 110 W. Barrell ... , ... 5 5 5 82 125 128 J. H. Jones ... 4 5 6 103 113 116 J. Liggins ... , ...5 5 6 116 90 123 Test 3. —Black . Orpingtons and Australorps. (Owner enters three birds.) Week’s Grand Total. Total. A. S. Barrett ... 6 6 4 128 138 93 H. Cottom , ... 7 75 120 134 100 J. Campbell ... 4 3 7 109 107 113 L. P. Hawke . ... 12 4 117 70 124 Test 3a.--Experimental. L. and S.. Brumley (A.O.) ... , ... 6 6 6 117 131 119 J. Campbell ... 4 5 7 88 126 137 B. Cotterell ... 5 4 5 91 140 107 Test 4.—Any Variety, Light or Heavy Breeds Other Than White Leghorns and Black Orpingtons. , Week’s Grand Total. Total. A. Dalziel (Lang.) ... , ... 5 7 5 78 138 96 S. Atkinson (L.S.) ... ... 6 5 7 85 108 114 Miss P, Kerr (BuffO.)... , ... 6 4 7 73 ■ 98 88 C. Sanderson (E.I.R.) ..665 117 21 102 Test 4a.—Experimental. L. J. Glasson (L.S.) ... , ... 4 6 5 99 36 113 L. P. Hawke (S.W.) ... , ... 7 6 5 96 54 74 Test 5.—Flock Teams (6 Birds.) Week’s Weight. Eggs. oz. drs. TI. W. E, Ward 31 66 7 649 IM'Kie and Cookson (B.O.) ... ... 30 63 2 624 Verrall Bros. ... 32 67 13 565 W. Holroyd ... 30 58 2 .538 M. C. Craig ... ... 31 65 14 527 J. Liggins ... ... 32 68 1 526 Test 5a.—Experimental. Miss H. Keddell 34 69 14 694 W. Turner ... ... 33 71 2 599 Teat 6.—Single Bucks (Owner Enter* 3 Birds). Week’s Grand Totals. Totals. J. W, Thomson (LB.) - ... 5 7 7 150 155 156 A. G. F. Ross (I.R.) ... . ... 7 6 6 118 124 125 H. A. Lucas (P.) 7 7 2 93 124 125