POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 22595, 12 March 1937, Page 2

POULTRY NOTES

By “UTILITY-FANCY”

rnntributions and questions for answering should be addressed to “ Utility-Fancy,” Poultry Editor, Star Office, Snd receded not later than Tuesday of each week. " UtihtyFancv ” will only answer communications through this column. (Advertisements for this column must be handed in to the office before 2 p.m. on Thursday.)

'ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT. “Poultryman ” (Maori Hill). The trouble is known as bumble|oot, ana is generally ,due to jumping from high perches oh to a hard floor. It is sometimes caused by injury to the foot brought about when Scratching amongst stones, and a cut or, scratch may turn into bumblefoot. It is also, said to be derived by - inheritance—i.e., some strains or families of fowls arepronc to suffer from this trouble. If the foot is poulticed and the swelling opened at the right time, and the pus collected under the swelling is exuded by pressure and then the foot is carefully bandaged after being washed by a disinfectant, the bird; may recover if the trouble is caused by accident. After treatment the bird should be separately cooped till the wound has healed. High, perches-are not advisable, and if your birds have to jump from such you may have others suffering from bumblefoot in due course. If you cannot conveniently alter the perches, at mast provide, deep litter for the birds to alight upon. ACQUIRED CHARACTERS. G Archdale Reid, in his ‘ Principles of Heredity,’ says respecting the vexed question of acquired character hemg hereditable: “For the most part it seems to me' that they are not. Hut first let the terms be defined: All traits of characters of every living being are separable in theory, if not always in practice, into two. distinct categories. Either they are inborn or they are acquired.’ Inborn traits are those which take place in the germ plasm v• • ■ Acquired characters, on ; the other hand, do not take place in the germ plasm; they are modifications of .'inborn characters after (as a rule) they have developed from, the germ cell Thus, a man’s hand in inborn. Hut if it be niodified by use, disease, accident, or the play of other forces, the modification is an acquired character. Inborn characters take origin (as a rule) in the cell descendants of the germ cell; that is, they are somato-genetic-in origin, and consequently it is argued that , they are not transmissible to offspring, / OVERCROWDING. " Some people say that overcrowding is Yespohsible for many of the diseases that were unknown, say, 30 or 40 years ago,” says Mr D. F. Laurie, the South Australian poultry expert, and he might hare added “ and there can be no doubt but that they are right.’ He continues with the following:— In civilised countries mass-production of

poultry is fairly recent. Writers who say that disease is modern have forgotten that cocidiosis rendered districts in America unsafe for poultry. Just before the war there was a bad outbreak of disease in Belgium. ■- It was not until overcrowding in unsuitable buildings that we heard of Newcastle disease, or fowl plague, in England. “ In most cases where poultry production on an intensive scale has been essayed there is proof that death rate, etc., has been largely due to the fact that some poultry owners thought modern housing, etc., would incur no more work looking after a thousand birds than it did looking after 50. Many diseases have increased in virulence as a result of overcrowding and the mass action of disease germs in soil or on confined surfaces. We know that in the East some of the fowls live a very insanitary life, and it follows that disease peculiar to such conditions becomes a scourge. For much care cannot be taken in guarding our shores.” SEQUENCE OF EGGS. Asked what is the best sequence which has been put up in official tests, ‘ Poultry ’ (Australia) says; “No.record of sequences in laying competitions for hens is available, but the highest we have been able to trace is 165 eggs by the late R. Burn’s Australorp in the Darling Downs competition, 1926-27. This hen finished the year by laying 354 eggs in 365 days. In ducks, an Indian Runner in the Croydon duck test in South Australia during 1924-25 laid a sequence of 226 eggs. In the private test at the Galton (Queensland) Agricultural! College in 1924-25 an Australorp laid 366 eggs in 365 days, averaging 28oz to the dozen. EGG SIZE, The size of an egg is an inherited quality, but its weight may vary with the seasons, TO IMPROVE EGG PRODUCTION. Mr A. Morley Jull, late of the United States Department of Agriculture, says that mass selection is relatively ineffective in improving egg laying in flocks. Records or egg production, he says, are of limited value in selecting breeding stock, while too much significance is attached to individual records. • Progress in breeding for increased egg production and other characteristics would, be achieved if more attention were paid to pedigree and progeny testing. Mr Jull is not alone in his contention. All leading authorities appear to agree regarding this question, and it is worth noting that the winner- at a competition is not so valuable as a breeder as one of her sisters at large in the home farm. MANAGEMENT OF LAYING PULLETS. Late Hatched pullets should not be mixed with early hatched ones. They require different treatment, and maximum results cannot be expected unless the flocks are fed and managed according to age and sexual maturity. Late hatched pullets must be kept on a growing ration until they are fully matured. Early hatched pullets, should be managed and fed to maintain production throughout the autumn. There is some danger of autumn moult with early hatched pullets. SOUR MILK. In the course of a lecture at the National Institute of Husbandry at the Harper Adams College (England) Mr Kingsley Gee, referring to sour milk and butter milk, pointed out that the action of the lactic acid bacteria has broken down the various constituents into an available form, thus starting the work of digestion. Consequently these sour milk foods were readily assimilated by the digestive organs of the chick even in the earliest stages, , and the body was quickly and effectively nourished. If fed at the first feed the effects were twofold —(1) the chick received nourishment, and therefore strength, which tided it over a most critical period; (2) it acted as a deterrent to bacterial whit© diarrhoea. C.L.O. CAUSES FIRE. Poultry-keepers who serve cod liver oil to their fowls are warned that any fabric dampened by the oil may occasion fire. An American insurance company, drawing attention to the tendency of cod liver oil to cause spontaneous ignition of any fibrous material with which it may com© in contact, publishes the following paragraph:— . “ Every season a new; crop of cod liver oil fires comes along. The latest one concerns a mill in Oregon, where, it seems, a woman came in with a gallon bottle late one Saturday afternoon and wanted it filled with cod liver oil. As the bottle was lifted after being filled the bottom fell out, and the contents poured over the overalls. of the attendant. The overalls, being pretty well worn anyway, and a sack which had been used to mop the oil off the floor were placed in a garbage can. “ The can remained in th© plant over Sunday. Monday was a holiday and th© plant was not opened—that is, until somebody in the vicinity smelled smoke and called the fir© department. It was then found that the oil-soaked overalls and the sack had ignited spontaneously, and th© fire had communicated to a nearby pile of sacks.”

HIGH MORTALITY FIGURES

Th© decadence of Britain’s poultry stocks is amply demonstrated by the annual reports of the laying tests, recently concluded, which are now coming through from all parts of the country, states the agricultural correspondent of the London ‘Daily Telegraph.’ The sorry story of disease and mortality among the specially selected pullets entered by hundreds of the best poultry farmers is universal. In the famous Harper Adams trial, for example, the death rate was more than 20 per cent., the highest ever, recoi'ded. Similarly, in the Scottish national trial only four out of every five birds entered lived to see the end of the test. Mortality has trebled since 1930. In a typical poultry county like Bedfordshire, where the farms are well managed and conditions are favourable, 15 per cent, of the entries died during the year. If this death rate is taken as typical for the whole industry—actually it is probably far lower than on the average farm—disease is carrying off more than 11,000,000’ birds a year. Results are similar, no matter what systems of housing and feeding are employed, and these are invariably varied. “ We must look for the origin of the trouble in the birds themselves,” said Dr Charles Crowther, the famous authority on poultry breeding and nutrition. “ Disease is rampant because the resisting power of our modern stocks has been lowered. In recent years the industry has grown so fast that demand for, stock has exceeded supply; intensive methods over-ex-ploited; breeding from pullets, and striving for high eg'g production without thought of its' effect on stamina have led to disaster on hundreds of farms.” Evidence that excessive egg yields are leading to trouble is forthcoming in figures which show that the Rhode Island Red breed, until recently one of our most hardy and useful breeds, has—except in the hands of some of the wiser and more skilful breeders—degenerated considerably. The only true remedy, as Dr Crowther said, is a thorough overhaul of the stocks. Pullets and hens of highly reproductive strains, he thinks, should be given a complete rest from the egg laying business each year, and their maternal instincts checked. UTILITY POULTRY CLUB. The monthly meeting of the Dunedin Utility Club* was held on Wednesday, February 24, in the Y.M.C.A. rooms.' The subject was ‘ Amateur Judging.’ Several white leghorn pullets- were penned. The members judged the birds acording to their ability, and then Mr W. Tibbies, one of Dunedin’s most prominent judges, placed the birds, giving his various reasons for so doing. Altogether the evening proved a very instructive and interesting one.