POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 22684, 25 June 1937, Page 2

POULTRY NOTES

By “UTILITY-FANCY”

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. “ Experimenter ” asks whether peanuts may be fed to fowls, I was also asked this question some years back. My reply, after making inquiries, was: 1 have never met anyone who confessed to using ground peanuts or peanut meal in feeding his fowls, and 1 should not recommend it, excepting during the moult, as it is too rich in protein and too highly concentrated for general use, unless the utmost discretion is used as to quantity and perfection of mixture with other less concentrated foods. Its protein- is very digestible, '['he tables tell that 11b of peanut meal contains 14.2880 z dry matter, consisting of:— • Ounces Protein Fibre Other carbohydrates , HS Minerals The digestible ingredients are reported to be:— e P«r Isutnlive Ounces, cent. ratio. Proteins «.87M 90.2 Ito 0.80 Carbohydrates ... 3.6613 79.2 hurl value: Fal, 1.0976 85.7 1,512 calorns “Novice” (Caversham) .—You can free the birds of body lice by daubing the lower breast feathers with Black Leaf 40. Another good way of using the Black Leaf 40 (nicotine sulphate) is to smear it thinly along the top rests of the perches shortly before the birds go to roost. It is claimed that Black Leaf 40 is death on all the insect pests which annoy poultry. VICTORIAN MARKETING ACT. It is reported that the Victorian Egg and Egg Pulp Board advises that it will take over all eggs as a commodity under the provisions of the Marketing of Primary Products Act, 1935, at an early date. Considering that “ all eggs ” includes those produced in suburban gardens and back; yards, -it would appear that the board is undertaking a difficult task, but no doubt there are “ exceptions ” provided for in the Act. AUSTRALIAN EXPORT FIGURES, A recent review of egg exports from Australia indicates that there was a steady growth in export figures from practically every State except Tasmania from the year 1929 until the 1934-35 season, when the highwater mark of 21,682,380 dozen was recorded. From the 1930-31 season there was a progressive rise in exports, particularly from Victoria and south Australia, the former reaching an export total of 6,262,860 dozen and the latter 4,435,230 dozen. The Commonwealth figures for 1936-37 exports totalled 16,394,080 dozen, a decline of 5,288,300 dozen in two years. POULTRY HOLDINGS. / According to the last census taken in New Zealand, the size of the average flock was 23.3 birds and about 81 per cent.- of the flocks contained fewer than 26 birds. The total number of. fowls is given as 3,488,516. being 1,939,681 in the North Island and 1,703,018 in the South Island. CONSUMERS’ PASTE IMPROVED! Specialist egg producers are constantly being _ told by Tooley street firms that their eggs show a weakness in comparison'with eggs produced some years back. One Tooley street firm, however, refutes these allegations and traces complaints not to the inferiority of the eggs produced but to the improved taste of the consumers. This verdict may hearten the producers either in England or elsewhere, but asit is being pointed out; "The recent tendency to lay undue emphasis upon numbers of eggs laid by individual fowls has resulted in inferior quality. Eggs from sound, healthy flocks will in their turn be free from serious faults.” OOCCIDIOSIS. Writing to the ‘ Poultry World,’ a ■correspondent says: “The droppings of my six-weeks-old chicks are red, as though the birds were passing blood.” The answer is: “It reads as if they were affected with coccidiosis, and I advise you to clean out the droppings from the brooder every day ana burn them. I should also keep these chicks off the soil until they are 12 weeks old. As treatment, add 15 grains of sulpho-carbolate of zinc in every gallon of drinking water and give a dose of Epsom salts once a week.”. TAME SPECIES OF FOWLS. In Mr Foster’s journal of Captain Cook’s second voyage it is stated that “there is only one tamo suedes of birds, properly speaking, in the tropical isles of the South Sea—viz., the common cock and hen; they are numerous at Easter Island, where they are the only domestic animals; they are likewise in great plenty in the Society Isles and Friendly Isles, at which last they are of a prodigious size. They are also not uncommon at the Marquesas, Hebrides, and New Caledonia, but the low isles and those of the temperate zone are quite destitute of them.”-

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A HINT. Poultry keepers cannot escape the necessity of doing a little carpentry work, and, not being carpenters, often find difficulty in doing what to a carpenter is a very simple job. For instance, when removing the outside fittings of poultry houses and appliances —locks, bolts, hinges, etc.—great difficulty is often experienced in removing old rusty screws. This trouble may be entirely obviated by simply heating a poker until red hot, then applying the point to the head of the screw for a minute. This causes the wood to shrink, when the screw may he very easily extracted in the ordinary manner. HOME-MADE EGG TRAY. A cheap and handy egg tray may bo made by fixing on a square wooden frame a covering of Hin wire netting. Pass a broom handle or suitable round piece of wood through the netting to form the holes. If the trays are made to one measurement they can be piled on top of each other. LIGHT FOR FOWLS. Light is a very important factor in the successful housing of adult fowls and in the rearing of chickens. Far too many poultry houses are unprovided with the means by which light can penetrate, and consequently such houses are never healthful, and are to a certain extent always damp. Unless the poultry house has a shutter or window that can be opened to its fullest extent on all occasions when the weather is fine, it is not likely that the interior will be either dry or free from offensive odours. Of course, these remarks do not apply to the style of house which is a combined roosting place and scratching shed, and which has the whole front open to sun and air, but to the roosting houses which are intended only for sleeping in, and in which the fowls spend a lot of time in wet and windy weather. At least onerthird of tho roosting room should be on its sunny side and provided with a hinged window, or it should be covered with wire netting, over which should be fitted a hinged or sliding frame covered with canvas. An important point in providing for the penetration of light is to arrange that the sunshine shall fall on the floor of the house; otherwise it will never be really dry. AUSTRALIAN CHICK SEXEII ARRIVES. It is curious how flat the interest in chick sexing has fallen. Only one entry—and that a very tentative one—has been received for the second chick sexing examination which the National Poultrj' Council was to have held shortly. Hatcheries, on the whole, have found Japanese sexers more satisfactory, in spite of their cost. But this does not mean that European sexers are not to be found. Apart from Mrs Baliss, Mr A. E. Holmes, find half a dozen others, there is now a young Australian in this country, Mr Lloyd Lawson, who is anxious to offer his services to any farm requiring thorn. He obtained the highest honours in chick sexing “ down under,” having graduated at his father’s hatchery, one of the largest in Victoria.—‘ Feathered World.’ POTATOES SAVE FOOD COSTS. When unmarketable potatoes are available, they can be used either for fattening poultry or for feeding for egg production. They must be cooked before feeding, as raw potatoes cause digestive troubles, and serve as a partial substitute for grain. If 70 per cent, of the water is removed from potatoes the composition of the remaining residue becomes practically the same as that of maize and wheat in so far as protein, carbohydrates, and digestible nutrients are concerned. Thus 41b to 61b of potatoes are required to substitute for 11b of grain. A simple method for calculating the approximate feeding Value of a bushel of potatoes is to divide the current price per bushel of maize or wheat by 4J. For finish-feeding or fattening the cooked potatoes, after being mashed, can be mixed with the dry mash about half and half by weight or volume, and sufficent liquid skimmed milk or buttermilk added to make a batter of a consistency similar to pancake batter. When liquid milk or condensed buttermilk is not available 10 per cent, of dried milk may be used and water added to secure the desired consistency. The birds are fed morning and night. For growing pullets, layers, or capons, the regular dry mash and boiled potatoes (mashed) are mixed in about equal parts by weight or volume, and fed daily as a warm, wet mash. The daily feeding of a moist, warm, potato-mash-cod-liver-oil mixture is effective for securing the extra feed consumption necessary for maintenance of winter egg production, because chickens can hardly overeat of a wet mash composed of a large proportion of boiled potatoes; whereas ill effects of overeating may often be_ experienced with more concentrated moist feed mixtures. The foregoing i«- the result of experiments conducted at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station by Mr D. C. Kcnnard.

PAINLESS ETRACTION. Did you know that the entire horny covering from a cock’s spur can be removed in a few seconds with the aid of a lighted wax vesta ? And it docs not hurt the bird a bit either. Get somebody to hold his leg out. firmly extended, and let the match flame play all round underneath the middle of the spur. Then turn him over and repeat the process on the other side. Finally work gently, but firmly on tho spur. Loosen it. using a rag for better grip, give a turn, and off the whole casing comes in your hand, Better than searing or sawing off the spurs, which, of course, are dangerous and cruel to hens when sharp and lengthy. •PROFIT AND LOSS. In reading the following informative report relative to poultry keeping in England it is well to understand that in England a great number of unskilled people have been put on tho land by the Government. Some of them were returned soldiers and others desiring and willing to work unemployed. The idea, seemingly, was that no particular knowledge or experience was’ needed to keep poultry for a living. The fact that many so placed on the land as poultry keepers are not making a living is, generally, put down to lack of organisation, imports of eggs from foreign countries, which undersell the eggs locally produced, etc. Lack of commercial knowledge in respect to buying and selling, ignorance of the principles of feeding poultry for egg production, and lack of adaptability for tho work no doubt account for many of the losses referred to in tho reports of th© ‘ General Farm and Specialist Poultry Plants ’: —■ The profit from poultry on 26 Yorkshire farms investigated ranged from 6s 4d per bird down to a loss of 11s Bcl per bird for the year ended September 30, 1936, according to a report of the Economics Section of the Department of Agriculture of Lecds University (Fanners’ Report No. 10). The wide variations in the figures for practically every item on the various farms show how unsafe it is to generalise and how impossible it is to obtain any results that can be said to apply to poultry keeping in general. Eleven general farms showed an average profit of 3s ssd per bird, ranging between a profit of 6s 4d per bird to a loss of 3s Bid. Tho same number of specialist poultry farms showed an average loss of 3s 11 Ad per bird, ranging between a profit of 4s 7d and a loss of 11s Bd. Another instance of the wide variations occurs in the relation of feeding costs to total costs which in the case of 15 general farms average 56.6 per cent., and tho 11 specialist farms 40.3 per cent. These figures are very surprising, since the general farms are usually expected to feed more cheaply than specialist farms because they can produce a proportion of tho feeding stuffs on the spot. The explanation put forward is that the specialist farms spend so much more on equipment and labour than the general farms, that the percentage spent on foodstuffs looks lower, although th© actual food cost per bird is higher The actual figures for the farm were 9s lOd per bird on the general farms and 11s 4£d on the specialist farms. COST PER PULLET. In the farm report from which I gathered the foregoing the following information is given:— Nearly 3.000 dav-olds were bought in spring, 1936, costing rather more than £5 per 100. Below is set out the average cost of rearing a day-old pullet to tho age of two months, after charging all relevant costs (including depreciation on the brooder house and interest on capital) and deducting tho selling price of young cockerels culled out, which are regarded as a by-pro-duct. (Total costs iu all cases are divided by tho actual number of pullets reared to the two months stage). —Average Cost of Rearing a Twomonths Pnllot. — Initial cost of day-old chick ... 1 2-J Feeding stuffs 0 .’U Labour 0 1 Coal and litter 0 1 Depreciation on brooder house ... I) 1) Interest on capital at 4 per cent, 0 oj| Gross cost I 101 Less sal© of young cockerels ... 0 1$ Net cost ... 1 0 Ifc wrH be seen that the net cost per pullet was Is 9d. Food consumption averaged rather more than loz per head per day. Mortality amongst tho stock averaged fully 10 per cent., and it was found that to produce 10U pullets at the two-months stage it was necessary to buy in 125 day-old chicks. Eight per cent, of the clucks bought proved to he cockerels. Pullets bought in at two months cost tho farmer approximately 2s 6d each; so that to him the economy of buying day-olds is apparent.