POULTRY NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 22816, 26 November 1937, Page 3

POULTRY NOTES

BALANCING WITH GRAIN. Mash should be balanced with a mixture of grains, arranging that as much grain, as mash is fed. If nothing but mash is fed (as in the all-mash method of feeding) then the mash must be compounded in a different manner and contain a smaller proportion of animal foods. A mixed daily ration of grain and mash leads to toe best all-round results. Thus on the wet mash system if less grain is given in the mornnig more mash will be eaten at the last feed. Here it is best to judge by the consumption as to whether enough is being given. Start with 2oz (one handful) of grain per bird in the morning buried in the litter or grass, and in two hours’ time it should be all cleaned up. If some is left the quantity fed should be reduced next day. Similarly, if little appetite is shown for mash reduce the, morning grain, On the dry mash system the same adjustment applies, except that it would be well to limit the total.daily grain consumption to 2oz in order that sufficient mash will be eaten. As regards feeding grain in the morning and mash at nighty poultrymen who do the reverse need not change this practice because of the foregoing remarks. The great point is to study their own convenience, but be consistent in whichever method of feeding is adopted. AGE OF BREEDERS. Mr D. F. Lauri, the Australian authority on poultry matters, remarks that at one time breeding from pullets and cockerels was quite the rule; in fact, it was urged in some of the old books. He says that he (Mr Lauri) was the first to object to this ruling and to show that breeding from immature stock was a speedy road to degeneration. The single testing method was designed not only to get the laying, but to give the genuine breeder the opportunity to find out if each pullet was really worth breeding from. The pullets give the score, but nothing else. “ The question of taking the first 12 months of laying may not prove the bird to be a laster—able to breed pullets that will lay as well for two successive years. Some careful breeders reserve their three-year-old hens as cockerel breeders only. They know that as a good layer transmits her quality through her sons to her granddaughters it is highly important to be sure that the mother of the male breeders is a really good and dependable bird. “ This method of making sure will -enable a poultryman to establish a strain of good layers, not some firstclass, some of poor laying. Careful • thought should convince any breeder that care with the breeding stock allied with good constitution will ensure the high, average that is alone profitable.” With all respect for Mr Lauri’s opinion, unless he is very much getting on in years it is a very big claim be makes' that he was the first to object to breeding from pullets. Some 50 years back, to my own knowledge, fanciers here in New Zealand were aware of the advisability of breeding from matured hens—i.e., birds three and four and even five years old. It was not at all an uncommon thing for a fancier to acknowledge that his winning pullet or cockerel was bred from the same old hen that his winners had been bred from for several years. Breeding from pullets became general for a few years about the time egglaying contests came into, vogue. Big prices were paid for the highest scorers at the tests, but the results were not what was anticipated.

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By “UTILITY-FANCY’*