POULTRY YARD.

Grey River Argus, 11 May 1923, Page 8

POULTRY YARD.

! Advice For Breeders. | ; It is oad policy to wait until a ' poultry house is needed before start- . ing to build it. If you build any lay- ! ing houses you need now, and get the • pullets into them, before they start to I lay, you will prevent the stoppage in ! laying with possible moult, that would be occasioned if shifted once they had | commenced to lay. There is no doubt about-it that the I fresher eggs are when they are brought ! under the influcnc-o of heat and moisture, both of which arc essential factors, towards successful hatching, the better will be the hatching results. There are times, however, when it is advisable to keep the eggs, until they , are, at any rate, a day or so older. • Eggs which have been subject to shak- | ing, such as the vibration caused by a railway journey, will never produce really liveable chickens if the hatching process is begun right away. Many of the cmbYyos will fail to live throughout the 21 days, and those which do manage to hatch arc worse than useless in that they are a constant source of trouble. Rather than place them under the hen or in au incubator at once, it is very much better to keep > the eggs over for 24 hours, so that they may settle properly. This may i appear a waste of time, but such is not. the case, as experiments have proved. A common error in feeding wet mash ■ is to feed too liberally and leave the ■ surplus before the fowls until they ’ have it up. This is not a de- ’ sirabl-e w«y. Instead give them what they will eat up in, say, 15 minutes, and then take the surplus away and give it to any cockerels or growing stock, which are always ready for more. • Those who are not able to go back 1 and remove the surplus should plan to feed a little less than the fowls want, ' depending upon their making up the deficiency from the dry mash hoppers. 1 This dry mash can be utilised as a L sort of balance wheel in feeding and regardless of whether moist-mash is fed or not, it should always be provided. But before deciding to depend upon it entirely, be sure that the fowls will ’ cat it freely enough to make about one half of the total day’s rations. If 'htliey will not do that, then you can depend upon it that they are not being efficiently fed for eggs. Trap nest records, both public and private, have shown that in almost every flock there is the widest range of individual• production, varying all the way from hens that lay no eggs at ail to those whose records exceed 300 eggs in 12 months—and this is true almost regardless of breed and breeding. Huns that have no organic defect, but that lay only a limited number of eggs may do so because of an inherited incapacity for heavy egg production, or because they lack the vigorous digestive organs essential to such production, or are deficient in other important respects. Inferior production in the pullet year may also result from late hatching, or from some special and often unknown cause. Practically all good-sized unculled flocks contain some hens that arc nonproductive, or practically so, and at least a few that are capable of laying 200 eggs or more in 12 months. In this respect the difference between ordinary and bred-to-lay flocks is simply one of degree. That is there arc apt to be 200 egg layers in each, but there will be a much greater percentage of them in flocks that have been carefully bred for high production. And in even the best of flocks enough inferior birds will be found to repay the owner well for the trouble of culling. In flocks of poor breeding the percentage of unprofitable layers in ay amount to as much as 50 per cent, of the entire number. In the last few yeari several methods of culling have been developed which make it possible to estimate the productiveness of hens | with a high degree of accuracy by observing certain external characters. A I careful study of these methods is ad- } visable if you would obtain the boat returns from your flocks.