POULTRY NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9074, 24 April 1906, Page 6

POULTRY NOTES.

SHOW DATES AND CHAMPIONSHIPS June 6}6 } Woodville — Silver Wyandottes. June 14, 15, and 16, Auckland— Buff Orpington, canaries. June 14 and 1 15, Eketahuna — White WyanJune 20, 21, 22, Manawatu— Minorca, Dorking, Famtail and Fmll pigeons. \June 27 and 28, Waihi— British Game. June 28, 29, 30, Wellingtonr— Light Brahma, A.O.V. Bantams, Working' Homer and Dragoon Pigeon. Jume 29 and 30, New Plymouth— Brown Leghorn, Rouen Ducks. July 4 and 5, Wanganui — Indian Game, Indian Runner Duck. July 6 and 7, Newton — Magpie and Tumbler Pigeons. ' July 10 and 11, Pahiatua — Partridge Wjjjandotte, A^lesbury Duck. July 12 and 13, Fedlding — Golden Wyan'dotte. July 17 and 18, Mastertonj — Plymouth 'Rocks. July 18 and 19, Hawexa — Andalusian, Black Hamburg. July 19 and 20, Gisborne — Pencilled Hamburg, Pekin Duck. July 20, 21, Dannevirke — Langshan, Spangled Hamburgs. July 24 and 25, Napier, Black Orpington. August 3 and 4, Hastings — White Leghorns and Game Bantams.

.Eggs are a very scarce commodity in Hawera just now. Hardly a shop in town has th'?m.

The schedule for the Woodville show, which opens the 1906 show season, has been issued. Mr J. J. Casey will judge poultry and -Mr H. V. Fitzherberb pigeons' and cage birds. The championship for Silver Wyandottes will be decided at this show.

The Eketahuna Society have also issued tehir schedule. This society have been.' allotted the- championship for WhiteWyandottes, and in addition to the usual prize money are offering a gold medal to the winner of the championship. Messrs W. A, Sowman and T. Sowman are the judges. An English experl, referring to crooked breast bone, recommends the following as a preventive: — "Let the growth be slow, so that large frames may be built up before the birds become fleshy. Provide chickens with plenty of fresh green food, give them worms and other insects, make them exercise, and feed them chiefly on, grain, such as a mixture of bariey and oats and wheat. Allow them an occasional tonic of iron and a drink of limewater, and you will produce strong-boned, big-bodied birds, with plenty of muscle, the very best breeders, and free from crooked breasts, or any ot<her such deformities. Get the bones well grown, and they will carry any amount of flesh."

The time taken in hatching very often varies according to cdrcumetaaces ; for instance, a good sitter, in warm weather, will hatch ordinary fowls' eggs an tihe twentieth day, that -is, providing they weTe very fresh when set, whilst eggs that are stale and set in cold weather may take two days longer to hatch. However, the following may be taken as ths average times occupied in hatching: — Ordinary fowls, 2i days; ducks, 28 days; turkeys, 26 to 29 days ; geese, 30 days. '

FEEDING LAYERS.

A writer in Poultry says :—: —

"I find from long-continued experiment* with ell . kinds of food, from horse-flesh to bran, that the- elementary constituents of tlie food should be in these proportions :- In every lOOlbs weight there should . be 16 of the flcs h-formmg; 60 fat, 4 bone and

shell, 10 husk, and allow 10- for the water : contained in the." grain or pulse^ — daily | average quantity in a dry state threeounces to each hen. As these proportions are not to be found j in any kind of grain or corn, eitsher whole ' or simply ground, the miller with his sifting machine plays an important part. After grinding wheat he sifts from the flour the following from the flour outwards: First, fine sharps or boxings — almost as fine as coarse floitr — containing in large proportions phosphate of lame and gluten, or flesh!- forming material ; second, coarse sharps, similaT to the fine, but of less value, containing less phosphate of lime; fchiTd, fine pollard, composed chiefly of gluten and silica or flint, very little lime and indigestible husks, valuable chiefly for giving bulk to the more concentrated food contained in fine sharps ; fourth and fifth, coarse pollard and bran, useless for poultry feeding. I have worked £rom a table, and have formed a standard of quantity, quality, ! andi bulk as follows : For each hem I allow daily aw ounce, of finei sharps, half an ounce of fine pollard, and one and a half ounces of barley (quality, 561bs to the imperial bushel). I give as great a variety of food as possible, estimating its value and bulk according to the above scale. During hot weather, and when the market is glutted with eggs, I reduce the daily quantity to about two and a half to two and threequarter ounces. When the price of eggs goes vp — the hens laying well ot moulting — I increase the quantity to thTee and a half, occasionally to four ounces. During cold weather, again, I slightly increase the fat-forming material, reducing it in hot weather. Occasionally a little salt or ired pepper may be given with the soi* food — highly seasoned food is very injurious. Half of the food given daily should consist of I haid, dry corn, to call into full action the muscles of the gizzard. Feed only twice a day, one meal should be thoroughly disposed of before another is given, and some rest allowed to the digestive organs. Too frequent feeding causes indigestion 1 , j and the food is then voided in the excrement. In addition to the foregoing a liberal supply of grass, greens, turnips, onions, wurtzel, crushed flint grit, broken oyster shells, and pure wateT should be given daily. Another matter of great importance, but, I think,- not sufficiently appreciated in feeding laying hens, is giving a supply of iron. An egg may be considered as a chicken in a- semi-fluid state. When a chicken hatches oat of it 6 shell it has red blood in its veins; the redness is due to the presence of iron. It follows, therefore, that the chicken obtains its dose of -iron from the hen — i.e., a certain amount of iron must pass from the hen's system into every egg she lays. I After laying ft number of eggs, the hen's j system being deficient of iron, Eer comb becomes pale and flaccid ; it shrinks much, until she becomes broody, or "goes off" laying. Then after a time her comb brightens again, and she recommences laying, the length of tome depending in a great measure on the quantity of iron she can obtain in her food. If a hen is permitted to range on large grass rune, she obtains her supply of iron from the red blood of worms and insects. In confinement she cannot, and if the supply be not furnished she cannot lay. Meat, liver, bullock's blood, and the ever-abundant kitchen scraps of some houses contain a small" amount, but the surest way is to administer Douglas' mixtare in the soft food, allowing one to two grains of the sulphate of iron to fifty hens once a, day, ct feVery second or third day. Care must be taken not to give it to exicesf, and make the combs grow too red, or inflammation of the ovary, or obstruction in the blind gut, may result. By withholding the supply of iron a hen may be to a certain degree checked in her laying and the ovary given a rest. *