POULTRY NOTES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10113, 22 October 1917, Page 7

POULTRY NOTES.

(By “Utility.’’) TUB ( SB OB A 2i-GALLON BUt'KET. Bet us take a 22-gal!ou bucket as a bandy size fur poultry keepers to use when feeding stuck or growing chickens. Two of these could be carried comfortably by the majority of poultry men, one in the bend of the arm at the elbow, and the other in the hand of the same arm, the other hand being used for feeding. Now, 1 wonder how many poultry-keepers have taken the I rouble to find out what weight of the usual meals and grains and soil foods the bucket they generally use holds, and how many fowls, it would approximately feed. 1 therefore give the approximate capacity of a 2j-gallon bucket, weighing about 2ilbs. 1 know, of course, that handsful vary, but with a little practise one can easily get the number stated, each handful being sullicient for a fowl in ordinary circumstances. 1 am allowing for one feed of soft food, and one feed of hard food per diem. Three or tour feeds could bo given per day, , s o as to keep the fowls busy, providing that about the same amount of food is used, as stall'd. A 2i-gallon bucket holds 121bs oats, 125 handsful, 181b wheat, 125 handsful, 181bs maize, 125 handsful; 17lbs soft fool, 90 handsful; 51 bs bran; Bibs sharps; lOlbs ground oats; 241bs water. One gallon of water weighs about 9 2-31hs. Soft food mixture.—2olhs ground oats (2 buckets); 51 bs bran (one bucket), 2lbs beef maps; 20ibs water (not quite one. bucket)— 47ibs of soft food. One 2i-gallon bucket holds 171bs of this soft food, and is sufficient for feeding 90 fowls at a handful per fowl. Therefore 47 lbs are sufficient for 250 fowls (about 3oz, per fowl). Taking wheat for the evening lood. one 21,-gallon bucket holds 18!hs, and is -uflicient for feeding 125 fowls at a handful jx'r fowl. Therefore, 361bs (2 buckets) will feed 250 fowls for the evening feed, or about 2 1-3 oz per fowl. It is a simple matter to work out other soft food mixtures, varying the constituents according to the season and the requirements of the flock. In mixing a mash of ground oats, it takes 261bs ground oats (nearly three buckets) and about 191b of water (about two gallons). 11l mixing ground oats for fattening coops, it takes 28ibs ground oats (nearly three buckets), and about 561bs milk (about two and a-quarter buckets), Indian meal stirabout—one gallon of meal to two and a-half gallons water (one bucket). Have the water well boiling before putting in the meal, ajid then stir for 15 to 20 minutes, keeping it boiling all the time, then put_ it into a vessel to cool. The figures given above are approximate, because meal varies a good deal, sometimes it is line, and other times coarse. If every poultry-keeper would

use a 2A-gallon bucket and work on a- system similar to the above, lie would be surprised what a saving of thought and time, it would mean in twelve; months. POINTS JX imEKDIXG. There is no disguising the fact that egg laving propensities may be. bred into a strain of fowls if proper attention is given to selection tending towards that end. Vi e are convinced that in time poultry breeders ti.ro going to discuss how to make their heavy-laying females reproduce themselves to a satisfactory degree by mating them to males which have been bred from heavy layers. It would be a fallacy io maintain that productiveness cannot be successfully reproduced in the fowl family the same as it is in cattle. It is a well-known fact that' all heifers from record cows do not come up, to the mother in productiveness, and yet careful breeding raises them above the average, and enhances their value as milk -producers to a very great degree. You might take a Hock of liens whose individual record range all the way from 200 to 300 eggs i>cr year, and wo doubt if . the ioma-le. chicks , hatched from such would a!! be record layers, even if sired by ft male from the same line of blood; and yet there would without a question be perceptible improvement in the _ character of the progeny, so far as productiveness is concerned. The trouble is that breeders are careless many times in persistently carrying on a. line of systematic breeding long enough to get the greatest possible benefit from such breeding. They start out with good intentions, bur fail in completing ibeir plans, thus defeating the end sought for. To carry on a line of systematic breeding to improve the egg yield of a strain of fowls is.no easy matter, it means persist! Nt unabating attention to details, but it pays after all. It is a mistake to got unrelated males to mate with females, although such a course one sometimes hears recommended. It is an established fact that line or pedigree breeding is the only way to raise a strain of fowls above the‘average in egg production, and going out after unrelated males with the hope of making any improvement is like trying to out out a (ire by heaping on hot coals. It‘ is all right to got male birds from outside which are not closely related if wo can make sure of their breeding. This has to be done in thousands of cases every year, but the trouble is most breeders, especially the ignorant kind, go out and pick up males hero and there, and the only qualifications that such males need to possess is size and health, absolutely no attention being paid to their ancestral qualities. This is the wrong way of breeding up a heavy laying strain of fowls. Breeders are, as‘a rule, too afraid of line breeding, thinking that by so doing they will reduce the stamina of their fowls, ’ibis is not the case, however, as some of the most vigorous strains of fowls in existence have been bred in line for a quarton of a century or more, and us egg producers they excel. After all that has been said about the pleasure of poultry keeping, it is really the pounds, shillings and pence jn which every breeder is most interested. The most

successful poultrymonbrecdcrs who have made the poultry business pay have reached success not. in a year, or just through luck and chance, but by careful systematic methods, bv studying out their problems, and by profiting by the mistakes of the year before. THE LAYING STOCK. 'The past two or three months lias been a good time for tiio poultrynian —plenty of eggs, and a keen demand for same, at a fair price. Sellers of day old chicks report good business, and it looks as though there will he a considerable increase in our flocks this season. When eggs are in good demand, there is every inducement to give the . fowls close attention, and they will quickly respond to good treatment. Notice the difference between a fowl kept in neglected surroundings, and the business hen, whose I owner is not too tired to attend to the numerous details which make for success, with poultry. The neglected hen may pos- ! .Ably lav sixty eggs or so in a year, but the well eared for pullet will lay anything from 150 to 200 eggs in the year. Candid observation will always reveal the cause of ' a shortage of eggs from a (lock of properly i bred liens, ll may be due to parasites—the I hlook-sucking red mile,, or the fowls body I may be infested with lice. The feeding 1 may he 100 liberal, or it may he too scanty, both extremes make for an empty egg basket. Sudden changes of diet should he avoided, as hens take these matters very much in earnest. A sudden change may cause a strike, the hens cease laying, and sometimes a. partial, if not a full moult, results, and in such a case the breeders' prospective profits vanish. Laying hens should always he spare and hard, the loose feathered, sloppy, sluggish bird is never a : good layer. If the flock is kept, busy they will also keep spare and hard —the ideal i condition for laying.