POULTRY ADVANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 176, 25 June 1935, Page 2

POULTRY ADVANCE.

DETERMINATION OF SEX. WELLINGTON, June 25. Something of a revolution in the poultry industry in New Zealand is considered likely to follow the introduction here of the Japanese method of sex determination of chicks at one day old. The first New Zealander to qualify in this method is Mr Lionel Doughty, who returned to Wellington yesterday by the Monowai from Australia, where he successfully completed a course of training under the first Australian expert, Mr Frank Evans. The Japanese method, for which a high degree of skill is required, has been known for the past five or six years, but last year was the first year it was adopted by commercial poultryfarmers in Australia. Three Japanese experts were employed, one each in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Their work was thoroughly satisfactory beyond all shadow of a doubt, for they demonstrated all the accuracy that had been claimed for the method.

Mr Doughty, when interviewed on his arrival yesterday, said that he was satisfied that practically all the hatcheries in Australia would have sexing done this season. It would mean that the trade in day-old chicks will be superseded by that in day-old pullets. The full significance of the method could be understood when it was considered that previously one could not determine the sex of 95 per cent, of chicks at even six weeks of age. Mr Doughty, considered also that the method would mean more for New Zealand, and particularly the North Island, than it had meant in Australia because of the high price of poultrv food here. Farmers would not have to' throw away chick food on hungry cockerels. That, however, was not the only factor to be considered, because the cockerels, being stronger, pushed the pullets to one side when' feeding, and there would be a market benefit to pullets when they could be separated and fed on their own.