POULTRY NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 90, 15 March 1941, Page 10

POULTRY NOTES

(By "Brooder.") Small potatoes from field or garden have a food value. Some have even been known to cut these very Email and fowl raw. It is thought, however, that potatoes boiled, mashed and mixed with the usual pollard and bran is a better method of feeding. When about 7? to 10 per cent, of meat meal is added a much more palatable meal is produced. There may be nutriment lost "when cabbage, carrot or other produce is boiled, but with the potato, there is no loss with boiling, and certainly in such a state it is more easily digested. Maize meal, though expensive, will help to top off pullets; condition will be put nti more quickly. A proportion can be added safely to the usual mash. Body requirements of birds vary according to weather conditions. We do not eat as much in the summer as we do in the winter months. The same applies to birds. The pullet roarer who has made up his mind that the same ration fed all the year round is alright, will fail, or at least ho will not got the best out of his bird*. Watch, therefore, from now on. The birds are growing; they will need more food as they grow bigger .and when they are in full lay they will require more still. Many a bird has been discarded because it was not laying. Perhaps it was not being given enough for Tiody requirements and had therefore none to spare for egg production.

A 41b. hen which can produce 200 egga per season offers its owner six times its weight in eggs. There must be a wastage going on in the bird. It is for every poultryman to see that his birds are built up to withstand such a strain on the system. CAGE BIRD AND CANARY NOTES. Last week notes were given regarding preparation for dhows. It is certainly not too early to begin training. Fanciers with short tempers, says one who knows, must learn to control themselves before attempting this tedious business of training birds. Patience is required. Handling of birds must be reduced to a minimum, henco the need to train the birds to run in and out of their stock cages into the show cage. Once they are accustomed to this, much has been accomplished in getting the birds used to show conditions. To have to handle birds on the day of the show unsettles them; they are. flighty, and the judge, always in a hurry, passes them by, often with not very complimentary remarks. Many' exhibitors fix up a section of show staging in the centre of their bird rooms. The birds, without handling, are allowed to pass from their horrjo cage to the show section of small cages. Once in these, they are given treatment similar to that which they would have to endure at the hands of a show committee or stewards, and the judges also, Being more—or less—used to this when show timo comes, they put up a better showing and maybe secure an award.