POULTRY NOTES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2123, 15 May 1922, Page 7

POULTRY NOTES.

(By “The Cackler.”) FEEDING FOR LAYING. A question that is being asked me almost every day is, “What is the matter with my pullets? They are the picture of health and condition, and look as though in full lay, tout never an egg do I find.” One of the most vital reasons is that the birds are not getting the food to lay on. It is not enough to give them living food only at this time of the year, they must have animal food or its substitute. There is a range of food of this class which will have the desired effect, such as meat meal, as prepared at the abattoirs from the waste meat and bones. This is prepared in such a way by cooking as to make the bones digestible, and to eradicate the fat, making it a good food to add with grain or to be fed in a hopper, letting the birds eat as much as they will. I know I will toe told the birds will do harm to themselves by eating too much. But that is all moonshine. What I am saying. I have found toy practical experience spread over years. Then, to bear me out, we have the experience of the largest poultry farms in America, the report of one of which I have before me. where they say their feed is two of wheat, one of maize, and one of meat meal, fed ad lib, with abundance of green feed. The wheat and maize are ground to the size of ordinary chick feed, this being th© only feed the 7000 hens have, and have had it fed to them for ten years past. Then we have fish meal, which is used extensively at Home, tout is not a marketable commodity here. Then we have the bye-products of milk in commercialised form, such as glaxo and proto nuts, all of which are good feeding. Many poultry farmers have it in their head that to feed a bird for eggs one has to follow a set, plan, and use the analysis of different food to form a basis of a balanced ration. They persist in the old idea, and keep on altering the ration to try and get somewhere; they get nowhere. It is absolutely foolish to think they can make a bird lay at this time of the year on any food, composed of only mixed grains. The sooner we get down to bedrock the better, viz., wheat, maize, and meat substitutes. If you wish to cut out wheat, you can get ground oats to us© with maize meal. But there is the danger with oats (more than any other grain) of going mouldy if ground more than three weeks. To get the best out of ground oats, Grey want to be stone-roller ground, such as the famous Sussex fatteners at Home use. But, as far as I am aware, they a"e not to be had in New Zealand. Then again, in reverting to poultry meals, they are composed of grain not suitable for th© desired effect, and when they are in powder form, you know not what is in them. To say so-and-so is doing all right with them is not good enough, for you have to ask at once, are his conditions the same as yours; Is his system of housing and runs the same? Again, one strain of birds it may suit, but will it suit yours? I prefer to mix my corn, if it can be called mixing, and I am quite satisfied. I prefer wheatmeal when it can be obtained at anything like a figure, say £l2 a ton, which it should be at th© present price of wheat. Then, to mix two tins of bran to one tin of wheatmeal and half a tin of meat meal. This meal is for the present time. As the spring comes on, say August and September, you want to gradually cut the meat meal down to just under a quarter of a tm. The grain feed, too, wants to alter with 'the season, viz., at present use one of wheat and one of crushed maize, and as the spring comes on, go down to one of maize *o four of wheat. These are all the different feeds a poultry man need carry. If wheatmeal is unprocurable for any reason, use one of bran to two of pollard. I may say that I know of birds seven and eight years old which have been fed as I am saying and they are in as good a condition as any yearling hen; what is more, they are still in profit. I was looking at a pen of 35 yearling hens, fed as above, and out of them there are still 20 filling egg'-flasket to an extent that wiTt put a lot of pullets to shame. They are laying ten and twelve every day now. I had the pleasure of visiting the railwaymen’s egg-laying competition this week, and could not help noticing what fine types of birds are among them Among the Leghorns there are birds which do their owners great credit. I will be surprised if they do not make a name for themselves. The Orpingtons, which are the next in numbers, have some real good type of birds and of splendid colour, not the general type of Orpingtons one sees, just black-birds. The Minorcas, too, are a fine lot. I feel sure that after a visit to the competition one will get quit© interested in watching the various totals, week after week. It is what we very much need here, and good luck to the railwaymen for their enterprise. True, it is only small in numbers. But it is a start, and one for the bigger things to come that we all wish them. Let all join in the good work.