POULTRY NOTES

Northern Advocate, 19 June 1926, Page 9

POULTRY NOTES

(By E. J. TEEEY.)

FERTILISING. A correspondent asks me if lie lias spoilt liis pen of Black Orpingtons because a AVhite Leghorn rooster has been in the pen. tie has been told, by a fancier that the birds will never brood true again, not even next season. As there may be a number of similar cases I will reply somewhat fully, as it may be of use to several readers. Telepathy does not apply to birds, at least that is my experience; in fact, I do not think it applies to animals in anything like the degree that is claimed, but it should bo remembered that the progeny of a fowl is not developed in the body of the parent as is the easeof an animals. At one time I carried out numerous experiments, and the conclusion I came to was that the effects of telepathy were nil ns far as domestic poultry were concerned.

No doubt many poultry-keepers have been deceived in the past in this direction, owing to the fact that if a fresh cockerel is put into a pen the eggs produced for some days afterwards will have been fertilised by the first male bird. But by actual experiments carried out I have found that this ceased after 21 days, if the birds were in full lay; that is to say if you had a pen of Black Orpington h ns mated to a White Leghorn rooster, and you took the rooster, out of the pen and left the birds without a male bird for a week and then mated them to a Black Orpington rooster and set the eggs, it is probable that you might get black birds with "white feathers, or blue birds from these eggs which were set up till 21 days after the White Leghorn had been taken out of the pen, but after that there would be absolutely no sign of the cross. The wisest policy is to remove tho bird from ■which you do not wish to breed and allow the hens to run without a male bird for two weeks, if they are in full lay, or three weeks if they are only just coming in to lay, and then you are quite safe. It will be seen by tho above that a bird fertilises eggs for about 14 days ahead, or, in other words, if the male bird is taken from a pen the eggs in most eases continue to be fertile for the next couple of weeks. Hens which have not been mated will in mast cases produce fertile eggs on the fourth or fifth day. after the male bird has been put in the pen. A Turkey fertilises eggs for the whole of the season with one mating. This knowledge is taken advantage' qf in Ireland, where an exceptionally good male turkey will stand at stud. The fertilisation of an egg is a truly wonderful process.

d The fancier who told my correspondent that he could pick out eggs which would hatch cockerels and others which would hatch pullets, was very ignorant of embryology, and could have never given his theory a practical teat —there may have been a fluke some time. The shape of the shell has absolutely nothing whatever to do with .the sex of the chick. Pullets ' lay a small egg, and as the eviduct increases in size—in other words, is stretched—the egg increases in size—if the hen is very fat internally the chances are that the egg will be longer, in shape than that of the hen which has normal organs and no layers of fat to interfere with the shape of the oviduct. Crinkled-shellod eggs are /practically in all eases due to an excess of internal fat. Even when an eggis broken open and the contents put in a saucer, one cannot tell whether the egg is fertile or not. The two substances on each side of the yolk which somewhat resemble a semitransparent piece of worsted have nothing whatever to do with the fertilising of the egg. They are simply the floats or balancers, and their duty is to keep the yolk suspended in the centre of the white, the yolk being of a different density from the white owing to the fat it contains. On the yolk you will notice a very small, light coloured spot. That is really the entrance to a funnelshaped chamber, and it is in this chamber that the fertilising germ rests; but the chamber and the spot are there, whether the egg is fertile or not. It is a simple matter to prove these statements re the float and the spot by breaking open a pullet’s egg from a bird which you know has not been mated. Further, if you place an egg in an incubator or under a hen for only 24 hours, and the egg is broken, it will be seen that; this spot has increased more than double its original size, but there are no changes in the floats, which so many people believe are the fertilising agents. EGG-LAYING CAPACITY. The same correspondent asks is it a fact that a hen can lay 1500 eggs? Yes, if a hen were properly fed from the time she was a pullet and she had a good constitution to start with, she could lay 1500 eggs. It is just a question of the development of the ovary tissue. No one has

j ever yet succeeded in counting the number of what might be termed ■ embryo yolks of eggs contained in a fowl, although many have claimed to do so; but tho fact remains that some few thousand have been counted. But that does not give us the limit, as it is highly probable the ovary tissue continues to grow, because it is well-known that it can be trausi planted in animals, quite a small piece being taken, and in time it 1 develops into full-size ovaries. Then j it is only reasonable to suppose that the same would apply to birds. It is quite another matter whether these embryo yoiks are developed or not. That is tho only thing which limits egg-production, and, of course, the health of tho bird. I have data of a hen which was fed at a university in America and laid 1270 odd eggs, but of course she was fed to produce eggs. We are only yet on the fringe of our knowledge as regards feeding. If we feed absolutely everything the bird requires there is no reason why its useful life should not be doubled j or trebled. Some poultrymen may I think that tnose whose hobby is research work are just faddists. As showing what can be done by feeding, I might, tell my" readers that there is a chicken’s heart which has been kept alive to my knowledge for a couple of years quite separate from the chicken’s body, and it grows and pulses as would a normal heart. So much has it grown on two occasions it had to be reduced. Of course, it was not fed on mash, but the blood etc., fed ti it at a certain temperature was food to the heart, and blood is made from food. The quality of) the blood and the constituents of the/ blood depend on tho food given, and above all on the combination of the food.

Just think what it would mean to poultry keepers if they doubled the laying period of the commercial hen’s life—and it can be. It would mean that you have to hatch chickens only every other year, or you could miss two years, spelling your ground on which the chickens are raised.

About tho only flaw in the poultry industry which, wo have not yet been able to conquer is stale ground. It gave mo a big bump once, so I am trying more than ever to find some way to overcome it, and the increasing of egg production in hens up to four years instead of two gives the most promise.

The light tenor organ of Arthur Cox, with its deft touches of light and shade, come out strikingly in his new records for the Zonophone Company. He gives “TJkelele Lady” and "Yearning.” Both these numbers have been popular items in recent stage productions in New Zealand, but they will be more popular after the record has been,heard. The same singer also has two other songs—- " All My Dreams are of You” and "Some Day (We’ll Meet Again”). These are hard to beat.

Dame Clara. Butt’s magnificent contralto may not be heard again in New Zealand for a very long time, but her Columbia records will remain and continue to be in demand. Her affection for old songs, not necessarily' traditional melodies, but songs of the people just the same, has led her to have recorded “Down by the Riverside I Stray.” Other old favourites may yet be preserved among tbe treasures of national song. “The Leaves and the Wind” (Franco Leoni) forms a delightful contrast to the old song already'’ mentioned.