POULTRY NOTES

Northern Advocate, 16 November 1929, Page 7

POULTRY NOTES

HOW TO SUCCEED

TURKEYS FOR THE MARKET,

The final process before kil'fng turkeys for the market need not cover a period of one month. It. is a great mistake to shut the birds up to fatten; they will fret and refuse food after losing their liberty. The fact of giving extra food will induce them to take less exercise, and if left’ free they will range about close at hand. At this period ground . oats, maize meal and barley meal may be freely supplied, with pollard in a. crumbly moist condition. Grain can be steeped and meat, offals boiled with wheat will be found to have a stimulating j effect. This may be fed warm, but l not put before them until all steam j has passed off, or the birds may re-1 fuse to go near it. Any change in! food should be made gradually. The i demand on the market is for quan- j tity rather than quality of flesh, but | if quality is desired ground oats are j a far superior food for the purpose, with heavy oats as the grain food, and separated milk for mixing. Charcoal ig especially recommended for turkeys when fattening. After a twenty-four hours’ fast the bird should be killed by breaking its neck. When skilfully done that method of killing leaves the carcase in equally good condition for keeping and is far cleaner. When plucking, the feathers covering the hips should be left to protect the thin skin on the back from rubbing and bruising; the tougher wing feathers are also frequently left on, but buyers prefer these removed, and this is more easily done when the body is hot. The requirements of purchasers should always be studied, and it is a good plan to consult those to whom the bijbds are to be consigned regarding the < condition they are wanted in to com- j mand the best prices.

DROPPING BOARDS,

There are people who do not approve of the pfoVision of droppings 'boards under the perches, but it cannot be disputed that they present several advantages. For instance, they increase the floor space of the sleeping house or scratch shed in which they are erected. The space under the dropping boards is available for litter as is the rest of the floor, and said litter is the cleaner for the reason that the night’s droppings does not enter it. In many houses this under-dropping-board space is occupied by the nest boxes. The dropping board provides a con venient and acceptable place for the droppings that are voided when the birds are on the roosts —a place where they are least likely to spread diseaseproducing organisms, including parasites. The droppings are easily removed, and this avoids the difficulties involved in the cleaning of a mixture of droppings and litter from the floor of the house. Disease germs and parasites find a. more desirable breeding ■place ih the moist and filthy accumulations .on the floor than in the drier excreta found on the frequently-clean-ed droppings board. It is a good plan to havs a frame of wire-netting directly under the perches, so that the droppings having passed through it the birds cannot trnmpde it when, they go to roost. This, of course, facilitates the cleaning, and is a sanitary device.

V A LITE OF POULTRY

In a message to poultry-raisers, Mr Arthur Hyde, Secretary of Agriculture (America) asked; “Who can fail to marvel over the hen when we stop to consider that the annual value of poultry products is about one thousand million dollars (equal to more than two hundred million pounds sterling)? This is just about equal to the sum of the interest on the National Debt and the reserve to the sinking fund. Give her a few more years and the American hen would pay off all our bonded indebtedness. The value of poultry products in 1928 was ‘greater than that of all the vegetable crops; double the value of all the fruits; ton times greater than the sugar crops, or of all tho horses raised that year; six times the value of the sheep, and the hen was ahead in the race with beef cattle. She has at last come to be'recognised as a business builder and profitmaker for many years in more modest establishments. Only, the women of America, I suspect, have any conception of the number of eollego courses, modernised homes, and improvements in living conditions that have come out of the “egg money, so commonly a per quisitc of tho farm woman.’'There arc over one hundred and twenty million people in the United States, and the value of the poultry industry is two hundred million. In Australia there are about six million people, and the industry is worth fifteen millions, so that relatively the value is greater in Australia. America consumes practically all her poultry products. She exports at some seasons of the year, and imports enormous quantities of eggs and egg pulp from China.”