POULTRY KEEPING IN THE STATES AND CANADA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 61

POULTRY KEEPING IN THE STATES AND CANADA

A ONE MAN PLANT. Ais I have already remarked in these columns, the poultry industry in the United States is almost entirely confined to the large plants, tlxe smaller poultry-keepers being, comparatively speaking, few and far between. I was much struck, when touring through the States, with the paucity of poultrykeepers as a whole, and upon several occasions I drove for many miles through the rural districts without seeing a single fowl-house or half-ar-dozen hens. In the country districts of kingland and Ireland one can hardly gO' a mile without coming across some poultry, and whilst, in many cases, they are merely barn-door and the only accommodation provided for them is of the roughest, yet it helps to shew how important an item fowls are amongst the minor classes of stock. YY e believe in this country. that the future of the industry depends more upon a multiplicity of small poultry-keepers rather than upon the establishment of huge plants. Occasionally, however, one does come across a small American poultry farm, and, perhaps, the most interesting one I visited was that belonging to Mr Pringle, near Boston. It was altogether a one man concern, as no outside help was requisitioned at all. I have never, in the course of •my work, come across a better example, in seine respects, of how a small farm should be run, and it proves how profitable poultry are when properly and systematically attended to, and how UTTERLY f ALSB is the statement so frequently made that “'poultry-keeping does not pay.” The holding is thirty acres in extent, nearly half of which is arable, the remainder consisting of excellent meadow land and oroliards. Mr Pringle bought the farm about a dozen years ago, paying cash for it, arid after putting the dwelling-house and outbuildings in propdr repair, and stocking his farm with two cows, a horse, and about two hundred head of poultry, his capital was entirely exhausted. He has gradually increased his stock, till at the time of my visit he had nearly a thousand hens and four coirs. Mr Pringle is a married man, with a family of four soils, to all ol whom he has given an excellent education, three spending a couple of years at a technical college, and each boy he has been able to put into a good business, tiis wife and he have lived comfortably, though not and,, after all these Expenses, he has J each year put away ABOUT EIGHTY POUNDS. His income has been derived entirely from fowls and cows, though the latter he considers unimportant compared with the former. X need not say that Mr Pringle is an exceedingly hard worker, being frequently busy from daylight till dusk, and bad this not been the case, and had outside labour been employed, the profits would have been correspondingly less. But hard work hurts no one; in fact, it does one good, especially when the results are so satisfactory and pleasing. What he lias done, others can do equally as well. He has no conditions specially favourable; he is some distance from market, and he has experienced one or two runs of bad. luck; hut, notwithstanding these drawbacks, he has made a good livelihood, has given his lads a go'od education, and has been able to save a little year by year for future needs. The only thing that must be\ taken into consideration in his favour, is that he has had no rent to pay, and had this not ■been the case, bis profits would have been reduced by, perhaps, £3O per annum.

Only the one branch is carried out on the farm, namely, egg production. No special breed is kept, but each bird is individually selected for its egg-pro-ducing qualities. I was assured that the whole flock of over nine hundred hens averaged in the region of 175 eggs per annum, which is an excellent record, and more likely to be correct than the so-oalied 200 and 230-egg strain that one occasionally hears about. The hens are only used during a couple of seasons, being killed when two-years-old. In this way the best results are obtained, as it has been demonstrated over and over again that a hen is at her best during the first and second seasons, and that, generally speaking, she does not pay for her keep after this age.

THE WHOLE FARM had a somewhat neglected, uncared for appearance, and some of the houses and yards looked as though a good cleaning would do them good. Certainly the place was not run for show, in any sense of the term; in f act, I was told, rather bluntly I thought, that visitors were not wanted; but when Mr Pringle found that I lived within a few miles of the village where he was born, for he is an Englishman, he did all he could to make me welcome. Unlike the majority of poultry farms, the fowls are all at liberty, not being confined in any way whatever during the day. He has four or five very large

houses, each accommodating about two hundred hens. During tne day, however, the whole thousand are mixed up, with the result that sometimes there may be perhaps three hundred in one house and only a hundred in another. But I was told they usually kept to their own houses. These are all in close proximity to one another, and all are near the homestead, with tlie natural result the ground immediately around the farm buildings has the appeaiance of being worn and somewhat foul. It was considered THE COLONY SYSTEM would involve too much labour. I think it would pay better to adopt it, even though it meant requiring the services of a lad. Mr Pringle admitted that his birds had not been as healthy or as vigorous this year as in former seasons, but be did not put it down to the land being impure. The scratching shed and roosting compartment are in one, the perches being fixed at the back, a few inches above a board ing the entire length, under which the nest boxes are placed. The. eggs can be gathered through openings at the back.

Mr Pringle follows a system entirely his own in the feeding, one of the chief points of which is that the birds shall he fed as heavily as possible. He says, which, in a sense, is true, that it is ridiculous to expect a large supply of eggs if the birds are not very liberally fed. Food is always before the birds—a bad system, in any opinion—the troughs never being allowed to remain empty for long. The troughs are placed inside the house, and they are filled up three times a day, whether there is any food remaining from the previous meal or not. Grain may with advantage be scattered amongst the litter, but this is a very different matter to keeping the troughs continually filled. A mixture of second-grade flour, bran, ground oats and maize meal is the one commonly in use. Equal parts of the meals are used, with from ten to t\venty-five per cent, of meat. During the winter months only this is given hot. Maize or wheat is scattered twice a day : during the summer on the ground outside. I thought the •birds I examined too fat, some of them being scarce able to fly to their perches. But at the time, in June, the flock of nearly a thousand hens laid about 650 eggs a day. These were all sent away the same day as laid, and herein lies one of the secrets of success. —E.T.B. in the “Agricultural Economist.”