POULTRY NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22714, 29 October 1935, Page 3

POULTRY NOTES

By Terror.

Export of Eggs On the figures now available the exports to date are as follows:— Canterbury, 5821 crates; Otago and Southland. 2822 crates; Auckland, 2542 crates; Wellington, 191 crates. These 11.376 crates represent 341,280 eggs. Home Prices Last week's cable advice reported the English egg market as steady with a firm tendency; Australian eggs were quoted ait lis 12 s 6d, as compared with lis od, lle'6don the corresponding date last year. No New Zealand eggs have reached the Home market yet. Feed Costs A Home authority says:—"ln very round figures the statistics show that when the egg yield falls as low as 38 per cent, mash consumption is approximately Si ounces a bird per diem. When production rises to not far short of 70 per cent, the birds dispose of as much as 5 ounces ot mash daily. The same set of figures show that when production is at its lowest the food cost per dozen eggs is at its highest, and vice versa. The tood cost of a dozen eggs when the birds are laying nearly 70 per cent, is only about 4id. This cost rises as high as 7d when the cge yield drops below 40 per cent. Christinas Turkeys Unless turkeys have been accustomed to yarding and feeding they resent confinement when a fattening period is essayed. Some wild turkeys resent confinement at first. In some localities there is abundant natural food at certain seasons, and turkey breeders sell at those times as the birds are generally fat. In other cases it is as well to feed regularly twice daily On grain, and when the selling season approaches gradually to accustom them to wet mash. This is often difficult to manage where the flock is of mixed ages, including the breeding stock. Rule—do not sell birds in poor condition. Table Birds Speaking of the Jersey Giant breed of poultry a Home breeder (Devonshire County), whose flocks of this breed hare free range, says that he gets any number of cockerels weighing 16oz at five weeks, whose food consists of Kibbled wheat, maize, and crushed oats, with no fancy foods. His best weight was 51b at three calendar months for cockerels and 41b tor specimens well over the standard weight, cockerel to 10lb standard hens he finds it easy to get a good proportion .it specimen well over the standard weight. The best egg producers have been 10lb pullets of sleek, active, type. Ihe above facts'deserve consideration, and the poultry keepers should bear in mind tlie economic advantages of capomzing surplus cockerels rather than destroying them as soon as the sex is ascertained, in order to benefit the first-class table poultry. The breeder quoted above does not seemingly caponize his cockerels being content with the weights he attains and which are natural to the bird: biK eaponizing improves the quality ot tne meat and causes weight to be put on more quickly. The Food Bins It is advisable completely to empty the storehouse food bin before refilling it with newly-bought stuff, either gram, pollard bran, or other tood material. Ine habit of placing the new supply of any food on top of even a small portion or unused stuff results some day in feeding the fowls with a sour and weeyily or wormy mass, and I have no doubt many trublea amongst the fowls have been caused in this way. It doesn t take more than a few minutes to empty tne bin of its contents, and this should always be clone before the new stuff is put in. If the old stuff is still fresh it can be put on top, covering the new supply. Backward Chicks If chickens that are being well fed do not appear to be making the satislactory growth expected of them, a change of ground, or even of environment, will often be more effective in promoting a proper growth than any special feeding that can be resorted to. The Pure Breed The pure breed of anything is truthful, and in reproduction it comes "the true. The cross, be it what it may, comes more or less of one breed or the other, and rarely, if ever, half in blood, colour, flesh, and bone. It is a moral and national wrong to persuade the overcredulous that by adding the blood and breed of a worse fowl to their own pure strain they will make a better one. —Harrison Weir. Poultry Fowls (Gallus domesticus, Buffi: guinea fowls (Numidia amer., Lin.); turkeys '(Meleagus gallopau, Lin.); geese (Anas amer., Lin.); ducks (Anas boschas. or domesticus, Lin.): These in their varieties represent the chief, if not the whole, of our useful domestic birds, and >t is a curious fact that they originate in the four quarters of the world, the first coming from Asia, the second from Africa, the third from America, while the two last are European.—Harrison Weir. The Yolk The yolk of an egg is contained within a very delicate vitelline mebrane. It is composed of both white and yellow cells, and if an egg (hen's) be boiled hard and cut across, it can be seen that there is a flank shaped nucleus or centre of white yolk, round which are several