POULTRY-RAISING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2524, 30 July 1902, Page 49

POULTRY-RAISING.

I ADDRESS BY MR HYDE, GOVERN-

MENT EXPERT.

On Thursday evening Mr I). D. Hyde, the Government poultry expert, ga\e an address in the board room of the Agricultural Hall on poultry rearing, bring briefly introduced to hi= large audience by Mr K. Ferguson, one of the officials of the Dm.edin Fanciers" Club. Mr Hyde said the subject was one that wa- receiving a great deal of attention a-M over the colony. They had only to look back three years to see what strides had been made. Three years ago the majority of { sop'.e did not entertain the idea of keeping povltry, but now the main portion saw that there was money in the business at the ame time the industry had only jurt fctarlcd here. It was only a question of a few yeais when he honestly believed that what'thcy weie so proud of to-day (the dairy n.dir=try v " would he run very closely by the poultry industry, if it got fair play, and they had direct .service with .Scuth Africa. Some might thmk that was a big thing to say. and he admitted it was, -till they had only to note what took place in America, and read the figures that were shown to see what ct uld hi- done. To-day tho contract wa» far larger by millions of dollars than the next bigec-t thing to it — that wat the cotton crop. Tl en it must be taken into consideration that where a nei-on could keep a cow they c uld ke.rp ?00~ or 300 h«<ul of poultry. F.v-en ii. Dunedin a'onr— t ! iat «a' m the eitj — there were no bt"- than 20 000 head of poultry. From a -\eiy careful calculation he had made he was satisfied there were over 20,000 head. He had 1,-ee.n agitating for >mne time past to have statistics prepared of the number ot nouliry kept by all people throughout the "colony, hut the secretary of the department thought ihe expanse would be too great. Hovw\ei, the day wa« not far distant when it would he done, and the result would astouis'i everybody in the colony. Last year there were sold m New Zealand alone 170,000,000 of pgga. so they would 3ee it was not so \ cry small as some people thought. It would also interest them to know that during the financial yeai ending 21st Mawh they .-hipped 33,700 head of poultrj — (Applaiw.) That va-s practically their fir.-t year, and he might tell them that that only represented a very small portion of the orders received in this colony from Sou tli Africa :t!on*>. Many would say that now tlie war wm over they would require very little in South Afrioa from u> m poultry — they would be able to grow what they required in South Africa for thrmseUe 0 . It was not, however, an easy ((•ing to jai.se the poultry in South Africa ihat would be required there during the next two or three years, because- in South Africa they had a disease that broke out among poultry that was- not kuown in any other part of the world, and it would take them many years to find out the cause of that disea-e. This they were trying to do. There was a specialist there trvmg to do jt, but until the cauae was distxnered and removeet there wap no possibility of their supplying their own requiremente. People would tell them that the requirements of London would also be batitiied. Twelve months ago some one had w ritten deploring that so many fow In wire being shipped away. There happened to he an agent of one of tho Loudon firms here, and he answered the correspondent V vote, 6 taring tl at he ueeel not be alarmed about the number of fow'.s shipped from Australia, as London would swallow them up in one week The be-t months for poultrj to rouch London were .lanuarj to .lime, and that waft jn»t when they would ie;uh there from here. A gentleman here sent some fowls to the London market— a ero->« between Houdons and Indian Game. — and the}- had netted him 4.s each. He (Mr Hyde) understood, to far a? South Africa was concerned, the birds M-nt by thio geutlemaa (Mr Hill; were chicken- that was, something under five luont' -> old. — dncf in London t4iey required bird.- :io older tl-an that : and duck-< not oier 13 weeks old In South Africa they were not at all paitirulai about the age, and they had sent from the depot here hird-> up ro three yearn old. It was \ery gratifying to linn and ot'iers interested in the poultry that tlu-y liad hud ad\icc from South Africa te'.liug them that the poultry from New Zealand vas rhe best packed, in the Lesi londitiou. of the best quality, and the heaMe=t weights they had received from any place in the world. That was particularly gratifying to the graders, and an evidence that they were only sending whar wat required. Twelve months ago he had setm an article — he thought in the Otago WitueiSa. — copied from a London paper, headed ' New Zealand Poultry : Where are i heir Heark and Feet'" It went on to ridicule the shipment* entirely, and said that the birdb were not what were required, seeing that they had been packed m such filthy boxes They fcuid, further, that tho birds were decapitated, that they were absolutely refused, and were bent out in hawker*' carts and bold for what they would fetch A gentleman here had written asking him (Mr Hydp) if he would mind trying to ha\e flic conditions for export alteied, and he had replied in the negative, stating that he wa*> quite sure no one could caiil at them. He also said that (t was mon essential that they should place upon the London market something that they were not ashamed of. He need not tell them that he was not long in finding out the locality whence these birds were sent. We had had great compliments paid us by seme Americans, and no doubt the compliments arose from the excellent Quality of

the dairy produce sent from this colony. They had accepted for a fact that we did not " send anything from here we were ashamed of in the shape of poultry. There was a great many cases marked '"N.Z.," the contents of which were being ."old as New Zealand poultry, and on one occasion Mr (rilruth purchased a box at Home and sent it out to New Zealand. He (Mr Hyde) had one of the fowls,, which was not altogether bad. but the packing was in no way to be compared with the sy-t-em adopted here By -elhng these birels as New Zealand pro.luoe the eood name of the colony wa? being taken ad\a:itage of With regard to breeding poultry, and how to go abou* it, he said that, po Far a= the conditions for shipping poultrj- w..rc concerned, he need hardly go into that thciv. Punted copies could b" got from any inspector in thp colony, and if they had run out it won id not be long l>efore others were ready. It was astonishing to note ho\> little people generally knew ivgr<'rdms; poultry : especially a= to how to breed them. A c>o as-you-ploa-e system would never do. and he wanted to point out how poultry, properly housed, would ghe bettei results than those allowed to roost i"!i tree 1 -. Some farmer* would te 1 ! you the fowlt save a greater number of egg« when roosting in the tree?. Now. the majority of farmers' fowlhouses were not creditable ro the fnrmera nor anyone conorrned in them Fowls had just sufficient sense to realise the difference between a dirtj- fowlhou"se to roo=;t in and roosting hi the trees. He did not wmt them to thhik it was necessary to have a palatial building. Anything would do, but it must not be a draughty building— ma cracks and crevices for the wind to go through. Fowl Toosts must be se-Mi U). or the fowl got loup. which would quickiv spread. A visit to the Milton poultry station would be an object le«o.i. aud would well repay anyone ; and it was the eluty of the manager to tell all ho l.aow. without anyone beiUR under any obligation to him. It wa-, most essential that thoRO going into the busine;* should gain nil the knowledge they cou'd, and there were quite a number of s-tudcnN at the place near Wanganui. The co^t iva« 12s a week, for which the .student wa-> provided with bnurd ncul lodging. He received no wages, but was expected to take his coat off ami work It wai far better not to have a boarded floor tn the fowlhonsc. becau-e it harboured rats, there was an evpense incvrrod, and unles? it was covered with dry i=and it wa* injurious to prmltrj-. A concrete floor wns also bad They might put in a cluv bottom if they liked, and i">ver it with dry car+h It was neressorv alfo to ha\e the floor of the fowlhou->e 6in higher than ♦he surrounding ground. It was imnos&iblp for him to cfo into details, but he was dealuaa; with a few of the glaring mistakes, made. With regard to perches,, people would say stick anvching up for tl"* fow! c to roost on ; but <they should be of fXu by 2in scantling, with the edges taken off, and the perches should fit into a slot — not naii»d. The end of the perches should be elnmed in keroeene occasionally, which was the finest thing to prevent vermin traveling to tho fowls he knew 'of. It was usual to have the pprches one above the othor, winch was also wrong. Nineteen out of twentr had them that way. They shou'd he kept low, and on a level. Where one perch was higher than the others it wa>- near the roof of the bouse, and the fowls tried to get to the top from a feeling of security. There was a general fight to get to the top perch, and vory often valuable fowls got damaged. Kut the particular reason why tho perches should not be near the roof was on account of the impure air that gathered near the ceiling, and which the birds breathed all night. If they had their perches arranged level, not moro than 18m from the ground, the fowls would not fight foi the top peich, and the vitiated air would ri--e to the top. and the fowls be breathing the pure air below There was another thing he wanted to point out, and that was the fact that 19 out of 20 placed the drinking water in the middle of the yard, where the sun could get at it all daylong This was a question of commonsense again, and the so placing of the water lejd to chcUra. There were one or two other pomte. Fir«l, the necessity of the fowls getting grit, which many people neglected to supply their birds with. If they took a piece of land whoro fowk hnd not been before, fowk running upon it would do well the first year ; not so well the second ; the third y-ear they would go distinctly off. Mr Hyde then proceeded to advise the use of bone crusher-, and green ■bone cutters To obtain the best results fowls mu<it be kept thoroughly clean — that was, free from vermin. People keeping dirty fowihouses generally sent dirty eggs to market, which should never happen. If •eggs were sent to market clean there would b» a much larger demand for them He wished to point out that poultry would pay better than any other stock a farmer could keep. They could safely reckon on getting 150 egg*; a year frt.ni an average fowl. Call it 12 dozen, and reckon them at Is a dozen. When eggs were plentiful preserve -them, or send them to the cool More. He had bad eggs which were put in t lie cool store at "Wellington, and when t.ikt n out at the end of fcevon month' there wat not a bad one amongst them. The co-l of this was )c-s tlian a fat thing pt»i dozen a month, and the egsjs were* sold for 2N 6d a dozen, so they could see there was no reason why they should not get Is a doyen fT them That would be 12s per head of poultry, and that took 4s- a year to feed Then, take another 3s for intmoFt. deprec .ation, and labour, and a pr 0,170 ,17 of 5s re-mained. He did not think anyone would tell them TJmt he had exaggerated the- ca^e Now they coulel run IGO head of poultry to the acie, and. H took three afres for a cow. They could work the- repult out for tlwmsoh es, but. he asked, w here did the cow come in compared with poultry Tn reference to bre«diii«. he advispd those prosent not to choose the hen that waited about th-e door for dainties for breeding from, because she would not lav enough eggs to pay her way. but to rathe 1 - select the one that went into then neighboinV garden, and wa.-> vigorous.

A number of qnostiol 1 /- were put to Mr Hyde, at the close of h. c remark.-, whioh were frequently applauded, and at the suggestion of th*» O'hairman (Mr Ferguson) a hearty vote of thanks was accorded Mr Hyde on the la«t question being answered.