POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 39

POULTRY NOTES.

By Terror. Passing through Wood ha ugh with a picnic party last week I called in with a few friends to sso Mrs J. Mills’s poultry yards, and, as I expected, my companions were much interested and considerably astonished’ at what they saw. Mrs Mills j lias reared a large number of chickens this season from her now well-known laying | strain of white Leghorns; and, as all are bred from layers selected by trap-nesting, and with her lever-increasing experience famongst fowls—l think she is one of the oldest fanciers in Dunedin, —she has reason for believing that amongst her new stock there will be birds of superior laying capacity to even her pen, now doing so well at Lincoln. Mrs Mills has never been satisfied with the breeding of one variety of fowl, having handled in her time, almost every domesticated breed, so, having dis- ; carded the Wyandotte she has imported, 1 and is now breeding from, a very nice pen I of rose-combed Minorcas. As usual Mrs Mills’s establishment —thanks mainly to the industry of her son—was found to be in a | spotlessly cleanly condition and' in. perfect order. j The following, from the Cape Times ' of October 15, will show that the Australian hen is making a. name for herself outside of her own domains. The extract is as follows; —“The American white Leghorn has been with us now for some few years, and is an undoubted success. The latest acquisitions are the Danish white and brown Leghorns, of whom it is said they beat the American; and finally, the Australian white Leghorn, which, reputation says, beats everything. The birds of this latter strain just imported coma from a 262-egg per annum strain, tested in a twelvemonth competition. Under -Government supervision one of the progeny of this famous strain laid the unprecedented number of 306 eggs per annum. These birds are bred purely for egg production, and clearly demonstrate- what can be don© | by breeding and selection. It is hoped I some of the progeny will be seen at the ; next egg-laying competition, which will commence in May next. Our climate is suit- ■ able, and tire birds readily adapt themselves to new surroundings. Great credit must j bo given to these pioneers in introducing j blood- of this description in the country.” | Mr D. D. Hyde, recently chief poultry | expert to the- New Zealand Government, i who made a rather late beginning this season in establishing a fruit and poultry j farm at Pa-raparaunui, has at last over- I taken his work after a very exacting period. ! Like some others of the- retrenched civil | eervants, Mr Hydle received ' very short ] notice of his retirement, and the hatching j season had 1 already begun when be made | his beginning as a commercial poultry | farmer. For the purpose lie took . up rough, unimproved 1 land at Para-! paraumu, and had to supervise the erection of buildings at the same time as ho was hatching bis- young stock. On. Saturday lie gave himself what was practically his first holiday, and! at- 1 tended the races at Wai-kanae. He has a thousand head of young stock coming on well, consisting of white Leghorns and white Plymouth Reeks, in addition to a number of Irwb'rn runner ducks. Mr Hyde looked considerably sunburnt, but spoke with a full conviction that his period of anxiety is past. The time to fatten old hens -is at the conclusion of their laying period, before they go into moult, and it is unnecessary for the general purpose to do more than confine them in a small pen or open-fronted e-hod, and feed them liberally with maize and a _ sufficient supply of green food to maintain health; using for a soft food) m-ash a mixture of ground c-ats and bran, and, of course, providing grit and drinkingwater. AMERICA’S POULTRY INDUSTRY. The -enormous value of the annual poultry productions (£150,000,000) in America is -due in large measure to the hug-o demand at almost extravagant prices. The climate in many parts is distinctly aigainst profitable egg - p redue t i o n, and certainly against averages which are common in Australia. California, in -parts, should run Australia hard, but American breeders have funny

notions of feeding and housing, and on-a can easily obtain records of . pumerotw failures in many parts. The exhibition or fancy portion of the industry is in a marvellous condition, and poultry-breeding and exhibiting is and will always remain fashionable. American bre-edcT-s . adopt methods of advertising that would never lie tolerated in England or Australia. Those men have a big population tc eater for, and! there seems reason to assume that, the percentage of gullible persons is large. Even allowing heavy margins of discount, tiro prices paid for thousands of high-class poultry in America arc far beyond anything heard of in England. This feature is doubtless duo to the ostentation common to the land of multimillionaires and wooden nutmegs, HEN THAT LAYS TWO EGGS A DAY. Although poultry-raisers all oyer the country, after long years of experimenting in the breeding of poultry lor increased egg production, have failed to produce a hen that will lay more than one egg a day, yet Lilbourno Martin, 14-yea,r-o'W eon. of William M. Martin, of No. 222 Woodlawn avenue, Wilmington, Del., is (says the New York Herald) the proud possessor- of a ten which not only occasionally lays two eggs -a day, but sometimes turns out three eggs within 24 hours. Persons who have had long- experience in poultry-raising, tvho heard of wonderful performances of the hen were at first inclined to doubt that the hen had actually laid two eggs -a day, as they had never hoard of such a case, or read of any reports of oases of this kind in the poultry journals. While selected thoroughbred hens, bred for egg-production, hav< made great record sin -egg-laying contests hold at different times, especially in om held in Australia some years ago, no hen in any of the contests ever laid two eggs a day. The hen owned by young Martin is the onlv one kept by him, and it is confined in the yard in the rear of the house by itself, so that the eggs could not have been laid by any other hen. The truthfulness of the family has never been doubted by the residents of the western side of the city. The hen is a little more than a year old, and was brought from Bynum, Hartford County, M-d by young Martin last summer, having been g'ivcni to him by 'a relative, rho hen wax quite small at' the time, an-cl he at first thought it was a. bantam, but it Iccpt growing until, when full-grown, it resembled a black Minorca in both size and colour. Young Martin used no special method of feeding in forcing the hen to lay. Persons experienced m poultryraising say that by breeding this hen along with heavy ‘laying fowls, a new strain might eventually be developed, whioi would break all previous egg records. GOOSE 120 YEARS OLD. In a naturalist monthly magazine ihi. Duchess of Bedford mentioned the inter" estin-g fact that a goose had lived in one family for 57 years. To what age the ordinary goose lives—if not required >ot Christmas dinners —it would be very dim* cult to say. The facts are recorded m a most vivacious old book, ‘‘l ravels in Scotland,” by the Rev. James Hall, M.A., published in 1807. “While on a visit to Mr Charles Grant, of Ehchies, we found, writes the author of this entertaining volume, “some of the geese in his flock nearly 30 years of age., and he told me he had the best information that a ga.ndea which happened to bo killed by accident, was about eighty, and had been observed, for above- 50 years, to associate with. o-no female . I informed him that thus is 1 a goose alive, in a clergyman’s house nda r Glasgow, 120 years old, it being allowed to live about the house, and i become the property of every succeeding clergyman, there’’-a sort of perpetual “ minister s man.” DEVELOPING LAYING STRAINS. Considering that quite a number of year! have elapsed since the systematic breeding of laying strains has boon taken up m this country, the results have been hardly commensurate with the expectations, then formed. It was (on paper) so easy. Pick out the host lavers, and breed only from them, and as individual hens, laying 200 eggs m the year, can bo found here and there, it seemed only a matter of time before p-ena averaging 200 eggs in the year should not bs common. Yet they barely exist. •*- 10 * press -has been made, but not to the extent anticipated. Only the other clay a disgusted poultry-keeper wrote to a contemporary that, owing to the present high price of corn, many poultry-keepers were giving up poultry as unprofitable. Yet the “pedigree layer,” which, is plentiful enough in breeders’ advertisements, ought to bo a little gold mine to her fortunate possessor. All of which goes to snow tha, between theory and practice there is a <u* ference. Not a. Simple UndertakingDeveloping a laying strain is not quite so simple as it sounds. We must reproduce stamina as well as laying* powers, .a fact often forgotten by breeders. As is. well known, a hen’s most prolific period is the first year.'; indeed, there arc breeders who 68 U off their birds at eighteen months old. not keeping them over the moult. The bird’s are forced along by stimulating food to lay.' the endeavour of the owner being to got all the eggs possible cut of. them between six and 18 months old. This may be profitable, that is not the present question, but such birds should not be bred front In the first place, pullet’s eggs, even though the birds arc mated with a.n older male, never produce such strong chickens as Lens'eggs —that is, birds in their second laying season. Then the better the hens or pullets lay the weaker is. the germ. Yet a great many pullets’ eggs are incubated, and the resulting chickens -reserved for stock. The breeder who is -anxious to get that 200 egg strain —there is no harm in trying for it, -anyhow—should never breed from pullets. but from yearling hens, and the stock male should be of a. similar age. Pick out the best of the laying pullets, keep them over the moult, mate them the following season; then, stronger chickens will there will bo a smaller death rate, and a more satisfactory lot of pullets. The Law of Average.— We must not expect too much in the wa|| of -egg- averages. An average of 150 fron| pens of a dozen of so is very good. This i« often surpassed. There are probably scored and scores of farmers who do better even with bigger pens, or fowls kept on tha, colony system, but there -are, unfortunately very many who do much worse. One mu-si remember, too, that numbers are not every-thing-—the eggs must bo of saleable size. Here again the advantage is with hens over pullets. Hens lay a larger egg than pullets*

generally speaking. Pullets hatched from pullets’ eggs have a greater tendency to lay undersized eggs. By an undersized egg on© under 2oz is meant; that is the size th© market likes, an egg about 2oz in weight. 'A great many of the eggs laid by “pedigreed layers” fall short of this, and in laying competitions, where due regard is given to size, as it should be, one frequently sees one pen beaten by another Which ban laid fewer eggs. Weight tells in eggs, which, indeed, ought to be sold by the pound, like meat. The Potent Male Bird. — Let us glance a moment at the subject of thermal© bird in the breeding pen. Every resulting pullet will be his offspring, so it is important to select him with care. 'lt is no good putting a carefully-picked lot of layers in a breeding-pen, mating them with a bird from Mifcrior stock, or we will get no forwarder that season. Do not buy a stock cockerel, casually taking an unknown vendor’s word that he is of So-and-so’s strain. It is better to give two or three times as much for one we know comes or a good stock and of matured parents. If a male bird proves a good stock-getter and his pullets lay well, keep him for a third season. He will most likely be no good for the early part of it, and there will be more unfertile eggs from his pen, but th© chickens he does sire will probably be valuable. A final hint on colour. Brown eggs are more popular than ever; they fetch in the wholesale market some 2s a long hundred more than, white or tinted, and retailers often make more. Not enough effort is made to develop laying strains of birds that produce the much-desired chocolate-tinted egg. In truth, there are few of them. It is very hard to get strains of Orpingtons of Rocks or Wyandottes laying eggs of a deep enough colour, they are* too often merely tinted. Cochins, Brahmas, and (Lan genans lay them, but the former is bo longer bred for laying, and there are very few laying strains of Brahmas or Langshane. But they could be produced with a little trouble. One need hardly point out the advantage of possessing fowls whose eggs fetch 2s a long - hundred more than our neighbour, who sells only white or tinted eggs. —Agricultural Gazette.