POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2984, 24 May 1911, Page 35

POULTRY NOTES.

By Terror.

I 'have received! a cony of Mr J. B. Memtt’s “New Zealand Poultry Institute catalogue. It .is artistic in appearance* and bears on the front cover a coloured plate of a group of chickens. The institute claims to furnish its customers with good average layers, and to satisfy all who look for a fair deal; and the catalogue points out a truth which I have steadily .maintained in these columns in the following terms: —“We do not believe that birds bred from abnormal egg-producers give satisfactory results. Ovarian troubles take place that ruin them for breeding purposes, spoil the constitution, and deprive them of yitalitv. What is the gain of breeding birds to a hi orb tension if it m eans losses of this kind. There is such a thing as excess in forcing hens to Jay over 250 eggs each in a year, and to do so is to invite the penalty that must come from a debilitated constitution.” Mr Merrett has had a practical experience in poultry matters at the institute and his words should be carefully const The catalogue is free of cost to all ask for it.

1 —lt is very probable that the Dunedin Fancier Chub's annual show will, after all, take place earlier than has been announced —i.e., in the first week in August instead of in the muddle of that month. It is in the interests of the fancy a great pity that the show cannot be held at an earlier date — say some time in June or July. The reason for the late date is the desire en he part of the committee to hold the fixture at the same time as the agricultural show, last year's experience having' shown tiiat by doing so the gate money is greatly increased. From various directions I learn, however, that even the- big event is unlikely to be the great attraction to country people that it generally is, for the reason that the late date they have unavoidably been obliged to select, owing to the recent destruction of their hall by fire, is too far advanced in the season to suit country people, and also because the coronation festivities in June, which will draw many to town, will satisfy them as regards holiday trips for the year. If there is anything in these prognostications, then it behoves the Dunedin Fancieis' Club to seriously consider whether the time of the Coronation (June) or the visit of the Sheffield Singers (July) would not piove more satisfactory from their point of view than will the agricultural show. Another reason why an earlier date than August is desirable is that entries are likely to be fewer than they would be in* June or July. Fanciers are eager to igct their birds through the shows as quickly as possible, and they are well aware that birds which have won at Juno and July shows would not have a chance in August. Against this it may be contended that they may have other birds better fitted for the late show, which is true, but 'by August it is more desirable that good birds should be in the breeding pens than in show pens. Too stimulating fcod causes vertigo, a trouble which may be recognised by the bird staggering 'backwards or turning round and round; sometimes the head is thrown right back. It is due to some pressure on the. brain, the result of too free use of stimulating foods. Place the bird in a darkened pen and dose with Epsom salts morning and night, and feed very sparingly on crust of bread soaked in cold water, then squeese out the water and add a little milk feed once a day only. Ldver disease shows a dark-coloured, blue or purple combs with black tip. Other symptoms are food remaining in the crop, causing the bird to appear cropbound. Lameness, especially of the right leg, i® another symptom, so is failing appetite. Birds with liver trouble never have good appetites. One of the first early signs of liver trouble is that occasional mustard-like appearance of the droppings, which are fluid and frothy instead of being firm and hard. Give a course of liver pills and two teaspoonfuls of sweet oil morning and night. Birds with liver trouble should not have any grain until convalescent. Feed entirely on oatmeal porridge and milk, morning and night, or, for a change, cooked vegetables, such as turnip and cabbage mixed with a little lean gravy. At noon a little lean cooked meat and abundance of green food should be given. Tender grass, lettuce, cress, radish tops, or tender cabbage leaves are all suitable, but tough fibrous cabbage leaves are unsuitable. Allow the-birds plenty of drinking water and as much exercise as they care to take. Good sharp grit is an absolute necessity. Dear Terror,—ln your issue of May 17 there appears an aiticle re -proposed new Poultry Association, in which is contained a par. stating that after a meeting of the Dunedin Fanciers' Club a discussion took place with regard to the management of a South Island Poultrv Association. The article further states that it was the general opinion of fanciers present that a change was desirable. So far this is correct; but what I wish to explain is that though the meeting recognised the fact that many things required rectifying, there was no feeling with regard to seceding from the. association.- -Yours faithfullv, E. Webstee. [I have to thank Mr Webster for his letter. The movement for an Otago and Southland .Association emanates from fanciers irrespective of the Dunedin Club; and the Dunedin Club will receive a circular (or has received a circular) just the same as all other clubs south of the Waitaki.—Tereoh.] TURKEY TIPS. One male turkey will be enough for half a dozen females, or even for eight or ten. Do not buy a, very heavy male bird. Try to get r|-e that is from a strain that makes heavy-weights. Get the heaviest hens that, can be "found, and try to iget two-year-old birds, although 'insr hens with s twi--year-old male will d', verv well. Be careful to buy vigorous stock, feed it well, and each hem will lay from 30 to 40 eggs in a season. The lien turkey lays a number of eggs and then becomes broody. If her eggs are taken away from her she soon lays another "clutch," and may be brokcm up the second time. By the time she has finished: laying her third clutch the warm weather will have come, and she may be allowed to si* ;.nd hatch a brood. The turkey hen is a good mother if properly ooofcrolled, but letting her sit as long as she can be induced to lav eggs is a watse of her time. —Agricultural Gazette.

LIME FOR POULTRY. Manv poultry-keepers overlook lime as an ingredient in fowls' food and need to be constantly reminded that laying hens and growing "chicks must be supplied with lime in some form. When it is considered that the egg-shell is very largely composed of lime all of which is taken from the heirs organism, and that in 500 2oz eggs it is estimated that about 71b of lime is used, the absolute importance is apparent. Whilst, if it is not provided in sufficient quantities, soft-shelled eggs and hens eatirwr eggs to obtain lime for shell-making' will be the inevitable result. , One-tenth the weight of a fowl is composed of mineral matter, of which phosphate of lime forms a considerable portion. When hens are moulting - , almost half of this is required in the feathering, which is naturally a drain on the system. Grain and other foods supply lime and mineral matter, but not sufficient for the hen's requirements- when prolific egg production is the desideratum; further, growing chickens demand lime to perfect the frame and feathering, whilst leg weaknesses often the result of insufficient lime being supplied. Oystor-shells (calcined) are rich in lime, and easy to obtain. Most poultry food dealers supply it at 3s per cwt, which is a good investment where any largo number of fowls are kept. Bones contain « '•- ' 11 • phosphate of lime ' ~ .1 .green cut bone, !-,onr-d';-t. - ' '■;•■:• in beef scraps is

Clover hay is rich in lime, whilst grass supplies a moderate percentage. Many ex» peraenced breeders make a. practice of lim* ing the corn, and any grain carr be so treated, and will be found to destroy parasites, prevent fowl cholera., and is in no wis© injurious to health. The method' adopted is simple:—Pile the corn in a ooni-cally-shaped heap, and) pour a mixture of lime and water on it, stirring well with a stick, take a wooden spade, and work the heap well, until each grain is coated;:, when it can be left to dry and used as required. Poultry in confinement pidfu always have a supply of lime and a email box filled with, calcined oyster-shells, nailed to the eiid'& of the house, about Ift from; the ground, also a second box, in the same position,, filled with sharp flint pvrit. Such essentials a.re as important as food to hens to enable the birds to become successful laying machines.

LINE BREEDING. (By an English Breeder.) Line breeding is, for the most part, of American practice. We British are far too fond of sticking to old methods, and it cannot be hammered out of us, that in time the newest of ideas must become obsolete, and give way to better ones. America is a young country. It always remains juvenile and buoyant. Its ideaij are ever fresh and young. It is not so crazily wedded to its past as we arc in the Old Country. Hence in some things Americans get ahead of us. True, they are not ahead of us in the prize poultry line, for two reasons. We do not have the standards they have, as a general rule, and when the standards in any exceptional case happen to coincide we do not let our best go over to America; moreover, as we had a good innings of nearly threequarters of a century before America started the idea of exhibition poultry, we had, of course, gathered up, in our slow and leisurely way, a few good ideas before ever they began. But once they did commence, they did not let the grass grow under their feet, nor did they go round circuitous lanes and hedges, but made short cuts here and there, in rapid time, and now, in the production of birds up to their own standards, they probably attain as near to perfection as we do in breeding up to our own standards. Amongst the stort cuts which they discovered, and liavo almost universally adopted, is what is termed line breeding—that is, they breed down one or two lines or families of fowls, and thus know in great. measure, beforehand, what they are likely to produce. They recognise, that the domestic fowl is a very artificial production, with a strong inclination in. it to forsake its aristocratic pedigree and revert to the old Adam; and that, given the very slightest encouragement by a slip in mating, it will display this latent quality or property to an astonishing degree. They too, that one of the greatest encouragements a breeder can give is out-crossing—that is, the commingling of strains. When a bird is , bred to high perfection in certain points, difficult of attainment, it only reaches these latter by groat efforts on the part of the breeder, and for a while the points so laboriously produced are merely temporary, not really fixed, but mere of a chance production, in one sense, than its other points —so much a chance production that a bird may, and very often is, the only one out of a flock of a hundred that j possesses those points, though bred- from j exactly the same pair of birds. Throw Backs. — Should the breeder come across another | sucli fowl, possessing the same rare points, j and, of course, ephemeral in character like- i wise, he naturally .expects that a union j between the two,.-.if they are of opposite sex, will be highly beneficial. And we do '• not say it will not;. but it all depends. If those rare points have, so to speak, been reached by two widely different roads, and the birds, whilst weakly holding to them, i are uncommonly strong in points in which they coincide, ■ there will be a reversion in favour of these strongly coinciding points, which are always more or less after the natural and original desire to return to the bird's original type. Hence the bitter disappointment that ensues when two good birds, of two excellent strains, arc mated together for the first time. The outcro'ss shows a produce vastly inferior, in many cases, to the original parents. But, had our breeder found a second bird of the same strain as his own, and carrying the same difficult points, and had mated these two together, then the rare points, having been reached by the same road, by the same blood, as we call it, there is a better chance that there will not be that strong natural tendency to revert back to what i 3 more or less of the nature of original blemish. This is why breeders of high repute always seek the same strain as their own to mate.,with. But the American, having got hold of this idea, plays it one better, in fact, for all it is worth, by keeping to one' family only—that is to say, from one original pair of birds, and forming from the cock a cockerel line and from the pullet a pullet line. Thus, after the first union, if the pullets be put back to the sire, and the cockerels to the mother, we have the beginnings of a pair of distinct families. If now the pullets of the cockerel line from this union bo sired by the grandfather, and the cockerels of the pullet line be put back to the grandmother, the two families arc quite distinct and pronounced. , By the first union we got chickens, half father and half mother. But by next union the produce arrives at the' three-quarter stage, and in the following year, in the seven-eighth stage, to again go into the fififteen-sixteenth stage. And the observant breeder will at once see that, at any one of these stages, if he unites the two families, they are no nearer consanguinity than were the original pair. For instance, a cockerel at fifteen-six-teenths of the original father, mated to a pullet of the fifteen-sixteenths order, descended from the original mother, would virtually be as distant as the original in blood relationship. And so the matter can be worked on,, year by year, without any introduction of fresh blood, and the longer it is carried on the less prepotency will there be to rovert back to anything which was not in the original parents. But, of course, all this takes time, patience, and pcrseverence. ■ It cannot, be done in a day : it cannot be 'done by simply tolling an ignorant man to look after it. and carry it out as yon desire. They will have to be arranged purposely for the prosecution of such a plan, trap-nests provided, and means taken to see that, through idleness or caisolossnc*.- or indifference, people are not telling you one thing and doing another. And trap-nest.-; are somewhat tiresome and difficult things to negotiate, be-

sides what is difficult to negotiate is, as a rule, by all but the keenly alive enthusiastic Briton, left rigidly alone. This is one of the reasons ordinary farming is in such a backward state in the Old Country. Old methods are easier than the new, and the old generation does not love change; and so trap-nests and line-breed-ing are things followed only by a very few here, but followed successfully, and you may depend upon it these men do not give away their secret broadcast to those who don't care to have it.

ALTERNATING THE MALE BIRD. One of the disadvantages of keeping breeding fowls in large flocks is the difficulty that is £o often experienced in persuading the male birds to atrree. In the generality of cases one cock gains the mastery,-and prevents tire others from fertilising the eggs. This is, of course, a very serious objection, since the one male bird is quite incapable of attending to all the hens. There" is a system by which the difficulty can be overcome, and this is by alternating the cocks every day or every week, which plan is very extensively carried out in the United States, where it answers excellently. The system consists in keeping about 20 or 25 hens in a large ( scratching shed, and throwing down among them one cock for a day or a week, at the erd of which time another takes its place, while the first bird is confined in a coop fastened to the side of the scratching shed- It is found in such a case that the eggs contain «treng germs, while the stamina and vigour of the male birds are not impaired in any way. One cock could not, of course, attend to a couple of dozen hens early in the season, but the two birds working in conjunction, can well manage this number. The chief objection to the system, as piactised in the States, ■ is tSiat ihe ca:ptive male bird is confined in such a position as to be able to see his rival, which is liable to make him restless.