POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 33

POULTRY NOTES.

Br Terror

£ ‘ Novice.” —I strongly recommend you to get your cockerel from the same yard as you got the pullets. It is a very unusual thing to hatch out only pullets from a sitting of eggs, but many would ho pleased at a similar experience. Where you got the eggs you may be able to obtain a cockerel of similar strain without being of identical parentage. to distinguish the pullets from the cockerels in newly-hatched chickens, but there are fanciers who say they can do so. One gentleman, ft “ Home ” fancier of 40 years’ experience, tells the readers of the “ Feathered World ” that he is open to bet any amount of money that he will pick out the pullets from day-old chickens. Ho says that in all the feathered tribe the vent of a ben opens down wards, and tiiat of a cock upwards, with the result that when mating takes place the vent of the lien opening downwards and closing upwards retains the germ. If “Inquisitive”

tests tlrs and finds it correct I would like to publish the fact for general information. ” —Your fowl is crop-bound. Instead of pulling grass, it has been picking it up in lengths too long to pass the passage from the crop. Bake the ground of all such loose stuff. Suits will do no good. The only cure is to open the crop, remove the mass of grass, and sow up again. _ If you arc afraid to operate, pet some frit ml experienced In fowls, and ho will do it for you. In sewing up don’t forget to sow up the crop before the outer skins. The fowl should then be penned up and fed onto

on soft food—a lifctlo at a time only—for a few days. The Christchurch Show, as I write, is not a thing of the past, as it will be when this note is published, eo I may be excused 1 for hoping, instead of pronouncing, it to bo a distinct success. I learn that there is a record in the number of entries, and that several fanciers are accompanying some 40 exhibits from Dunedin. Compared with last year, there was a slight falling off in entries at the Christchurch Show, held last week ; but, all things considered, the club is’ to bo congratulated on having organised so effectively that visitors declare it to have been on© of the best shows ever held in ChriMchuroh. The Christchurch public, nevertheless, do not appear to appreciate the effort made to advance the poultry interest, for I learn that the attendance was most discouraging. I will give more particulars relative to the prize list next week, but in the meantime I may say that in silver Wyandottes Mr White, of Musselburgh, got first in hens and Mr P. Carolin got first in pullets; Mr Bowman and Mr D. Johnston taking first in cocks and cockerels respectively. Mr J. B. White also got fist, second, and special for his hen in Ladies’ Bracelet. Mr L. Sprosen (Dunedin) won a second in rose-combed bantam cockerels, Mr J. H. Ohegwin taking first, v.h c., and club cup in the same class. I —Mr Adamson, the Maori Hill fancier whom I have reported as touring Australia, is now back in New Zealand, and has, I am told, brought back with him quite a number of birds (and more to follow). He reports that there are many very Urge poultry farms on the other side. Master L. Sprosen, of Clyde street, is showing the rosccombed bantam he purchased from Mr Ohegwin at the Christchurch Show, and as it got a third here in good company it may do oven better at

Christchurch. Mr P. Rogen is the judges I learn that Mr Brown, the Government poultry inspector, has gone to Auckland to inquire into rumours of a new disease amongst poultry there. It is to be hoped .that it is nothing serious. Talking of Mr Brown, I may say that I have been asked to describe hie appearance pretty often lately. I fancy that a lecture in this district about once every five or six years at least {!) would servo to convince some people here that there actually is an inspector of poultry employed by a Government department for their instruction. Tho advantage of having good shelter for poultry during bad weather must hava been brought home very clearly to poultry fanciers during the past few weeks. Eggs certainly cannot have been very plentiful when shelter has not been available. ‘‘ Up-to-date Poultry Culture,” by Gerald Purton, a Victorian poultry farmer, is a neat little Is book of instruction on poultry breeding written in a somewhat optimistic style. Mr Purton has evidently been a successful poultryman, and presumably is also a modest one, for he seems to think everyone else capable of following his lead. The book (which came to hand from Messrs George Robertson and Co.) ia full of valuable information for breeders, of both utility and show stock, and is well worth purchase and careful perusal. The returns in connection with tha Bendigo Poultry Society’s egg-laying competition up to the week ending July 12 are to hand. A period of 11 weeks_ and three days has elapsed. First place is held by Mr H. Hanbury’s six white Leghorns with 374 eggs. Mr J. Snotswood’s white Leghorns are second with' 338, Messrs King and Watson’s black Orpingtons third with 313, Mr J. W. Ramage’s black Orpingtons fourth with 296. and Mr R. W. Pope’s white Leghorns fifth with 295. The total

from the 43 pens of six birds each for the last week was 823. . The results of the egg-laying competition at Parafield (South Australia) up to the week ending July 14 are to hand. A period of 15 weeks was then com*lered. In the light breeds Mr E. M'Kenzie’s six white Leghorns lead with 373 eggs, Messrs Morgan and Watson’s white Leghorns are second with 354, Mr J. E. Bradley s white Leghorns (Victoria) third with 355. In the heavy breeds test, Mr, D. Kenway s six black Orpingtons lead with 304 eggs. Mr L F Dunn’s silver Wyandottes are second with 254, Tocklington Park’s silver Wyandottes third with 229, and Mr T. W. Goto s black Orpingtons (Victoria) fourth with 211 * “Terror,”—l notice with regret the persistent efforts made m the poultry columns of one of the local newspapers to keep the Minorca fowl before the public. So far as my experience goes—and 1 am cot alone,— they have been tried and found wanting. The breed is unsuited to the climate of Dunedin. Sonne years ago I had a flock of about 50 hens from the champion strain of Victoria. The birds certainly laid very well in summer, but scarcely an egg in the winter. Moreover, several of them had to be specially treated and isolated for some trouble in the head. Subsequently I so.d them all, keeping white Leghorns only. Note the difference: Very httle trouble with the hens, and eggs every day during the winter. On one day when eggs were about half a crown per dozen I gathered two dozen and seven.—l am, etc., J. feHßiiit' ton. —[Mr Shrimpton having bred the white Leghorn for so many yearn may bo excused for putting in a word for his favourites when opportunity otters, though as a matter of fact the reputation of that breed now stands too high to need bolstering; but all the same I must confess that I am an admirer of the Minorca egg, and as 1 fancy only Minoroas can lay them, 1 am naturally glad to learn that there is a slight revulsion of feeling in their favour just now. I hope it will continue— lebeob.J

CENTRAL PRODUCE MART (LTD.) Messrs Reilly, Gill, and Co. proprietors, report; An excellent yarding of poultry for this season of the year came forward on Wednesday, including some very fine lines of hens, cockerels, ducklings, turkeys, and also some very fine pullets. Exceptionally food prices were secured for all l‘ nc s. drty-two hens realised 2s, 71 realised 2s Id, 56 realised 2s 3d 88 realised 2s 4d, 91 realised 2s sd, 33 realised 2s 6d 19 real-sed 2s Bd, 23 realised 2s 9d, 15 realised 2s lid, 12 realised 3s, and 11 realised 3s Id Cockerels realised 2s 3d, 2s 4d, 2s 5d 2s 6d, 2s Bd, 2s lOd, 2s lid, 3s, and 3s Id each Old cock birds —Is 6d, Is M, is lid. 2b. amd 2s 3d each. Ducks realised 2s 6d, 3s, 3s 2d, 3s 4d 3s 9d, 3e lOd, 4s, 4s 3d. and 5s each. Pullets realised 2s Id, 2s 3d and 2s 6d each Laying pullets—l 6 realised 3s 6d, 24 rea.ised 3s 9d. 8 realised 3s lid, and 8 reahsed s each Turkey gobblers made 9id to ma; old jocks realised 8d to 9£d; turkey hens, 7d to Bid per lb. Eggs-Early m the week Is 4d was obtainable for stamped and Is oa for case eggs. To-day’s value, Is 2d fou stamped; case eggs, Is Id per dozen. A HEN’S EGG. In a very excellent work on “Popular Science” the author, Ronald Campbell Macfie M.A., M. 8.. C.M., speaking of the origin of life, makes the following comment, which should prove interesting to many of my readers. He says: — “Let us consider even such a minor wonder as a hen’s egg. In tho egg are quadrillions of molecules, arranged as tho white and the yolk. In this shape they maintain their molecular integrity and molecular motion for some time; but let some tiny germ of enter tho egg, and they go all to pieces. On the other hand, let the egg be subjected to gentle warmth —i.C., let certain waves of ether beat upon the molecules and a few atoms of oxygon have access to them, and, lo and behold! these millions and millions of molecules change their structure and change their position, and become the tissues and organs, the beak and heart and eyes and feathers of a bird. The arrangements, the collocations, tho permutations, and combinations of these millions of atoms and 'molecules must be infinite; yet every single one must go to its right place, for eventually every one is used, and rightly used, and the yory same atoms which made the soft structureless egg are now built up into a bird. Were one to take every letter in Shakespeare’s works and jumble them together and shut them into an eggshell, and were wo to find that, when subjected to a gentle heat, tho letters arranged themselves into plays and sonnets, the result would nofc be in the least more wonderful than the formation of a chick. Consider what precise proportions of the atoms nsust have been contained in tho egg to finish the finest" tip of the finest feather. Consider that there were in the original egg atoms of carbon and' hydrogen, and oxygen, and nitrogen, and iron, and calcium, and sulphur, and phosphorus, and sodium, and potassium, and that all these had to go to their places in the new combinations with no more guidance than the heat from a hen’s bosom. Consider even the grosser complexity of a chick—a complexity simple compared with the molecular combinations —its veins, and arteries, and nerves, and retinal, and ears, and bones, — and how all of these had to be accurately estimated and preordained in atoms. Consider those things, and wo will see that Bio atomic theory has merely deepened the mystery of life-

“Suppose some mathematical and chemical genius were able to collect somehow the atoms required to make a chick (just the same atoms that wo find in lucifer matches, and bread, and butter, .and soap, and such like things), suppose he were to combine them into the white and yolk of an egg. is it conceivable that he should give these millions and millions of molecules and atoms such special unstable equilibrium, such kinetic potentiality, that when filliped by heat they should rearrange themselves into the intricacies of blood, and bone, and heart, and lungs? Would it be possible for the exact number of A’s, and B’s. and C’s. and commas, and hyphens necessary for a book to be gathered together into an egg before the book was ever conceived? Perhaps; But would it be possible to give the individual letters such dynamical properties that, on the application of heat, they should dance together into words, and sentences, and paragraphs? It is ipconceivable ! Yet each blood-cell is as purposive as a Word, each pause of the heart as significant as a comma, each affinity of a molecule as full of mea.umg ae a hyphen, each nerve cell as Correlated as ,a sentence. “And think: these atoms in the egg have been gathered together in a few hours, and. have como from all quarters of the earth. Vot so long ago the oxygen may have

come on the wings of the wind from the leaf of a lily, the hydrogen from the teardrop of a maiden, the carbon from a factory chimney, the nitrogen from the plains of Chile, the sulphur from Mount Pelpe, and the iron from a meteorite. And, behold! there they all are collected together by rivers of blood into an eggshell, ready to make a chicken! Think, too; the atoms are not merely fastened together, but fastened together with a certain definite fixity', and by their meetings and partings give rise to the special phenomena of life. Verily, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again.* “What makes the atoms come together into such form? Heat? But how could heat, which is simply an agitation of the ether by vibrating atoms, effect such a miracle? What makes oxyge-n behave as oxygen, and carbon as carbon, all the universe over? These atoms, as we said, had never met before till they met in the hen s ovary, and yet, like a disciplined army, they go through the most complicated manoeuvres without a mistake. And, once together, they act together in the most marvellous way to keep intact „ the form they have taken. The neck bends, the beak opens, the throat swallows, the gizzard crushes, tno heart beats, and molar and molecular activities work hand in hand. “So much for a hen’s egg! ‘All these operations ’ (of the atoms), says Lc Bon, ‘so precise, so admirably adapted to one purpose, are directed by forces of which we have no conception, which act exactly as if they possessed a power of clairvoyance very superior to reason. What they accomplish every moment of our existence is far above what can be realised by the most advanced science.” N,.Z. UTILITY POULTRY CLUB. At the ninth egg-laying competition of tho New Zealand Utility Poultry Club the total of the 54 pens for the last week was 1563, making the total to date for the 18 weeks 19,539. The best record for the week was by silver Wyandottes—namely, those of W. 0. Sail (Oust), with 35 eggs. Tho next best was by W. Mercer’s (Howick) white Leghorns, with 34 eggs. R. A Lazarus (Hutt) heads tho list for the total to date for the 18 weeks with 490. followed by Win. Skull (Christchurch!, 483. and C. D. C. Eggers (Nelson) with 482 eggs. Mrs J. Mills’s (Dunedin) white Leghorns have a total of 32 for the week, and, .for the IS weeks, 418. In the fourth egg-laying competition for ducks the 1 total of the seven pens for the eighteenth week was 214, making tho aggregate 1618. The best record for the last week is by W. Knight’s No. 2 pen, with 37 eggs.