POULTRY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 34

POULTRY NOTES.

By

TERROR.

The Levin Poultry-keepers’ Association’s balance sheet for the la~t 12 months show's receipts from sale of eggs amounting to £6635 11s 9d, and of sales through the depots (presumably chiefly foodstuffs) £3950 16s. The association supplies crates to its members, and the value of crates and fillers in use is £96. The report states that the assets of the association are equal to £2 for every £1 of liability. The quantity of eggs marketed was 66,165 dozen, the bulk of which were sold in Wellington. The report concludes with a remark very much to the point, and it is one which has been made in these columns repeatedly—viz.: “Outsiders may query the advantages of co-operation and pay nothing, yet are ever ready to accept any advantages gained by the co-operation of others, and it is our organisation which makes the prices for those few who boast that they can do so well by marketing their eggs direct; but what price would the poultry farmers get without our organisations?” An Australian poultry scribe, “Alpha,” says: “The attitude of English producers towards the imported egg is interesting. Legislation is desired to compel the branding of eggs with the name of the country of origin. This would mean that all countries would be anxious to see that their eggs were a credit to them, as they would have to stand on their merits, as even patriotism itself will not sell produce unless it is of the best quality. Belgian eggs are on the London markets within 48 hours of being collected. Americans eat three eggs and the Belgians two where the English eat one. The most importance should be given to the quality of eggs for market. They should be large, smooth and cleanshelled, and if possible should each weigh at least 2|oz. Danes, Dutch, Belgians, and Italians all graded and packed better than the English.”

Although it is still too early to start hatching out chickens, it is not too early to think about what our procedure will be when the time for hatching and brooding arrives. It is for this reason that I am already, from week to week, for the information of the inexperienced, having so much to say about these subjects. Poultry-keepers should decide before hatching time where the nests for the broodies are to be, also how the nests are to be prepared, and how and when they intend to feed the broody hen and arrange for her supply of water and dust bath. There should be obtained before the event a supply of insect powder, so that the hen may be dusted before she takes to the nest and eggs. A hen infested with vermin cannot be a good sittc-; she fidgets about too much and breaks her eggs. If it is intended to hatch by artificial means, see now that the incubator is thoroughly clean, and try it out for a few hours to see whether the lamp, lamp wick, capsule, and regulators are in proper order and effective. Examine the thermometer—i.e., have it tested. If the thermometer you have is not registering right, you will never know within a few degrees what the temperature your eggs are being submitted to. Decide also now exactly where your incubator is to be worked with least inconvenience to yourself, provided, of course, that the room or shed is suitable, and make up your mind also which is the best part of the room or shed in which the incubator will be placed. Moving an incubator from one place to another involves other rearrangements to secure the desired temperature, ventilation, etc. See that the incubator stands level and firm. If stood on an earthen floor there is freedom from vibrations. The great point in brooding the chickens when artificially hatched is to avoid crowding. Crowded chickens sweat, get chills, diarrhoea, etc. See that the brooder is not too hot. A fair* heat may be maintained during the first week, but after that it should be steadily reduced. Chickens are quite hardy, and the sooner they are accustomed to the bracing atmosphere of the onen air the better. Even where chickens are reared intensively they should have open air. Take the case of people who live in greatly overheated rooms; they cannot bear a breath of cold air, neither can a chick. If chickens are confined to a very hot brooder and are put suddenly into a cold house to sleep, they naturally suffer intensively from cold, they huddle, and some of the weaker ones are smothered. The very difference in the size o the house as compared with the brooder is a difficulty. A handful of chicks cannot possibly warm up a big house, while the same batch of chicks in a box of a brooder would make the atmosphere far too hot.

Poultry-breeders who keep only from six to twelve birds may safely consider the whole of their stock a laying pen, consequently it is not to them that one speaks when advocating the mating-up of the breeding pen now. Where a large flock of birds is kept only a few of the best are required for breeding purposes, and it is now that those few should be culled out from the flock and set apart as a breeding pen. There is greater probability of getting a good percentage of fertile eggs if the breeding pen has had a month or two to settle down in new quarters and to get accustomed to one another than if they are mated up only a week or two before their eggs are required for the incubator. The composition of the breeding pen must be carefully looked after. Weakly or semi-developed specimens are not calculated to produce robust offspring, but they may be very generally relied on to provide you with a large number of infertile eggs, and the waste occasioned by such is not the only loss. Utility and Fancy.—The National Utility Poultry Society of England is setting up utility standards for poultry of the various breeds, and whilst it is at this work there is a good deal of controversy going on in the English poultry press as to the need or otherwise of utility standards. In the course of an interesting letter by one Captain A. Kaufman some very interesting points are raised, and as we here in New Zealand have already set up utility standards for what are with us popular breeds, both fanciers and utility men may be pleased to read a few extracts from his letter. The captain, after pointing out that the Poultry Club Iras for 50 years been compiling standards with the object of preserving many species of fowl for their beauty and usefulness, to the pride of the country and the benefit of the universe, and what the poultry industry is to-day is owing to the forethought and unfailing exertions of the club, says: “And the N.U.P.S. now asks ‘ how far the existing standards fail to meet the utility man’s requirements?’ One is forced to answer, Where the deuce would the utility man be to-day if it were not for those existing exhibition standards? We all love ‘ utility ’ in everything—up to a point. A rice pudding is utility food, and all very well in its way, but cannot hold its own against an exhibition plum pudding for flavour, size, or beauty, however much we may be told that a rice pudding is so much better for us. A utility banker supplying an unlimited amount of credit to our account would indeed be an ideal invention, but I am afraid the exhibition variety of banker will long continue to be the standard type and example. A utility racehorse would certainly be a joke, and a utility man is that which the capitalist wants, to make of the Socialist and the Socialist wants to make of fche capitalist, and neither of them want to be anything of the sort. Utility carried to an ultimate and logical conclusion to all units of a given variety or species of live thing is an absurdity, and cannot be achieved. To depart from the accepted standards drawn up by the specialist clubs and accepted for promulgation by the P.C., excent for sound technical reasons of the clubs themselves, is a foolish step indeed. In poultry ‘ utility ’ must be subordinate to exhibition, for the very simple reason that the tormer is pr< luced by the latter, and Nature’s hard and fast rule of reducing the size of all prolific producers and their production cannot bo altered. The ideal exhiLition-utility bird will always be what the experience, conviction, or opinion of the man judging chooses to make it, but if based upon a hard and fast Standard of five-finger exercises, prominent eyeball, tight feather, and the hundred-aiid-one fetishes that helps the utility judge to prove th layer, then I say quick and complete disaster will overtake the ideal. As game breeders know full well, it is not always the cocky little swagger who deals out the death blow and sires heroes; so in egg production it is often to'be observed that our snaky-headed, smooth-feathered, swanky little busybody, that won so many prizes, does not deliver the 2£oz eggs abundance. The trap nest shows us that the rather quiet, well-feathered, solidlooking individual of exhibition type, that made our utility judge turn up Iris eyes in horror and pass by, is producing her 20 eggs per month of first-class quality. I know many utility breeders who buy exhibition stock to save the existence of their flocks, and pedigree of dam and dam sire’s record are not on any account required. These breeders know full well that with proper management the beautiful exhibition 150-egger, with type and stamina, will breed the required stock for egg production and flesh—the 300egeer breeds. The whole object of commercial breeding is to evolve fowls that will produce beautiful specimens of their own species which will lay large and abundance of eggs, whilst maintaining their required size, type, colouring, and feathers. This can only be achieved by the individual talent of the breeder. You cannot standardise utility like a Ford car, and supply it ad lib. to the general public as a guaranteed article at so much a time, any more than you can expect to produce 12 classic winners from 12 eggs laid by a winning hen sired by a champion. Great artists seldom breed great artists. Derby winners rarely breed Derby winners, and how many Prime Ministers ever breed Prime Ministers? You can, however, strive to achieve an ideal, and poultry lends itself more rapidly than most other live stock to alteration and improvement when the required standard is within the hounds of possibility. But to let our theories iun away with us to such an extent that the near future will see an exhibition standard, a utility-exhibition standard, a utility standard, and no doubt a standard utility standard, until we reach a stand-anything-from-anybody standard, is the road to chaos.” The foregoing is only a short extract from a long letter; but I think it is very much to the point, and deserves consideration, particularly by those thinking of breeding from phenomenal layers.

Overcrowding a Cause of Colds aiul Roup.—“ Experience proves (writes the New South Wales Poultry Expert) “that the strictest attention to sanitation in its generally accepted sense will not ensure immunity from catarrh, colds, and roup. Catarrh and roup are essentially diseases, and no amount of disinfection or medicine will prevent their appearatve where crowding is tak-

iug place. The difficulty, however, is to make clear what is meant by crowding in a way that will be understood by everyone. A farmer perhaps imagines that because his poultry-houses will hold many more birds than are in them there is no question of crowding, yet his may be a particularly bad case. When all poultry farmers learn the lesson (as many nave done) that close perches and insufficient ventilation are the root causes of epidemics of these diseases, they will almost disappear as ills to be dreaded. The old idea that draughts are responsible for catarrh and roup, or that a bird having these diseases starts the epidemic should be scrapped. The truth of the matter is that if the conditions favourable to the development of these troubles are present we shall not long escape them. Along with these fallacies should also be dumped the use of medicines and disinfectants. In order to keep birds healthy more attention should be paid to airy housing and the width between the perches, which should not be less than 20in, and dropping boards should be thrown to the limbo of discarded things. More than anything else, they lead to close perching, and prevent a free circulation of air between the birds." The opinions expressed by the New South Wales Government poultry experts, just as those of our own Government -instructors, gain wide publicity in Australia and here in New Zealand, and they deserve the most respectful attention, for these officials have exceptional opportunities of gaining knowledge and have given plenty of evidence of ability to appreciate the value of facts as they meet with them, but it is possible that what applies in Australia may not in all cases apply in New Zealand, the climatic conditions, for instance, being different. What the expert says about overcrowding causing colds and roup is, it must be admitted, applicable here as elsewhere; but the statement that “the old idea that draughts are responsible for catarrh and roup should be scrapped" I cannot agree to, because my own experience proves differently. Let a direct draught play on a bird when perching, whether it be from an open door or u crack in the wall of the house, and a cold is sure to arise, and, as the bird will perch in the same place next night, aggravation of the cold iB certain, and hi due course will cause roup. The New South Wales expert dictum that “dropping boards should be thrown to the limbo of discarded things" will find advocates in New Zealand, but the opinion is far from general. The dropping hoard has its faults and its advantages. If cleansed daily there will be no ammonia arising from the droppings to the discomfort of the birds perched immediately above it; and the fact that the space beneath it becomes part of the scratching area of the shed is one very •’ood reason why the dropping board continues in favour. Reillys report penning in all 415 hens, 108 pullets, 152 cockerels. 97 ducks. 23 cock birds, five turkeys, and eight pigeons. The demand is for prime table poultry. Pullets, we regret, were rather neglected, and did not, in our opinion, realise their value. At the moment the demand is for stamped and guaranteed iggs. We received and sold: —Hens: 22 at 5s 4d, 17 at ss, 25 at 4s lOd, 22 at 4s Bd. 12 at 4s 6d, 19 at 4s 4d, 37 at 4s 2d, 58 at 4s, 65 at 3s lOd, 70 at 3s Bd, 43 at 3s 6d, 35 at 3s 4d. Pullets: 26 at 19s, 13 at 17s, 15 at 14s, 26 at 13s, 14 at 12s, 12 at lls, 2 at 6s. Cockerels: 16 at 12s Cd, 25 at 12s 6d, 16 at 12s, 15 at 9s 6d, 24 at 9s, 13 at Bs, 8 at 7s, 12 at Os, 19 at ss, 2at 4s, 2 at 3s. Ducks: 15 at Bs, 26 at 6s 6d. 29 at 6s, 22 at 4s Bd, 5 at 3s. Cock Birds: 4 at 4s Bd. 12 at 4s 6d. 5 at 4s, 2 at 3s 4d. Pigeons: 8 at Is 6d. Pullets: White Leghorn, 10s to 20s; Rhode Island Red, 15s to 20s; Silver Wyandotte, 13s to 16s; Black Orpington, 10s, to 14s—all at per pair. Turkeys: 2 at Is Oid per lb, 3 at 11-Jd.

As a result of strong protests made to the Highways Hoard by the South Canterbury Automobile Association, in regard to the proposed closing of the Kangitatatraffic bridge during the carrying out of repair, the secretary of the association (Mr E. A. Scott) has received a telegram from the Highways Hoard (reports the Timnru Herald) advising that arrangements have lieen made with the Ashburton County Council to have the bridge kept open for traffic while repairs are being effected.