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POULTRY NOTES

(By "Rock-”) THE HOUSING OF LAYING STOCK. The few remarks that I am about to make on this most important and inIteresting feature of poultry-keeping axe (inspired by long experience, and also by the practical use of houses, all of which have been built by my own men. They have been more or less remodelled as occasion required, and thus more knowledge has been acquired. The first point to be considered in deciding on the tyre of house to be employed is the system on which the birds have to be kept. Whether the houses arc for the backyard, the small unit with intensive open run, the semi-intensi\e system, or the intensive, or for the latter’s antithesis, viz., free range. 1 mav say that as far as this country is concerned 1 am a strong advocate for giving an open run, if any way passible, not necessarily to be used all the I time, but. if possible, birds should have ! the opportunity, if on}y for an hour or | so, a few times a week to take the fresh air unrestricted by any covering. It is obvious that in this short article I cannot go closely into detail, but must run rapidly through the description of the houses I should recommend for the various systems indicated. THE BACKYARDER’S HOUSE. I may include the backyarder's and intensive house under one heading. Por the backyarder must be an intensivist, though I should strongly advise even him to attach a small open run to be used as circumstances and weather permit. In building an intensive house the great thing is to give as nearly as possible natural conditions. By this I mean the birds should be brought as closely as possible in contact with the fresh air. It seems to me that in their anxiety to prevent rain driving into the houses, the designers of intensive houses have put too many obstructions to light, air and sunshine over the fronts of the houses. The intensive sbeds I employ have a wide open front, all of wire netting, the fixed skirting boards are very low, net more than six inches above floor level, and the whole front is open in fine weather. For bad weather the skirting boards can be heightened by placing sections above the fixed low hoard, and a wide hood or verandah fixed above prevents rain driving in. A good rule to observe in building an intensive house is to make it twice as long as it is deep. I have some 32ft x IGft and 40 x 16ft. Controllable back ventilation should be given. . I like an intensive house to be lofty; mine are 7ft Gin high in front, and sft at hack. FLOORS OF INTENSIVE HOUSES.

The floors of intensive houses are an important factor. I would bar wooden floors, they are to expensive, not very durable, and, owing to expansion and contraction, are apt to become leaky. One excellent authority says rammed earth floors arc best, but these must be thoroughly disinfected from time to lime. Personally I lean rather to cement and concrete floors thickly covered with peat moss litter; these floors are everlasting, and cannot become tainted, but it is desirable to use a little non-poisonous disinfectant, either by spraying or in powder form, such as Izal, on or in the litter. . . The perches of all intensive houses should be sprayed constantly with disinfectant; this will prevent fleas, red mite, and disease. The perches should be short, and placed at right angles to the back, and personally 1 greatly dislike manure boards, preferring to divide off the space below the perches from the rest of the floor by a vertical board S inches wide. If the house exceeds 10ft in length it should he stalled off in tlie centre by a partition reaching quite halfway across the house from the back; litis is to check circulating draughts: if the house is a very long one, one division should he placed at least every -0 feet. It saves much labour if in a large house a space is divided off in which to keep food, grit and shell, etc. ihe broody cage should he placed on the frame that carries the perches. All mj large houses, either intensive or semiintensivc, are spouted, and the water led into tanks, which supply in average weather all the water required. HOUSES WITH OR WITHOUT RUNS. Intensive houses with no runs can be built in long rows; semi-intensive must be detached, the amount of run necessary for the best use for a scini-inten-sivc house is 20 square yards P er ),r< » or aheut 210 to the acre. This should be divided in two, and eacli run use alternately. The type of house depends to a certain extent on the tutu - tion. Intensive houses should be but in farm sheltered spots, so that the fronts can be open and allow the bird 3 to come out close to the low fixed s i ing board and bask in the sunshine and get the air as fresh as possible. Of course, when the birds have continual access to large open runs, tins does not matter so much, and the semiintensive house may be either as described. or the front many be closed up permanently much highci, u i , glass must be used for lighting houses. The fronts of my semi-inten-sive houses are hoarded up -ft, then comes a row of glass 2ft, then one foot more boards, leaving 4ft for wire netti « Thev are thus nine feet high, a hood 2ft high protects the netting, and shutters sliding up and down dose o:ft t _ glass if clown, and protecting the lo e 2ft of the wire netting if tip. T e shutters also have, glass windows let in. PERSON AH EXPERIENCES. In mv large semi-intensive plant we had much trouble with colds and roup until one-inch holes were bored ever* 9 inches along the back under the eaves; these are never closed, winter oi snmmer. These houses were built in 1.1-, and are 20ft deep by 35ft long. I should build them now 4 oft long and Ibft deep, on the semi-intensive system they would hold 150 head, on the intensive 120 head. The skirting hoard, made in sections, is worth my readers’ consideration, especially for intensive houses. There can be two sections if necessary, one above the other. For intensive work it would not involve much labour to put up or take down these sections as t e weather allows; it seems to me to put a fowl permanently behind a -ft fixed skirling board is like jiutting a man behind an Sft wall. For a number of semi-intensive houses scattered over a considerable area it is a different matter; the work of adjusting the skirting board might not get done. THE SMALL UNIT. For the small unit of 12 or 15 birds —and 1 would keep no larger number

(ban these together in one open run house Cft long, sft deep. sft high in front, and 4ft at back would suffice for all purposes: boarded up 3ft in front, with two feet of wire netting above, and protected by a hood. The ventilation should he controlled by an opening under the caves at hack, which in cold weather can he closed, but I should put, pay, half a dozen 1-inch holes, as high up as possible, along Dig back, which would never ho closed. liaised nest boxes, with a broody cage on the perch rest, should he added. 1 may say that if the runs are permanently occupied they should be 20 yards by 25 yards for 12 to 15 birds, equalling about 130 to li>o to the acre. For free range, the farmer s only way of keeping poultry economically with the other factors of the farm, strong houses on wheels are the only ones suitable. holding, say, in a house Oft long and sft wide, 25 birds. These can he moved from snot to spot as the land becomes available; in fact they would be worked on the same lines as those on. which we keen sheep or cattle. As long, however, as the fox is allowed to be at large, farmers .bad better leave poultrykeeping to any extent alone.—T. W. Doovey.

The dietary for the birds in the Southland Egg-laying Competition is the same as that to be given at the competition in Christchurch and which appeared some weeks ago in this column. "Whe.ther the local committee have been guided in their choice of feeding the mash in the evening in preference to gram by someone with practical experience of this system of feeding, I don’t know. Feeding the mash in the evening is not likely to influence egg-production either way, but on account of it being quicker digested, the writer is inclined to think that it will result in a greater number q£ eggs being dropped from the perches, and subsequently lead to the undesirable habit of egg-eating.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19160212.2.4

Bibliographic details

Southland Times, Issue 17655, 12 February 1916, Page 2

Word Count
1,502

POULTRY NOTES Southland Times, Issue 17655, 12 February 1916, Page 2

POULTRY NOTES Southland Times, Issue 17655, 12 February 1916, Page 2