THE POULTRY RUN

Southland Times, Issue 19823, 20 March 1926, Page 15

THE POULTRY RUN

NEWS AND NOTES

(By

“Leghorn.”

Manv make the mistake of feeding too heavily while conditioning their birds for the show. The birds are confined and have little chance for exercise, so digestion to a certain extent is retarded, and overfeeding brings. on derangements. Unless birds are properly conditioned (prepared) they will not stand the strain of cooping, and will go out of condition during the show. Mrs Blank says she does not know how she could have got on during the past month or two without her poultry, since her husband has worked very little. However, with her thirty head of poultry she has earned a guinea a week by selling eggs. She says she only feeds her fowls twice daily, and has not a sick fowl in her run. Says a writer: “When the biologists have finally settled what they mean by a vitamine (A, B C, and so on) it will be found that barley contains them all in good proportions, for barley is very rich in iron and phosphorus; and any man or woman (and presumably fowl utility-fancy) who gets these constituents in his or her daily diet need not worry about the other vitamines or the rest of the alphabet.” It appears to me that the writer I have quoted has not really touched on the vitamine content of barley in the foregoing, nor do I think he is correctly classing iron and phosphorus with “other vitamines,” but all the same, in the past we have narrowed too much the range of foods supplied to poultry, and it is desirable that this should be changed. Personally I have found that if a little barley is left to soak for say, twenty-four hours, and is then mixed in with the soft food, the fowls not only relish the mash but are kept healthy. It does not follow that because you allow ample perching room for your fowls in their roosting quarters that there is no overcrowding. If you visit the roosts at night time you may find the birds all, as it were, in a heap. This is especially the danger where there are two or three perches, about a foot apart, and at the same level. When fowls crowd up in this way they become overheated at night and catch colds in the cold winter mornings. Mr James Hadlington, a Canadian poultry expert, says: “It is not generally realised that close perches mean crowding. One sees many poultry-houses where the perches are not more than 12in to 15in apart. In such houses the birds are packed at night in a mass (head-to-tail and vice versa), almost like sardines in a tin. One can imagine what this means on a hot night, especially where the house is not too well ventilated. It should also be remembered that open-fronted houses are not sufficiently ventilated without a good aperture at the back. The result following on this class of perching are sometimes disastrous. Over-heated pullets or hens are not likely to remain in a condition conducive to laying, and premature moult is often the result. Close roosts are also responsible for a good deal of picking of the cloaca on the perches in the daytime, and consequent cases of cannibalism. They are also an incentive to feather picking.” The Campine (pronounced kampeen) is proclaimed to be a very useful little fowl. In general appearance it is more like the Silver-pencilled Hamburg than any other British fowl. Its chief difference from the Hamburg is that it has a small single comb, whereas the Hamburg has a large ross comb. Both breeds have probably a common ancestor of great antiquity. The breed has come to us from Belgium, where it has keen known for centuries. The Campine is a very active bird, but not wild like the Ancona. The general colour of a good specimen is a rich bettie green, with mackerel barrings evenly distributed over the plumage so as to appear to make rings round the body. The neck hackles are a silvery white, while the saddle hackle should be barred like the body. The legs are a slaty blue. They are an exceedingly handsome and distinct race, very precocious and hardy, and not difficult to rear. They are non-sitters, and lay an abundance of white eggs of a good marketable size. What are called the wasters among the cockrels are plump little birds, ready for the table at twelve weeks old. There are gold Campines as well as silver, but they are not so well known. In the interest of the breed it is to be hoped that there will be no undue straining after size. If so the egg basket will suffer.

INCUBATION METHODS USED IN CHINA Few poultrymen who have undertaken the incubation of eggs for a succession of seasons can have failed to have tried to devise some new and simple method of doing so. Some have put their ideas into practice, and by doing so have found that there was, in their theories, something amiss, and those who have made discoveries of value have been few in number, and their successes have been in the direction of improved methods of ventilation and of supplying moisture. All poultry-keepers interested in this subject will appreciate the following account of how incubation is effected in China in what are described as “incubator shops”;— Incubator shops with, a capacity of 100,000 to 200,000 eggs are not uncommon in China. The incubators in a single plant may hatch as many as 8,000 to 12,000 chicks a day, and this rate is maintained for seven to nine months of the year (says the Chinese Economic Bulletin). The Chinese method of incubating eggs is efficient and economical when large-scale production is maintained, and experts often express astonishment that it has not been transplanted to the West. Some chicks are hatched under sitting hens, but by far the greater number are hatched in the large incubator shops throughout the country. Canton and Wuchow in the south, and Hankow and Shanghai in Central China, are the largest incubator centres. In Honam, a suburb of Canton, there are some eight of these shops, with a capacity of 40,000 to 200,000 eggs. The principle of the fireless cooker is made use of in heating the eggs. The eggs are first thoroughly warmed to a temperature of 103 deg Fahr., or a fraction of a degree less. This is done by placing the eggs in an oven-like room with brick walls. This room is about 6ft wide, 10ft high, and 10ft long. The eggs are placed in baskets on shelves lining the walls of the room. Heat is furnished by charcoal, which does not smoke in burning, in earthenware pots placed on the floors of the room. Sometimes baskets containing the eggs are placed in large stone jars, and a slow charcoal fire is kept burning continuously against the outside of, or underneath, the jars throughout the incubating process. The latter method is used in Shanghai, Hankow, and other places in Central and North China, where the climate is colder than in the southern part of the country, necessitating considerable heating during the hatching season. Another method used in the Canton region, is to place the eggs on the roof of the shop in warm sunlight until they are heated through to the proper temperature. BASKETS CONTAINING 1,000 EGGS After the eggs have been heated to the desired temperature, either in the sun or in a special heating room, they are placed in cylindrical baskets about 24in diameter and 30in deep. Each basket holds about 1,000 eggs. The sides of the basket are made of firmly-packed rice straw, and are about I jin thick. They are lined with a soft, thick paper, somewhat like asbestos. The baskets are thoroughly wanned before they are filled with eggs. The eggs are placed in layers one egg deep, separated by a thin square cloth. Twice a day they are changed from one basket to another. The operator takes the four corners of the cloth in one hand and transfers the eggs on it, about 100, to the other basket. This is done with all the layers until the eggs in all the baskets have been transferred to new .baskets. This process takes the place of hand turning in modern incubators. The eggs are kept in the baskets until about the fourteenth day, when they are transferred to large trays about 6ft wide, 18ft long, and 3in deep. Each tray holds about 10,000 eggs. The bottom of the. tray is lined with

soft, thick paper, or with blankets. The amount of depends on the stage of incubation and the weather. In warm weather no covering is needed for the last three or four days of the incubation period, since the developing chick in the egg generates a certain amount of heat. Just before hatching the number of layers in each tray is reduced to one. One end of the tray is left empty for about 2ft of its length, and twice a day eggs are turned by being pushed or rolled with the hands and forearms, several dozen eggs at a time, towards the empty end, until the eggs in the tray have been rolled or turned. The eggs are candled twice. The first candling is done on the third and the second on the seventh day of incubation. The infertile eggs are sold; so there is a minimum of loss from unhatched eggs. THERMOMETERS NOT USED. Probably the most interesting point about the whole process is that no thermometer is used. Long practice has taught the caretakers to judge temperatures quickly and accurately without the aid of such an instrument. The men in charge sleep in the incubating room, or in an adjoining room. Someone is 6n duty constantly, examining and regulating each basket or tray, according to its individual needs, through the management of doors, shifting of baskets, or adjusting of covers. When a caretaker desires to know if the eggs in a particular basket are the proper temperature he presses the egg against the closed lid of his eye socket in such a way that the egg comes in contact with a relatively large sur/ace of skin especially sensitive to temperature. As soon as the eggs hatch the chicks are placed in circular bamboo baskets about 3ft in diameter -and Bin deep. They are ready for sale as soon as they are dry. The hatching percentage of fertile eggs usually runs to about 75 for fertile chicken eggs, and 90 for fertile duck eggs. With better sanitation, ventilation, and construction of the buildings so as to be able better to regulate the temperature, and with, the use of thermometers, it is the general opinion that this method of hatching eggs on a large scale in warm climates should prove as satisfactory as modern incubators. The chicks and ducklings are generally contracted for in advance in large lots by chick dealers and large duck feeders. Large chicken feeding farms are not common, but large duck feeding farms are seen everywhere in the delta regions. THE COMPLETE POULTRY FARMER A man starting, who has to make his way in the world, and who has decided upon poultry fanning, is faced with the ordinary difficulties which beset any man who is starting to cut out his own career. There are difficulties in every trade, and those who are pupils on a farm, who are “learning the game,” would be wise to take in everything while they can at someone else’s expense. When they begin on their own account any faults committed fall upon themselves. Instances are not uncommon where people have had a year or so training on a poultry farm, and yet they have no knowledge of how to make up a laying mash, or what are the essentials in house construction—they have had every opportunity, but have wasted them.

The most essential qualities which go to make up an ideal poultry farmer should be set out: (1) natural aptitude for the life, (2) powers of observation, either cultivated or natural, (3) commonsense, and (4) method and business instincts.

In the past, and even at the present time, there have been numerous failures in poultry—at one time they were so bad that they gave the industry a bad name—but actually the industry was by no means to blame. It was the custom to put the “fool of the family” into poultry farming, the general idea being that there was nothing to do but walk around “distributing the golden grain and picking up the luscious ova.” Those who have tried it know it is quite a different thing. Many have been put into poultry farming who have never had the aptitude for it. There are, of course, other failures, through ignorance, and other causes. There is the man who starts out with every intention of “making good,” who is very keen, has all sorts of ideas, but who, after a year or so, finds the hard work, the monotonous winters, and so forth, are very trying, his zeal flags, and’ then he drops out —he has no stability or stamina. If one does not like the life one will never make good at it, and the question to be decided when starting is that it is to be a life’s work. The ideal poultry farmer must have an extraordinary amount of grit and pluck, for there are sure to be rough, times, particularly in the first two or three lean years. In many cases it is four or five years before any return is seen, and it is touch and go many a time before the poultry keeper get« through with it.

To-day 'there is a great need for specialisation, and in poultry farming there is possibly more need of it than in any other line of business. There are four or five different branches, and no one is ever likely to succeed in combining two. There is commercial egg-farming, where layers are kept, and the income is derived solely from the sale of market eggs; and then the fancier, who has to breed and sell his stock chiefly for exhibition purposes. Every one must make up one’s mind in starting which branch will suit them best, and one must stick to that one, aiming at making it perfect—no half-hearted measures will do if it is to be successful.