THE POULTRY RUN

Southland Times, Issue 19900, 19 June 1926, Page 15 (Supplement)

THE POULTRY RUN

NEWS AND NOTES. . (By “Leghorn.”) HINTS FOR BEGINNERS. DIFFICULTIES TO MET. MATING OF THE BIRDS. At this season of the year our thoughts turn to the subject of breeding and the | breeding stock. We are naturally con- • fronted with the egg question, and I should like to mention to the beginner a few facts : that have very possibly escaped his notice, ; writes G.H. in the Auckland Herald. | First, with reference to the past history of the breeders, not so much the distant, • but the immediate, past. Now, what must be pretty obvious to anyone is the fact that however important the necessity of getting plenty of April and May eggs from the laying stocky the chief—nay, the only—business of a breeder should be to breed; if, . therefore, you obtain quantities of eggs I from breeding females at a time when they cannot possibly be fertile, you are obviously only wasting the energies of the birds. i It matters but little if you are egg.ess, so far as breeders are concerned, when eggs are 3/- a dozen, if you can turn out more fertile eggs a little later on, when surely . they are worth at least double as settings. I It must also be remembered that when pul- • lets being laying in March and April there is an extreme probability that a partial moult will set in about July. HEALTH OF THE BIRDS. Everyone will readily admit that health and vigour must be the prime considerations as regards breeding stock. Now, when a bird is in the primest condition, it looks its best, iis feathers are complete in every detail, they shine with gloss, the head points glow with colour, and energy is at its highest point. This period, therefore, must be the ideal one at which to commence breeding from such a bird. I do not mean to suggest, in making this statement, that a female does not remain in good breeding condition for three or four i months, but am merely endeavouring to j show that if you have allowed your pullets or hens to lay freely, two or three months in advance of the breeding season, you have more or less wasted some of their best chick-producing energies. TROUBLE WITH LATE BROODS. Many and many a poultry-keeper has told me that, while he has no difficulty in i rearing early chicks and getting them to grow well, his late broods never seem to be of much use. “They’re small and not particularly bright,” he will say, perhaps, “and what annoys me is that Johnson, whose methods of poultry-keeping are shocking, hatches later than I do, yet his November chickens do better than my September ones.” The reason is not far to seek. The fancier’s stock birds are worn out as to their breeding vigour; they have been mated since May, while Johnson’s bad management resulted in very few fertile eggs in September or October, with the result his stock were at the time in prime breeding condition. EGG-LAYING AND MATING. A male bird will pay attention only to such of his mates as happen to be laying, or very near it. It follows, therefore, that if you have but one laying bird in a pen it is extremely probable that she will suffer from too frequent attentions and get overfertilised. The beginner should, therefore, endeavour to make sure that two or more of the cock’s mates are somewhere near i laying when he mates them up; if he can- | not see this by the brilliance of the comb I and wattles, the space between the end of | the pelvic bones (situated just beneath | the vent), will afford him a very good inj dication of the state of things; in the case i of a hen in full lay there is a space of ' three fingers’ width between these bones, ! while, when a bird is right out of condition, I you can scarcely get one finger between i them—the space widens gradually in fact as the bird gets nearer to laying. NUMBER OF MALE BIRDS. Beginners are often at a loss to know how many mates to put to a male bird, and to them I would reply, “Study your re-qufl-ements, your run, and, above all, your male; and then act accordingly.” There is no definite number, since a vigorous cock- . erel at free range will fertilise all the eggs of a dozen pullets in midwinter, while another of the same variety in cramped quarters will manage only two or three mates successfully. To the beginner who is also a fancier, I would strongly advise the practice of mating up two, or at the most three, of his very best females to the pick of his males. In order to avoid too frequent intercourse the roost should be visited three evenings a week, and the cock removed to a training pen, and there confined until the afternoon feed on the day following, when he is again to be returned to his mates, having been liberally fed meanwhile. This little bit of extra trouble will be amply repaid by extra vigour in the chicks. It is the custom in a great many wellknown breeders’ yards to keep the males confined and fed separately every morning, being liberated about 11 a.m. The begin - ner should aim for the type of cock that flies at his shins on his entering the pen, for the best sires have the highest spirit, are always crowing and unselfishly feeding their hens; let him beware the silent greedy cock of peculiar action, for he will rarely beget vigorous progeny. HOUSING AND FEEDING. I have endeavoured. in previous articles to show that the females, previous to being mated, should have been housed in openfronted houses with movable roosts, and kept in rather spare condition on simple, but nourishing foodstuffs. If this has been the case, the change of conditions when they are mated are all the more likely to result in eggs at an early date. Nothing sensible is now too good for the breeders, but for goodness’ sake do not fall into the common error that coddling and over-feeding are what the birds require. A warm, dry roost (but well ventilated), with a roomy scratching shed attabhed, and the latter filled with good dusting and scratching material, are all that is necessary in the

way of housing, while the run should be as roomy as possible, and sheltered as much as possible from the cold winds. The food given now must be warming, nourishing, and the least bit stimulating. The beginner should visit the roosts from time to time after dusk, and see whether all the birds are perching, since sometimes a hen or two will take to sleeping in the nest-boxes in a corner beneath the perches, and naturally this Kad habit and must be prevented. Placing the delinquents by the side of the others on the perches a time or two will, probably have the desired effect. A vote of coinfidence in th? Control Board’s policy and of thanks to Mr Grounds for his address was passed unanimo’isly. NEWS AND NOTES. Cleanliness is the silver key to success in the poultry business. It is so strongly essential that, given good poultry to start with, it is nearly all of it, and yet it is the last thing many poultry-keepers think necessary. The cause of crop binding in fowls can often be traced to lack of grit as well as to a too liberal diet of fibrous substances, such as potato and apple parings or coarse grass. If you want great returns from your poultry yards, such returns must be arranged for beforehand. Nothing “happens,” not even death.