POULTRY NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 23674, 24 November 1938, Page 13

POULTRY NOTES

BY

A. PEAT

The official column of the Invercargill Poultry, Pigeon, Canary and Pet Club, and the Invercargill Canary and Cage Bird Specialists Club.

The breeding season is now over and the cost, work and anxiety of rearing sufficient young stock to keep up the flock often makes breeders wish they could produce hens that would lay for years so that it would not be necessary to renew the flock each year as it is at present. Therefore, this report which appeared in The Feathered World, of a Dutchman’s success in Germany gives valuable information to anyone desirous of establishing a long-producing strain:

What is the biggest egg score put up in the life of a single hen? The longest official record that we have heard of has. been registered recently by a White Leghorn on a poultry farm at Emlichheim, Hanover, Germany. This remarkable hen, hatched in 1925, died 11 years after in 1936, having laid 1395 eggs.

Her full sequence is worth recording: 279 eggs (averaging 2joz), 220, 192, 176, 148, 132, 55, 112, 77, 4. Yet this record is by no means outstanding on a farm which has made a special study of longevity and stamina. He has been a breeder since 1903, and has been line breeding White Leghorns since 1923. He sells over 100,000 chicks yearly, and at the same time maintains a flock of 6500, and replenishes his stock yearly from 350 to 400 special White Leghorn hens mated in single pens of 15 birds. In order that Herr ten Brink may know exactly what progeny these 400 hens produce, he does not sell any daughters from these particular birds, and - only a limited number of cockerels. He gets an average of 15 daughters from each hen—in spite of the fact that these hens are two to nine years old—and in some cases they produce up to 30 pullets. PROGENY RECORDS ' The records of all these pullets are carefully inscribed in a “Daughter Egg Production Book.” A new volume is started each year, and in it each hen receives a page to herself in which her pedigree to four generations is recorded, together with her own trapnest records for each year, as well as the first, and even second, year records of all her daughters in a particular year. The number of eggs set is given, as well as the percentage of fertility and the number of chicks hatched. Thus one comes across records like these:— Hen No. 353.—1 n second year 56 (eggs set) —55 (fertility) —44 chicks hatched, of which 16 pullets were trapped; eight for their second year. Hen No. 392.—1 n second year—63 eggs—62—ss chicks, of which 24 pullets were trapped, 12 for the second year (one rather small-egger—lls/16th oz—laying 275 and 248 eggs!). Hen No. .1100. —In second year—ss—- — which six daughters survived to be trapped their second year (one laying 306 eggs—2 l-16th oz —and 211.'). Although no pullets are used for supplying renewals to the farm, they are mated up for outside customers. For years pullets’ chicks have been sold with the utmost satisfaction, chiefly to egg farmers who do not breed themselves. A fetish is not simply made of longevity. Because a hen has lived for four years, she is not necessarily retained as a breeder. Unless she is in perfect health at this age, and has given good sons and daughters in her second and third yeans, in addition to high hatchability, she is scrapped. Yet in spite of this rigid rule, of a total of 1003 hens bred from in 1937 (including the special 400 for replacing the farm’s stock) 263 were four years old, 71 were five years old, 10 were , six years old, three were seven years old, four were eight years old and one was nine years old. The remaining 651 were three years old. SPECIAL “SMALL EGG” STRAIN In regard to egg records, 25 of these hens, ranging between five and nine years of age, have laid over 850 eggs each. Twenty actually laid over 900 eggs and 11 over 1000 eggs. In only seven instances did the first year’s record exceed 250, and in regard to egg size, no hen is admitted as a breeder which does not lay an egg of two ounces, ex- . cept in one particular strain, although two and one-eighth ounces is considered quite high enough, and the best egg size is considered to be two and onesixteenth to two and three-sixteenth ounces for a hen, and a pullet should ! reach two ounces by the end of the : second month.

But Herr ten Brink has one “splendid strain” in which egg size is definitely a shade under two ounces, but the hens must have a pullet year record of over 250 eggs. In the same way, he has some good strains in which egg weight averages two and five-sixteenth ounces to two and a-half ounces.

Big egg size is obviously not regarded as of such importance as over here. The fact that small egg strains are deliberately bred and judiciously crossed with big egg strains may be one of the significant factors which accounts for the remarkable health on this farm.

By selecting for longevity and progeny, some remarkable hens have been produced. For instance, Herr ten Brink staged an unusual exhibit at a local show last summer. This was of four hens —daughter, dam, grand dam and great-grand dam. But this was not the most extraordinary feature. All these birds were bied when their mothers were two years old (for no pullet breeding is done). They were hatched respectively in 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936, so that their combined ages amounted to 16 and their total egg production (unfinished) to 2842 eggs. The great-great-grand dam only died a month before the show, otherwise five generations could have been exhibited. This hen was the 11-year-old referred to above.

Other equally extraordinary records have been produced. For instance, a hen which herself laid 992 eggs in six years, bred eight daughters in 1933 which averaged 223 eggs each, hatched 10 daughters in 1934, which averaged 227 eggs each, and 15 daughters in 1935 which averaged 228 eggs each. Of these daughters, one hatched in 1933 laid 853 eggs in four years and produced 10 daughters in 1935 which averaged 236 eggs each. But, as Herr ten Brink is most anxious to emphasize, it is the sheerest

folly to breed from birds with good egg records if they do not also look the part He is particularly emphatic that they should look clean about the face, with dark orange eyes and plenty of vitality. He does not advise selecting for too much in the first breeding season, thbt is, when the bird is two years old. First of all, he advises, try and get high records with every indication of vitality and good body size. Every year after selection can be made on further factors' such as big eggs, winter record, hatchability, rearability and fertility. The breeder, says Herr ten Brink, who wants to produce an ideal bird ,in a few years generally goes wrong in those years. A breeder usually finds, for example, that he has some exceptionally good layers, or a son of a splendid layer, and he makes up his mind even before breeding: “I will use for my best breeding pen next year a son of these fine hens and cock.”

If, however, this mating begins to go wrong, for instance the' fertility of the pen is bad or the hatchability not too good, or if the progeny at two; to four months are not as good as the rest of the growers—then the breeder should not be impatient. He had far better take another vigorous cockerel from any other good breeding pen, such as a halfbrother. as try to ‘pep up” the original cockerel, which was really no good or even rotten.

The real test, after all, of what is a good cockerel or pullet is the bird which proves the best grower in the flock at an age of two to four months from a family with a minimum of mortality. Supposing, says this conscientious Dutch breeder, you divide your young stock into 20 per cent, best growers with much vitality, 60 per cent, good ones, 20 per cent, medium and had chickens. Then the males for breeding should only be taken out of the 20 per cent, best ones, pullets for recording the first year from the 20 per cent, and 60 per cent.

This farm has always preserved a remarkablly clean bill of health. It is clear that the greatest care is taken in introducing fresh blood from outside, and that this is not done very often.

So many real strains are bred at Emlichheim, and with such care, that a considerable amount of line breeding or inbreeding has been done with impunity.

As is well known, the German poultry farmer is not allowed to give his birds a big proportion of foods which are fit for human consumption. Thus he is obliged to change'his menu according to what is available. In the season 193536, Herr ten Brink had to change his rations almost month bymonth, yet he had the highest flock average this year than in any previous one! These are two of the most important new foods used at Wilhelmina Poultry Farm:—Potato flakes up to 25 per cent.; dried sugar beet up to 20'per cent. These foods Herr ten Brink finds have a salutary effect on egg production. At the present moment he is feeding the following laying mash: — Oatmeal ' 15 Dried yeast 2 Maize nteal 10 Phosphate 1.4 Cod-fish meal 10 Carbonate 0.6 Meat meal 10 Cod-liver oil 2 Potato flakes 20 Wheat germ 6 Bran of wheat 13 Dried sugar beet 10 100

Perhaps this interesting sidelight on German poultry feeding, used on a disease-free farm, may,put some ideas into the heads of English manufacturers anxious to assist home producers to cheapen their rations.

EGG-LAYING CONTESTS MASSEY COLLEGE (33rd week) Single Heavy Breeds

*Mrs R. Willers (B.O.) 6 208 L. Manson (R.1.R.) 6 198 W. Larsen (A. 0. 6 192 L. Manson (R.1.R.) 7 181 Single Light Breeds ♦F. Allen (W.L.) 7 205 J. Annan (W.L.) 5 198 F. Allen (W.L.) 6 ’ 195 Ancona P.F. (W.L.) 7 190 Heavy Breeds (six birds) W. Larsen (A. 0. 32 1148 G. Edge (R.1.R.) 22 1012 E. Stephenson (A. 0. 979 L. Hooper (B.O.) 14 926 Light Breeds (six birds) J. Wilson (W.L.) 34 1100 F. Allen (W.L.) 36 1092 Cotswold (W.L.) 25 1039 J. Mold (W.L.) 31 1027 TARANAKI (34th week) Single Light Breeds J. Hazelwood (W.L.) 6 j 220 F. Allen (W.L.) 6 192 J. Hazelwood (W.L.) 6 191 Mrs D. Cottell (W.L.) 4 184 Single Heavy Breeds S. Bason (Lang.) 6 209 J. Hurdle (A. 0. 6 203 Mrs Hickman (R.1.R.) 6 202 Mrs Moreland (A. 0. 6 201 Ducks (single) Mrs Revell (F.W.R.) 7 220 Mrs E. Kelly (W.L.) 6 214 C. Cousens (K.C.) 5 178 C. Cousens (K.C.) 5 176 Light Breeds (three birds) Mrs Tippett (W.L.) 15 514 C. Hansen (W.L.) 11 481 F. Allen (W.L.) 16 469 J. Hazelwood (W.L.) 12 428 Heavy Breeds (three birds) S. Bason (Lang.) 17 547 J. Hurdle (A. 0. 16 534 Mrs Moreland (A. 0. 15 479 Mrs Hickman (R.1.R.) 11 457 AUCKLAND (31st week) *J. Anderson (B.O.) 38 858 S. Vaile (B.O.) 34 853 ♦N. McNair (B.O.) 27 814 J. Nixon (B.O.) 30 787 Light Breeds (six birds) Mrs Chitty (W.L.) 34 772 ♦Mrs Lett (W.L.) 31 718 ♦Cotswold P.F. (W.L.) 23 665 . E. Vernall (W.L.) 33 634 I

PAPANUI (34th week) TEST No. I.—J. H. SHAW MEMORIAL CHALLENGE. For light and heavy

TEST No. 2—WHITE LEGHORN SINGLEHEN TEST. Three pure-bred pullets to be single-penned.

TEST 3—BLACK ' ORPINGTONS AND AUSTRALORPS.

TEST 4—ANY VARIETY LIGHT OR HEAVY BREEDS, other than White Leghorns

TEST S—SINGLE HEN TEST, LIGHT AND HEAVY BREEDS. Six Purebred Pullets

TEST 6—SINGLE DUCK TEST.

Single All Breeds *K. Powelt (B.O.) 5 175 •E. WeHs (B.O.) 0 166 *Sunny River P.F. (W.L.) 5 165 S. Huxtable (B.O.) 5 ' 158 Light Breeds (four birds) Mrs H. Turner (W.L.) 26 596 H. Mumme (W.L.) 20 548 G. Douglas (W.L:) 23 523 J. Woodall (W.L.) 20 520 Heavy Breeds (four birds) ♦A. Connell (B.O.) 21 679 N. McNair (B.O.) 16 642 *T. Cowley (B.O.) 17 627 *N. McNair (B.O.) 18 601 Ducks (four birds) 757 Mrs Finn (K.C.) C. Cousens (K.C.) 24 714 S. Vaile (K.C.) 26 • 686 Mrs Sonunerville (K.C.) 27 685

breeds, single-penned. Weekly total Total C. M. Goodman (4-0.) (No. 1) 7 150 C. McKenzie (A.O.) 6 154 C. M. Goodman (A.O.) (No. 2) 7 124 C. Mlln (A.O.) 1 137 J. Gunn (A.O.) (No. 1) 0 35 Ted Turner (A.O.) 6 158 J. Gunn (A.O.) (No. 2) 2 149 Mrs M. Knight 6 174 J. B. Lees 6 112 H. Whyte (No. 1) 0 19 H. Whyte (No. 2) 6 148 J. Gunn 6 129 Mrs J. A- Ritchie 7 199 A. D. L. McClintock 6 160 J. E. Rainey 6 172 J. Brennan 1 64 W. Skelton 4 184 Green Bros. 3 151 E. Tilley (No. 1) 7 188/ E. Tilley (No. 2) 5 161 T. S. Dove 4 137 H. Williams (No. 1) 6 121 E. P. Anderson (No. 1) 6 114 Mrs J. Still 6 124 A. O. Oakley (No. 1) 5 125 Mrs C. Cook (No. 1) 3 146 Mrs B. Andrews 5 115 G. H. Woods 7 128 H. Williams (No. 2) 5 156 F. A. Atkinson , 4 163 A. O. Oakley (No. 2) 6 182 E. P. Anderson (No. 2) 6 153 A. C. Goodlet 5 140 Mrs C. Cook (No. 2) ' 2 95 3. Still 5 166 Miss A. Chapman 4 138 Wallace Chapman 7 125 W. E. Ward 7 180 T. B. Grant 5 113 J. Cunningham 6 181 J. W. Green, sen. 6 171 F. Ashworth 7 122 A. Lucas 7 124 Russell Liggins 0 15 Bernard McIntosh 0 92 Miss T. McIntosh 5 142 G. Millar 0 51

T. Barr 116 179 160 455 Mrs M. Knight 176 184 169 549 J. B. Lees 133 167 — 357 W. Turner 135 171 175 481 E. F. Butler 157 103 145 405 Mrs J. A. • Ritchie 154 177 165 496 Mrs B. Snelling 126 141 155 422 J. Liggins (No, 1) 163 115 114 392 J. Liggins (No. 2) 104 149 142 395 A. D. L. McClintock 125 199 184 508 L. Brumby 102 134 165 401 A. Edwards 166 '118 159 443 A. J. Severn 138 165 139 442 J. Wilde 182 174 169 525 A. Patterson 148 151 105 404 F. Ashworth 185 170 159 114 Cotswold Poultry Fann 143 182 146 471 W. M. Evans 94 147 113 354 H. Williams 103 —— 123 315 A. W. Pritchard 140 117 170 427 W. Barrell 160 185 164 509 J, Cunningham 135 150 162 447 Green Bros. 140 — 182 322 J. W. Green 141 127 189 457 T. S. Dove 183 166 162 511 E. Tilley 136 172 — 458 C. O. King 108 125 107 340 J. Green (Jim.) 174 199 148 521 C. Bartley 117 116 133 366 Mrs B. Andrews 143 — 188 333 G. H. Bradford 158 22 164 344 F. A. Atkinson 180 161 •161 502 A. C. Goodlet 143 109 112 364 J. A. Luke 167 106 144 417 F. Hughes —— 138 78 254 C. Davenport — 183 176 505 G. Millar (No. 1) — 158 161 438 G. Millar (No. 2) 126 117 167 410

S. Brumby (No. 1) 182 150 167 499 J. Gunn 19 182 ’ 156 357 A. D. L. McClintock w >■ 131 63 213 L. Brumby 112 165 142 419 D. A. McKie 177 84 141 402 T. Kennard 111 130 175 416 Mrs H. Williams 174 146 106 426 S. Brumby (No. 2) 209 127 75 411

or Black Orpingtons, s. T. Bason (Lan.) 109 144 135 388 J. D. Gobbe (B.L.) 69 86 94 249 A. W. Pritchard (L.S.) 66 126 147 339 R. Bruce . (Buff. O.) 89 106 77 272 R. Pearce (An.) I 137 82 126 345

to be single-penned. A. D. Russell 21 845 T. S. Dove (No. 1) 29 899 T. S. Dove (No. 2) 35 825 J. Cunningham 27 852 F. A. Hall 27 863 J. W. McGlinchy 27 951 S. E. Davey and Sons (No. 1) 29 736 S. E. Davey and Sons (No. 2) 31 815 S. E. Davey and Sons (No. 3) 25 912 T. B. Grant 19 836 G. H. Bradford 24 869 D. A. McKie 32 964 Mrs B. Andrews 28 777 E. P. Anderson 23 640 G. O. Rutherford 36 933 H. Williams 20 837 J. Liggins 33 830 E. Nottingham 28 930

W. R. Wooding (K.C.) 223 168 120 511 J. W. Cottier (P.) 149 118 110 377 G. Wright (K.C.) (I.) 181 197 176 554 L. Williams (I.R.) 147 196 192 535 H. E. Anderson (K.C.) 211 157 201 569 H. J. Anderson (I.R.) 194 —— 182 385 G. Wright (K.C.) (2) 146 156 — 327 J. W. Thomson (I.R.) — 223 179 432 I. A. Horsley (K;C.)) 207 189 448 F. Ashworth (K.C.) 115 217 194 526 W. A. Toon (K.C.) 215 193 150 558