HOW TO MAKE POULTRYKEEPING PROFITABLE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143783, 6 May 1912, Page 4

HOW TO MAKE POULTRYKEEPING PROFITABLE.

Being a brief summary of some of the leading principles involved in the Breeding, Rearing, Housing, and Feeding of Domestic Poultry, with a chapter on some of the most common ailments, describing symptoms and treatment. (By “Tukapa.”) Even though the greatest care be exercised in the selection of males for breeding, disappointment may ensue through “atavism,” which means throwing back to a remote ancestor, and that is one of the principal reasons why line-breeding is advocated. The beginner will do well to leave the selection and mating of his pen to a breeder who lias a reputation to lose. Tell him what you require, pay him .a fair price for Hie stock, and in most cases, providing the management is right, satisfaction will result. If things don’t turn out as expected, don’t blame anyone till the case has been thoroughly investigated in all its aspects. Many a man who has obtained a few fowls of a good strain will put them in a small bare run with a draughty old shed or perhaps a packing case with a leaky cover, forgetting, or perhaps not knowing, that fowls require green food, grit, etc., feeding a mash in the morning, perhaps the same in the evening, with an entire absence of variety; or perhaps just throwing a handful or two of wheat at them when ho thinks of it; missing a meal now and then because he has not time to attend to it; neglecting to clean out the house till the filth accumulates nearly up to the perches, and then he wonders why he does not get as many eggs as he expected he would from such good-bred fowls. Perhaps he comes to the conclusion he has been had, and blames the breeder from whom he purchased the fowls for palming off some rubbish on to him, when all the time the blame was on himself.

That is the; kind of man who says purebred fowls don’t par. It lias been proved conclusively in a good many cases that poultry properly bred and cared for will pay a bigger dividend on the capital outlay than any of our domestic animals. It is astonishing how many people feel they have a special aptitude for poultry keeping. These people take the matter up without any adequate idea of what is required of them in the shape of knowledge and capital, and the inevitable result is failure.

No doubt, if most of these people had first of all studied the matter and acquired some knowledge either by instruction or observation, they would have made a success of their failure, or it would have deterred them from embarking on an undertaking for which they were unsuited. (Juito a lot of people imagine that tho poultry industry is just tho thing for those who are physically or mentally unfitted to take their place in tho battle of life. ’

That idea is altogether wrong. The writer has never known or heard of a case of a man or woman making a bare living, let alone a success, of poultry keeping who was either-mentally or physically deficient. It is a" business which requires a fair amount of brains and energy properly applied, and if these qualities arc not directed into proper channels they will not be of much use.

Knowledge is more essential than capital. A man with knowledge and no capital may eventually achieve success by starting in a small way and building up; while the man with capital and no knowledge generally starts off grandly with a flourish of trumpets as it were, hut soon finds his level and drops out. If he stopped at that it would not matter much, but he generally has no end of arguments why poultry cannot be made to pay, and he puts them fortii at every opportunity, thus deterring many from seeking and acquiring that knowledge w-hich he never possessed, but which is so essential to success.

Capital by itself is no use in poultry keeping, rather the reverse; but if combined with skill and knowledge there is no limit to its usefulness.

A practical way of adding to knowledge already possessed, and also utilising that knowledge, is to be a breeder on the lines indicated.

There are plenty of poultry keepers who arc not breeders.

If they were asked why they do not breed, probably many would say they can buy cheaper, which is, no doubt, true, judging by the enormous development of the day-old chick trade during the last season or two.

Others might say it is too much trouble and worry, which is also true, if they are not particular what kind of stock they keep. One might get the very best of stock by buying chicks, hut, on the other hand, he might not, and the man who null not take the. trouble to breed and rear a few chicks misses the chance of gaining a lot of interesting information ho cannot acquire otherwise. Some people argue that crossbred fowls pay better than purebred. As previously pointed out, it is not so much a matter of breed as of strain.

No doubt mongrels can be made, to pay if properly cared for, but it has been proved beyond doubt that they will not pay nearly so well as a good strain properly bred. Then there is another aspect of the case; with purebred fowls properly mated the results, under normal conditions, can be fairly accurately estimated, while with mongrels on both sides such is impossible, as no one can tell to which particular ancestor they will throw back.

If one of the parents was pure there would be some improvement; that is, the progeny would approach nearer to purity of breed than ♦no other parent; but even if that improvement was continued indefinitely it would never make the breed pure, and the progeny in each successive season would be likely to continue to throw back.

it would considerably shorten the time required to build up a strain of layers if there was a reliable system of selection for layers. There are many systems in use at the present time, most of them fairly accurate, all of them secret—that is, anyone purchasing them is required to sign a pledge of secrecy. The trap-nest is the only infallibly accurate test that can be applied to a flock, but the great drawback to its use is the time required to operate it. No doubt one will be brought out some time which will act automatically, when it arrives it will prove a great boon *to the egg-producing section of poultry keepers.

* A very good system of selecting pullets for laying, which is not secret and can be confidently recommended, is published by the Petaluma Poultry Journal. When the pullets are about half ' grown, observe the feathers alongside the comb; if they stand up and curl slightly forward like a brush, it indi- • cates a good layer. 1 The more these feathers stand up and | curl forward the better layer she will

be. This test responds favourably with trap-nested hens. Another system which has been practised for a good many years is to study the conditions under which a hen lays and the reason why. A hen lays eggs, not for our benent or profit, but because nature has implanted in her a desire to reproduce her kind. , In a state of nature a hen will probably lay one or two clutches, incubate them, and rear her brood. We have, by a system of selecting the most prolific and breeding only from them, taken that instinct of reproduction in hand and developed it so that a hen will notv lay many tunes the number of eggs her ancestors did. The first condition of reproduction is maturity, which is an intermediate stage between growth and decay. The desire for reproduction is strongest at the beginning of this stage, and graduallv declines towards its end. That is why a hen will lay more eggs during the first year after coming to maturity than in any subsequent, year of her life. . __ Vitality is another condition. Heavy laying is very exhausting to a hen, and to ensure a continuance of laying we must keep up her vitality by suitable feeding, which affects another condition—nutrition. tTo he continued.)