IN THE POULTRY YARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18617, 12 July 1930, Page 13

IN THE POULTRY YARD

EXPERT OPINION. Edward Brown, L.L.D., F.L.S., writing on production and reproduction, says, inter alia:—“l am led to ask the question whether the semi-intensive, to say nothing of the intensive, methods adopted by so many poultry farmers, especially on breeding farms, are conductive to maintenance of constitutional vigour; and, further, whether the lure of high fecundity is not leading them to forget that production and reproduction may be positively antagonistic when the former is carried to an extreme in the individual hen. Reproduction is individual, not racial. Raising the number of market eggs laid is one thing, no doubt satisfactory from that point of view'. To do this, as I have frequently pointed out, is imposing a strain which goes for to explain the increase of heavy losses by death in shell, post-hatching mortality, and in grown stock, though there are undoubtedly other contributory causes. It is time that breeders of poultry realised that (1) the period of maximum egg production is when hatchability and livability in chickens are at the minimum; and (2) to ensure vigorous chickens the eggs should not only be carefully selected for size, weight, and strength of shell, but be from hens which have not been physically exhausted by heavy production extending over the winter months. In this respect the hen would appear to be primarily responsible. The male may fertilise the germ, though with greater numbers it is possible such impregnation may be weakened. It is the hen which is charged with providing the albuminous portion of the egg. An undue increase in demand upon the secretions reduces its strength, as a result of which the chick is hatched a weakling. This is being recognised in a few instances. What must be ought for is to bring home to breeders the importance of dealing totally differently with breeding and laying stock.”