POULTRY NOTES

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20274, 7 April 1934, Page 25 (Supplement)

POULTRY NOTES

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. CONTEST.—Canterbury Bantam Club’s guessing competition: 1234 1, 1554 2, 1556 3. BEGINNER.—The names and addresses of the specialist clubs’ secretaries were published in last Saturday’s ” Star.” The subscription is live shillings. and entitles you to compete for all specials and cups. NOTES. (By “ CROW BLACK.”) The United Pigeon Fanciers’ Club will meet in the Christchurch Fanciers’ Hall on Wednesday evening. The fifth table show for young birds will be held at this meeting, the schedule including Oriental Frills, Owls (any variety), Muff Tumblers. Modenas (any variety) and any other variety fancy pigeon. Mr G. H. Bradford will be judge. The amateur judging competitions will also be continued. Mr C. W. Tritt, the well-known Rhode Island Red fancier, is visiting Greymouth. Fanciers who visited Christchurch during the holidays reported keen interest in the coming season’s shows. They anticipated a large increase in entries and keen competition. At this week’s meeting of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club a motion of sympathy was passed with Mr J. W. Thomson, the president, whose father died recently. Mr A. G. Wilson has undertaken to judge the cat and kitten classes at the Christchurch Toy Dog and Cat Club’s June show. Mr T. Baker, secretary of the Sunshine and District Poultry Club, Melbourne, who is spending a holiday in Christchurch, attended this week's meeting of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club, and was welcomed by the president. The New Zealand Utility Poultry Club met this week to make final arrangements for its new egg-laying tests. The secretary reported that to date 247 birds had been entered. He added that a good number of local entries had yet to come in. Two entries of three birds were received during the meeting. The entries included birds from Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, Southland and Wellington. It was decided to offer those who had already entered an opportunity to make a further entry of a single bird at a fee of five shillings for an experimental test. This experimental test will be for fifty weeks, and any bird having a chance of reaching the standard for a certificate will be retained for fifty-one weeks. It will be known as test IA, and will he divided into three sections: (1) Black Orpingtons and White Leghorns. (2) any other variety of light or heavy breeds, (3) ducks. It was also decided that the birds in the test be fed on the same experimental rations as last year. The competition pens at the Papanui egg laying tests are being overhauled and cleaned in preparation for the new com petitions. The Angora Rabbit Breeders’ Association will hold card and social even-

ings in aid of its funds on the first and third Wednesday in every month. Mr T. Bruce, president of the North Island Poultry, Pigeon and Canary Association, will visit Christchurch next week. He will meet the council of the South Island Poultry Association and discuss the utility poultry standard, also the placing of certificates for the New Zealand championships.

Mr S. F. Marshall, who has been appointed a member of the board to administer the Poultry Runs Registration Act, is well known in the industry. He is secretary of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club, secretary and organiser of the Canterbury Egg Export Committee, and a past secretary of the Christchurch Poultry Club. Mr Marshall ha 3 had considerable success with both utility and open class Brown Leghorns. He also takes a keen interest in .Light Sussex and Khaki Campbell.ducks. Mr Marshall’s present flock consists mainly of White Leghorns. The Canterbury Bantam Club has drawn up a fine special prize schedule for its annual show. Cups won outright have been reinstated and the cash specials competed for last year are again included. In addition, a number of new specials and trophies have been donated by fanciers and firms. The results of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club's egg-laying tests, which concluded on March 24, will be announced next week. Mr Archie Guthrie, the well-known Wellington fancy pigeon fancier, visited Christchurch during the holidays. Mr Clem Hart, of Hokitika, a keen breeder and exhibitor of fancy pigeons, is spending a holiday in Christchurch. He is visiting local fanciers’ lofts. The management committee of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club met at the competition grounds at Papanui to-day to supervise the entry of birds for the new egg-laying competition. The Government poultry instructors. Messrs F. C. Brown and C. Cussen, were present to pass the birds as specimens of the breeds they represent. Hints for Breeders. The value of cod liver oil as a poultry feed depends entirely on its vitamin content, therefore only reliable brands should be used. Satisfactory results are obtained by mixing one pint of oil to each one hundred pounds dry mash. The oil will mix readily and without forming lumps in a flaky meal-like bran; the oil-laden bran can then be mixed uniformly in the dry mash, ensuring an even distribution of the cod liver oil. Where the oil is to be fed in the wet mash or other food, one or two teaspoonfuls to each twelve fowls has been found adequate. In the ration of earlyhatched chicks, cod liver oil is also of value in promoting growth and preventing leg-weakness. One or two pints of oil to each one hundred pounds of feed is a suitable amount for chicks. A duck can digest and assimilate a full crop of mash In from two to two and a half hours, and a hen in from three and a half to four and a half hours. Size of egg is inherited, and no alteration in the feeding or system of management will cause a bird to lay a large egg is she has not inherited that desirable quality.

After red mite have taken up their abode in the scratching shed they are exceedingly hard to eject. A most effective exterminator is fire applied to the surface of the perch and to the crevices of sheds by means of a blowlamp (as used by house painters), or by means of a torch made from a roll of newspaper or such like material. A new-laid egg provides, it is claimed, the most rapid and pure source of vaccine against smallpox. This discovery has been made by Professor E. Paschen, of the Hamburg Institute of Tropical Diseases. Eminent authorities believe that it may entirely eliminate the rare complication of post-vaccinal encephalitis, which in recent years has been regarded in some quarters as an argument against vaccination. Great care in the selection and mating of the breeding stock is necessary if the resulting progeny are to have a high degree of constitutional vigour and the power to resist disease. Once a bird has been sick, it should never be used in the breeding pen. The provision of clean nests is m* portant, in order to guard against tbs eggs becoming soiled. Shell grit has been found to be a good material to place In the nest boxes in order to keep the eggs 61ean. At the State Research Farm, Werribee, Australia, it has also been observed that nests provided with shell grit are always free from vermin.