THE POULTRY YARD

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8360, 23 July 1920, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE POULTRY YARD

SIUSOXABLE SUGGESTIONS.

Swat the slacker. Cremate the carcasses. Weed out the weaklings. Paralyse the parasites. It is a constant warfare of life upon life. The farmer’s losses are appalling. His tax schedule may not show the leaks from diseases and vermin, but he knows well that his net. income has been reduced almost to the vanishing point by the enemies that have won so many battles. The consumer little kuows how constant and how fierce the conflict every farmer must wage against the destroyers that prey at night and at noonday walk as a pestilence. Every poultry keeper must put up a strong fight or submit to defeat.

Spring culling.—lt means a loss of profit to keep non-producers in the flock. There is no better time to cull than in the spring. If the culls are shipped to market then there is a saving of feed and an increased eggproduction because more room and better environment are given to the workers. The weaklings and undesirables should be weeded out, for to retain them in the flock means that their weakness and defects will be perpetuated. The nests. —Lice breed in the nests. The boxes should be cleaned and disinfected occasionally. To make a nest of stray in a wooden box is not very satisfactory. The straw is soon worked out and the eggs are laid on the bare bottom of the box and many are cracked. If the bottom of the box is filled with sand or crushed limestone or clean soil and the nesting material placed over this there will be less danger of having broken eggs. Insect powder in the nests is advisable from time to time.

PAYABLE POULTRY. How few people there are, especialy those who keep poultry as a side line, who really know whether their birds are paying them or not, much less know which are the moneymakers and which are the wasters. It is coming to this in dairying, that the farmer who does not know exactly the amount of milk each cow in his herd is producing every year will have to retire from the business. While it may not be possible to keep a record of every fowl on the plant, still an intelligent study of the birds will enable one to decide which are profitable and which are unprofitable. This knowledge is necessary to reduce the cost of production and make the keeping of fowls really profitable. The profit-and-loss standpoint wili never appeal to the poultry-keeper unless he acquires the habit of keeping a strict account of his receipts and expenditure. When he realises, for instance, that his returns have declined he will be impelled to look for a cause, probably finding it in having too many old hens on hand, having bred from a weak cockerel, or not having been particular enough in regard to feeding and managing.