A MODEL FOWLYARD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19511, 13 February 1926, Page 9 (Supplement)

A MODEL FOWLYARD

SOME NEW DEPARTURES POULTRY AT THE EXHIBITION Amongst the many interesting am instructive exhibits at the New Zealam and South Seas Exhibition not the least noteworthy is that which the Govern ment Agricultural Department has pre pared displaying the proper methods o 1 keeping and housing poultry. No poul trykeeper who intends visiting Dunedin should fail to see the exhibit. At the present time Mr Brown, Chief Govern ment Poultry Instructor and his stall of assistants are putting the finishing touches to the stands. There are breeding pens of Black Orpingtons and White Leghorns, ami laying pens of Black Minorcas and White Leghorns, and all are penned on conditions which should prove object lessons to all interested as to how poultry should be housed. The birds have been carefully selected to demonstrate the best types of birds to keep and it is apparent that Mr Brown favours size, laying type, and constitutional vigour. As Mr Brown says, everyone recognises that size of bird must be main tained in order to obtain size of produce, and his advice will be to those making a start to do so with birds such as experienced breeders are trying t< secure, or maintain, by carefully breeding from sizeable birds. Yet he con tends breeders must not try improving one character at the expense of another.

The birds exhibited have been lent by the Seacliff Asylum, with the exception of the Minorcas, which have been bought outright from Mr 11. L. Sproscn. Adjoining the pens is a model feed room, with bins for food and mixing trough installed, also an incubator chamber; and another largo room will contain brooders of approved New Zealand manufacturers, the idea being to demonstrate proper brooder management. Visitors will do wel Ito note in the pens which contain birds the system adopted for supplying water. There is water constantly dripping into the water vessels, but to prevent contamination of the supply, should the birds of cither pen have acquired any disease, the water vessel actually drunk from overflows into a waste retainer, and not through to the vessels of the other pens. This is a new idea, and a good one. The arrangements of the perches so as to prevent annoyance is also worth copying. The floors throughout the buildings are of cement, with a view to perfect sanitation, and the roofs of the buildings are of builder’s felt stretched over tightly-drawn wire netting. Of course, though they are model houses, none of the buildings are permanent structures; but probably many visitors will notice the smooth surface of the walls, due to the use of Maxwell boarding.

VALUE OF LIME. Limo is not only useful for purifying the ground and white-washing the walls of the poultry houses and the making of egg shell, but it has also been long known as a necessary adjunct to poultry food. The following from an Australian paper will be useful at this season:—“Birds often fail, and some die, through want of lime salts. It may be present in sufficient quantities in the food, but there is an inability to appropriate it in the form provided. It has been found in practice that lime, given as lime water, corrects acidity, and is presented to the digestive system in a manner which ?.s capable of immediate appropriation and applied to bone and feather building, but the cost of the finished product as sold by the pharmacist is prohibitive. This is not to find fault with the chemist, ■whose products must be absolutely pure and of a required standard, according to the British pharmacopoeia. Only small quantifies are asked for by the customer, and the article must be filtered and bright, and the bottle neatly capped and tied down to give it that appearance of neatness and accuracy for which the pharmacist has always been famous. But this refinement is not necessary for the poultry yard or for veterinary purposes. Limewater can be made at home at the cost of a lump of lime, fresh burned, not. slaked. All that is necessary is a stone bottle with a sound cork. The lump is broken small enough to pass into the bottle, which is then filled with water, 1 corked, and shaken. It should be turned upside down next day, and on the third day is fit for use. It can be decanted without stirring up the sediment, or drawn off and filtered, but exposure to the air causes a slight loss. The amateur lime water maker cannot well go wrong, as water at normal temperature will dissolve thirteen and a half grains to the pint only—no more and no loss—provided the lump was big enough to provide the quantity stated. A lump the size of an orange will certainly provide a gallon of water. ” Four ounces to the gallon, and, while this dissolved and filtered, one tablespoonful to the quart of water. For the larger fowls three to four spoonsful will benefit the health and harden the egg .shell, and that is a lot to the commercial producer.

WATCH EARLY LAYERS. If you have a flock of early-matur-ing pullets, watch them carefully, noting those that come into laying first and those that seem to be the most regular layers. These are always the best layers of the lot. Do not attempt to draw too close a lino between “good layers” and “poor layers” but get rid of the worst 10 to 15 per cent. If you expect to use pullets for breeders in the spring mark the best layers this month and next (colored leg bands is a simple and inexpensive way) so you will have no trouble in picking them out when the pens are mated up. A lot of inferior layers will look like 200 eggers in the spring. Pigs are omnivorous animals amk therefore, never should be given foot* of poor composition and of indigestible nature*