POULTRY AS SIDE-LINE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 20 (Supplement)

POULTRY AS SIDE-LINE.

NEED FOR BETTER BIRDS “ There is no article of diet In keener demand than fresh eggs,” said the chief poultry instructor of the Department of Agriculture, Air. F. C. Brown, recently. He had always been a strong advocate of poultry as a sideline on general farms, where milk products and other cheap foods were avail able. In the past the general farmer, although keeping poultry, had not given them the attention they deserved, but with falling prices for most classes of farm produce poultry was practically the only paying line on the farm. There was no article of diet in keener demand than fresh eggs. The great object of the Government labora tory at Wallacevilie was to afford a means whereby new methods and ex pertinents could bo conducted which would add to the knowledge of poultry instructors, and which, in turn, could be passed on to the poultry-keepers in general. Many small eggs were exported be cause there were not enough largo ones, and another groat aim of the la boratory was to breed a class of hci that could be depended upon, with few exceptions, to lay 2oz. eggs. In distri bating this class of stock throughout the country there must be a good effect for there was a difference of JOs t( 12s per case of 30 dozen between the prices for small and large eggs export cd—more than the cost of the freight. EDIBLE AND INEDIBLE EGGS. Under this head come eggs witn black roi, seeping yolk, mixed and white rot blood ring, bloody white eggs with slightly struck and heavily struck yolks, the mouldy egg and egg* with crusted yolks and eggs containing blood snots or other foreign bodies, and those with heavily mottled yolks Fresh eggs, and those with hatch spot stale and weak eggs arc not nice but are edible. Theie are double yolkee eggs and those- with watery whites am l eggs with inky-coloured yolks, anc eggs with olive-coloured yolks. Some of those decay more or loss quickly, and in consequence are not good for export. The inky colour is the amount of tannin in the food, and the olive colour is due to the food. The colons and quality of the egg depend on the food, and not the breed, though one often hears that a particular breed lays a fine egg.

WHITE LEGHORN CHAMPION LAYER. A new .vorld record has been estab lished by a White Leghorn at Agassiz. Vancouver, under Government testing and supervision. The hen laid 357 eggs in 365 days, the eggs averaging 26 ounces to the dozen. The pullet 1? from the stock of the University of British Columbia, and the superintendent of the Dominion experimenta' farm attributes the world record to the fowl’s feed of an abundance of skim milk and green feed in addition Io grain and mash. The previous world’s record was also made at the University of British Columbia—3sl eggs in 364 days. This hen’s eggs, however, aver aged only 20 ounces per dozen.—The North British Agriculturist.