POULTRY NOTES

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 382, 3 September 1903, Page 5

POULTRY NOTES

Nearly 10,000 head of poultry are being sent from the Government Poultry Depot at Ohristchurch by the Essex for the South African market. She takes from Lyttelton about 60 head of Southland cattle, including Ayrshires, Herefords, and Shorthorns, for South Africa, and also seven Southland ponies for the same market. From Dunedin she took for South Africa 139 crates of poultry containing 1,404 fowls, 276 ducks 90 turkeys and 33 geese—in all, 1823 head. This shipment represents approximately the monthly output at the Dunedin depot, but does not fill a tenth of the orders in hand. In the great Sydney laying competition an American pen of Brown Leghorns are even in the lead with Silver Wyandottes, both having 233 eggs to their credit for the last two months, American White Wyandottes are next with 202 eggs, being close'y followed by another pen of American birds of the same breed, which laid 197. These were the only American competitors out of 71, so that the uniformly high standard of the birds from the States is remarkable; but then the Americans run poultry on commercial lines, and if their Leghorns are on the small side they are truly a special purpose breed in their country. Think of a place where a thousand cases of eggs are shipped daily (says E Coming, in " Fancier's Gazette " speaking of the little town of Petaluma, California) where you can find hundreds of poultrymen owning from 500 to 5000 hens, one man nearly 7000; where poultry food is sold by the cartload to individual poultrymen. Here I found in the radius of a little valley a million hens. I stood overlooking a place where 20,000 were kept. We have, as poultrymen, dreamed of such possibilities, but I, travelling as I have all over this country, have never seen anything like this. It is a poultry centre, a poultry town. At the head is the Petaluma Incubator Company, shipping its product all over the world. The merchant, baker and business man in the city are all interested, as the people look to this interest as their support. ~ Whitewashing is invaluable in the poultry house. It is death to lice, and fills the small cracks of the walls, thus preventing draughts. Cleanliness and sunshine are the best and cheapest disinfectants one can employ, and they are two essentials %vhich go hand in hand with successful poultry raising. Bran is excellent for poultry. It contains a large amount of lime, which will help in the formation of shell. Well-fed hens may not be always properly fed. To lay well, hens must have grain and meat diet, and green food. The poultry industry is being actively taken up in Blenheim, as well as in other parts of the colony. One resident of that district has just paid £SOO for a piece of land which he intends to use as a poultry farm, and about 3000 shares have been taken in a new company which has been established to carry on poultry farming.