EGGS FLOWN TO AUSTRALIA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 28, 28 November 1944, Page 6

EGGS FLOWN TO AUSTRALIA

PEDIGREE HENS AT MASSEY

COLLEGE

In spili* of the war eggs lor hatching purposes' from the highquality pedigree hens on the poultry I'arin at Masse.y Agricultural College I'aliuerxton North, are still being sent by air I'rieght to Australia, where there is a keen demand for them from prominent breeders. Shipmen Is of pedigree birds have also been made to points in New South \Valcs_ South Australia, Western Australia, Fiji and California. To build, up the College, farm strains many importations have been made usually through the medium of special hatching eggs many consignments of which have come from Canada. Massey College is bet ie.ved to have the only poultry establishment in New Zealand which delivers eggs by air. The aerial trade applies only to particularly good pedigree stock, and concerns mainly eggs from the auto-scxing breeds which were originally developed at the. Cambridge University farm and imported to Palmers ton North in 1938. The. lirst export of hatching eggs, from Massey College was made, by ship in 1937 and Tasmania received the lirst consignment of eggs for hatching sent bj' air in 1941. Eggs arc found to travel satisfactorily by sea for limited distances, provided there is no delays in receipt at the delivery end. In all about ten consignments have, been sent by air in the last three years. With the greater development of commercial air travel after the Avar, it should be possible for New Zealand to export special hatchings to England, and to import, from there eggs of special auto-sexing strains such as those developed at the Cambridge University experimental farm. Up till now adult birds of. those breeds have had to be sent from England by j which lias involved much time and special feeding on the journey. Any eggs coming in the shell from overseas must be from disease-free, farms owing to the precautionary restrictions' imposed by importing countries.