BIG EGG FARM,

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 452, 10 March 1909, Page 5

BIG EGG FARM,

FLOURISHING BUSINESS AT HUTT. A LIVING OUT OF HENS. If there is any place whore real oggs for Wellington are machine-made, it must'lio at Jjr. Willoughby Knight's placo at Lower Hutt. Mr. Knight used, in former days, to j)o a dairy farmer, in. partnership with his brother, over an area 'of 70 acres of the Hutt Valley. Then, like some other dairy farmers, he became seized with a feeling that cow-milking ,Waf not all pleasure, and that perhaps hens would fill his pockots, more easily. UnliSe many dairy farmers, however, he had the courage of his suspicions, and lie cut up his dairying land with his brother (who, was still unconverted), and became one of'the rare instances of successful Now Zealand poultry • farmers. It is common gossip at Hutt, that a public accountant has certified that Mr. Knight's seven acres 'of poultry and poultry fodder yield him,'over all expenses and a heavy rent allowance,, a clear balance of £7 per week for his own labour. Tho .Machine That Makes the Eggs. Machinc-madc 1 Well, look at the big oil engiV, Mr. Knight didn't pay £75 for that for nothing. It crushes the grist, the shell, the honedust; it chaffs, the clover which the young chickens will toss in showers into the air with their activo little feet when chicken time comes; it chaffs green,feed for laying hens and ducks, who aro straining to break records. 1 It saws wood when Mr. Knight wants to make a new hen house or two—or when Mrs. Knight clamours for fire-wood (as they say all wives do). It cracks corn into various shapes for busy creatures thatlike variety. It .warms the brooder houses, where chickens have a glorious time in spite of frosty outside. • It is (next to the' owner) tho mainspring of the business. Almost, it makes the eggs., The hens and pullets— those guinea birds—give but the finishing touches; ■ £1 por Eird In Eggs. "They gave "me a pound's worth of egjra per bird last season," Mr. Knight declared, as he waved his hand across one of the flock pens of fifty .white Leghorns. But ho didn't really, mean it. It was chiefly the oil engine. ' ■ :• Now look at the incubators. There are five of them,' big enough to hold from 220 to 360 eggs each—total, 1250 eags. And they, hatch —well, does Mr. Knight : count his chickens before they are hatched? Ho does. They hatch 75 per . cent, of all tho fertile eggs placed'in them. This is nearly a thou--1 sand at n time. So he has brooder houses to hold 1000 chickens—brooders wanned "by hot water pines. What luxuries for a bleakHutt winter f /The little creatures are cosier than the human residents. « The Nursery. The brooder house is not a mere draughty kerosene box turned upside down. It is a big hall mado of tflngue-trnd-groove timber, i big enough to walk in, big enough for-.. a dance for a family party if tho fittings were out. And it is in here that tho little chicks will mako their first 1 debut, to a lmngry world that will perpetually ask for eggsTho cockerels are unwelcome. They have to be kept and fed and given space, because not even Mr. Knight can tell a cockerel from a pullet when' they aro in the baby stage. And then, when their sex ,i 3 revealed, they go to tho butcher, unless tho skilled eye of the owner detects points that mako them worthy of survival. • The male, elect of last year's chickens are now grouped in separate flocks—white Leghorns, black Orpingtons, silver Wyandottes. These are Mr. Knight's specialities. • The males still await purchasers. Keen poultry; farmers will buy their new males this month, and thus get first pick, and others will trail in until June or even July, delaying the outlay of cash till tho very week when the services of the bird are wanted, and thus losing tho ehanco of restoring their bird to vigour after the change, and, perhaps, a rough journey.

Tha Art of Selecting. How does tho purchaser pick? Some, eager for blood of -the bluest, want to pick before Mr. Knight has taken away his own choice, and they, offer double, rates for the privilege. This sort is thorough in its examination. It lays sensitive finger-tips on the points of pubic bones, the crucial test of egg-laying potentialities! It tells in males as well as in females, foi-i physical contour is hereditary: Then'there is the thin, silky touch of skin, tho'breadth, depth, and slope of tho downy-looking'rear portion, which is as eloquent,to an egg-farmer as escutcheon is to a judge of dairy' cows.. Lottery dr Certainty? But when i, selector begins to handle Mr. Knight's stock, tho price 'goes up. Tho galmour of poultry purchasing, depends on the lottery of it-. -When a man begins to handle and goes'" in for certainties, he is no longer paying'/puly for strain, but is bidding for prizes. He is lucky if he gets his choice then at double the price. . x , • How many birds does ( Mr. Knight's farm carry?! 'When tlie surplus is sold, and there are. no chickens' or ducklings coming; 011; the breeding pens and laying Hocks number about 1200. When hatching 1 ceased last' year, there were nearly 3000 birds on the five acres which' are devoted to runs. The 'Laying Flocks. ' Tho laying Hocks have pens 50ft. by 100 ft:, and they number 50 birds. Tho roosting houso,measures 101't.,by J.oft., and the openfronted scratching shed'for retirement 011 wet days, is of the same size. The perches, 18' inches apart, aro removable, and the wood floor is also removable. All looso fixtures and floor are taken outside for the whitewashing, leaving nothing inside but tho bare walls. The nests are approached from outsido. ' 'Artesian water is. laid 011 to every run, and constantly drips into the vessels, which are periodically cleaned. Tho Ducks. •, Mr. Knight's . ducks are Indian Runners (with which he won - the last Greymouth egg-laying contest) and bull'orpingtous, also good layers that cater well for the roastduck trade. The Grevmouth pen' of six laid 1214 eggs in the year, and a pen of six of their sisters Mr. Knight tallied up to 1240. Though ducks aro not the cleanest of poultry 011 a patch of grass, they, do less injury to fruit trees; and while they eat scarcely more food than hens, they eat it of a cheaper kind —less hard grain, and more pollard and bran and chopped lucerne, cabbage, rape, clover,: etc. They have an ideal brook to Hounder in, under nativo bush that it really a bit of good scenery, Here they are studying tho art of climbing willow trees. 1 When tho Best Layors Como. Just now a' number of runs dostined for chickens later on aro being sown with ryeMr. Knight's favourite green feed. This will be left mown like a lawn till the chickens become numerous enough to keep it short. The best layers are batched in Juno, July, August, and September; the very best of all in September. Mr. Knight is studying this aspect of the business very closely. Air. Knight is not regretting his choice of industry. He has tried both, and he declares that there is moro money, more pleasure, and . more spare time in poultry fanning than in dairying. '

For the student of Italian history tho unhappy city of Alessina has a secondary interest, in that ifc was the scene of the friqht ful bombardment and massacre which won for the -Bourbon brute Ferdinand 11. the nickname of "Bomba." The recent earthquake was mercy itself in comparison with the atrocities which the troops of that, base creature perpetrated upon the wretched men'j women, and children of the city.' As for Messina itself, only a third of 'it was left when at -last the bombardment ceased.