POULTRY NOTES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 25, 24 October 1942, Page 4

POULTRY NOTES

Brooder Management (By New Law;) Start with good chicks, pay attention to detail in brooder management. Supply good quality food aud don’t overcrowd.” This is the advice given to chick-rearers iu the course of an article covering the main points of brooder management, published in the "New Zealand Journal of Agriculture.” Poultry keepers are urg r ed to study the following points relating to the causes of mortality and uneven growth:— Day-old chicks : Obviously, if badly hatched the problem is an incubator one, which no amount of careful attention during brooding will rectify. Poor quality chicks bred from immature. pullets, or hens lacking in constitution are a further source of trouble. Such chicks lack inherent constitution and average liveability and never have a chance of developing into well grown pullets or cockerels. Start with good chicks; culling out all cripples aud weaklings before they reach the brooder.

After stressing the point that cleanliness in every detail is the best form of insurance against an outbreak of disease or a subsequent spread of disease, the article refers as follows to heat and ventilation: —Unsatisfactorily heated or badly ventilated ibrooders are the cause of much mortality and subsequently many poor Hocks of pullets. Young chicks must have easy access to ample heat, which supply of heat should not be severely affected by changes in the temperature of the brooder house. At no time should the chicks be forced to crowd together near the source of heat, but it is equally important that they should not be forced to remain in an over-heated brooder. Both conditions will lead to chills. A slight excess of heat should be available during the first week, but the chickens must always be able to get away from this heat and spread themselves out comfortably. Should it become necessary to close up -the sides of the brooder with curtains or other devices in order to conserve sufficient heat for. the chicks, it is almost certain that satisfactory ventilation cannot take place. In practice a thermometer is useful to check up the temperature under the hover before putting in the chicks, but once under the hover the chicks themselves will indicate to the observant rearer whether the temperature is satisfactory. Day-old chicks should have access to a temperature o£ 90 deg. F. and after the first week this may be gradually reduced until at about 4 or 5 weeks, according to the conditions prevailing, artificial heat is no longer required. Damp Litter and Sweating. Having regard to satisfactory ventilation, the best practical test is to note whether the litter under the hover -becoines,damp overnight. It should remain dry unless (a) the litter is resting on a damp floor (i.e., green concrete), or (b) the litter - is dirty and saturated with moist droppings. Damp litter is caused by the -chicks “sweating” and passing moisture in their breath, all of which moisture faulty ventilation fails to clear from under the hover. A new method now employed to avoid damp litter and sweating is the use of a wooden frame covered with half-ineh wire-netting placed under the hover. For the first, week the frame is covered with sacking, upon which is placed ordinary litter. After this initial period the sacking may be removed, allowing the 7-10 day old chickens to rest upon the wire-netting, when all possibility of sweating and dampness is removed. No advantage is gained by using wire frames- and sacking if the latter is allowed to accumulate moisture; in fact, deep litter, frequently changed under the hover, directly under the floor would be preferable. Probably more bretods of chickens are epoilt by Overcrowding than any other adverse factor in rearing. Poultry-keepers must realize that the capacity of a brooder is the maximum number of chickens the brooder will carry satisfactorily at the maximum age it is intended to retain the chickens under the brooder. Thus if a brooder will cary 100 chicks (but no more) satisfactorily at a day old, those chicks will be overcrowded at- four weeks of age—unless ' tlie brood is reduced in number before that time. Equipment manufacturers invariably' state. the maximum number of day-old' chicks that their brooders will carry—not the number of chickens this brooder will rear to five weeks of age. Thus, generally speaking, a 240-chick hover will rear satisfactorily approximately 120 chicks to five weeks of age. Under-stock rather than over-stock at all stages during chicken-rearing is a golden rule for ultimate success.

During the early stages of rearing (0-10 days) the essence of successful feeding is “little and often,” while care should be taken to remove all food, after a meal; which has not been eleaned up in, say, 2025 minutes. Feeding chickens is a skilled job and not a mechanical one. Where chickens —afer 5-0 days old — are retained in a brooder house and not exposed to a reasonable amount of direct sunlight, it is necessary to supply 2 to 2-J -pints of a certified cod-liver oil in every 1001 b. of mash mixed for them. Without this oil, containing vitamin D, poor growth, uneven feathering, and advanced rickets (leg weakness) may be expected. Neither green food nor milk will protect chickens against rickets — direct sunlight or cod-liver oil are the only two alternatives. Young chickens are particularly susceptible to draughts, and, great care must be taken to avoid floor -draughts. It. is a satisfactory practice to place a metal, wooden, or cardboard “surround,” 12-18 in. high, round the hover for the first 5-7 days. This has the advantage of preventing chick's from- straying away from the hover, and at the same time of preventing draughts. The . “surround” may be placed about 9-12 in. from the hover on the first day, and from that time onward it is gradually opened outward, giving more space to the chicks. Food and water are given inside the surround during this early stage.

Registration of Runs. Figures compiled by the New Zealand t Poultry Board show that. 11,305 poultry ’runs were registered in the year 1941-42, which ended in May last, compared with 11,078 for the year 1940-41. The totals for the four provincial districts were: Auckland. 2870; Wellington, 2794; Canterbury-Westland,' 3167; OtagoSouthlaml, 2474. In all, 1,460,996 head of poultry were registered, xVicklitnd province contributing . 471,071, - Wellington 320,486, Canterbury-West laud 415,878, and .Otago-Southland 233,561.