SELECTION OF BREEDS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 445, 6 March 1912, Page 6

SELECTION OF BREEDS.

Breeds that make good table birds are not good i'or laying, and breeds that are excellent layers are of little, use for the table. There are, it is true, several well-known "general utility" breeds —■ that is to say, they are good layers and fair table birds as well, but. out of these you never get anything above mediocrity, and whilst they do very well for private people who want to keep a few fowls to supply their household necessities, they will never do for commercial purposes where you have to get the highest results with the closest economy. The good "genera! utility" bird wastes too much time in broodiness; if you are to have good egg results you must employ non-sitters. If you keep sitting and non-sittnig breeds together the former will teach the latter to become broody and will spoil them. An egg-producing poultry farm should be tenanted with only non-sitters, and any bird that shows a disposition to become broody should be disposed of at once, lest others be corrupted. Colonies of from 12 to 15 hens oJ a non-sitting breed, well fed, and well looked after, will yield a good profit. That is how to make egg-production pay, and, of course, there is none of the hourly worry and work which is incidental to chicken-rearing. The hens want feeding two or three times a day, and there is little cleaning out and other sundry work to be done but that is all apart from the disposal of the produce. A man engaged in fruitfarrriing or such other enterprise as is usually associated with the tenancy of a small holding can very well keep poultry on these lines at a minimum of expense, and without either having to pay rent or labour; for he rents his land for the fruit trees, and what labour has in his employment would be required even if he had no poultry at all. Poultry, therefore, are and may be regarded from this point of view as a profitable "extra" which small holders may very well consider.