WILL A POULTRY FARM PAY?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1655, 28 December 1916, Page 4

WILL A POULTRY FARM PAY?

, /EXPERIENCES AT FOXTON.

[By Correspondent of

the Dunedin Evening Star..]

Although the hemp industry is admittedly about the prineipal mainstay of Foxton, the promising little township that rests peacefully on a huge expanse of sand and soil, occupying an area of many miles near the mouth of theManawatn river, is developing oilier enterprises. Not the least importnnt is a poultry farm of a somewhat ambitions character, planted - within half a mile of the township, by an enterprising resident, named Matthew Henry Walker, Like the illustrious Middlewick, who rose to wealth and fame as a purveyor of butter, Mr Walker, having sold many dozens of eggs over the counter, decided to leave the.work of the distribution to less competent hands, and try his luck as an egg produce!’. Putting his well-matur-ed plans into operation, closing his ledger, and putting up his shutters, he converted Ardwick House, with its ornate macrocarpa hedges, its wealth of roses and (lowering shrubs, its beautiful lawns, and its orchard of young and promising trees, and its sandy hummock rising like a lower above the residential . chimneys, into

A GIGANTIC POULTRY FARM.

Beyond his wife and family and one or two carpenters'that he employed, he confided to nobody the reason he had retired from business or the project on which he was engaged, and travellers on the main road could see or hear very little of the change that was going on, ibeyond the click of the hammer and the rising of a long building of tarred, rusticated timber, covered with iron. Then came the vision of an iron tank on the sandhill, surmounted by a rooster of the White Leghorn persuasion, surrounded by a small army of snow-white hens and pullets, eagerly scratching up the sand and displaying the shells of the pipi on which a past generation of Maoris had feasted. Eggs fluctuated, and fowl feed rose like an airship, hut the indomitable en.ergy and zeal of the poultry fanner wei’e adamantine. Novice if he was, he shrewdly and carefully nursed his hobby, and,, in spite of the world’s war and the cruel exactions of the grain merchant and other exploiters, he has produced on his residential eight acres a poultry farm that is the glory of Foxton, and the best educator of poultry management in this part of New Zealand. ARDWTCK HOUSE, the family residence, occupies a central position. A few outhouses close at hand have been turned into a faclmw, where poultry food of the best quality, comprising wheat, oats, barley, maize, chaff, bran, and pollard, are’ subjected to grinders travelling at the rate of a thousand revolutions a minute, and lucerne from an acre paddock is converted Into fine chaff, and grit is made from charcoal and shells, for which the fishermen get 3s fid per sack delivered; and gravy made from' wholesome meat is boiled in a gaslieated copper. And all this work is done uncomplainingly by a 4 h.p. oil engine, which, besides making the grit and mixed poultry 'mash, pumps water from the bowels of the ■earth or sand and sends it np to tho tank on the hill where the rooster crows defiance. Everything is compact; (here is no waste, and the fowls’ kitchen and galley is perfection. The buildings devoted to the egg manufacturers are not quite completed. They are not numerous. One is No. 1 breeder, where the mothers and fathers of noble descent and lineage hold sway on dry mash. There are two “cocks of the walk," and, strange to say, they don’t <rjuarrel —for obvious reasons. The hens are good layers, judging fi-om the fact that sometimes they supply 23, and their average for the season has been .10 daily. The buildings tare of rusticated weather-boards, well tarred, and covered with iron, They face the north, and thus get plenty of sunshine, and the opening of fine wire netting instead of glass windows supplies plenty of light and ventilation; hence the dwellers are under tip-top hygienic conditions. That the owner is a believer in system and thoroughness is indicaU ed by the circumstance that flip buildings have a uniform width. Let ■me start from the beginning. The egg store, where the eggs are packed for despatch to Wellington and others for hatching, is kept at a temperature of at least 50 deg, a colder temperature endangering' fertility. Three Jubilee incubators of Californian make, and each of a £OO egg capacity, do the sitting sind brooding business, and relieve the matronly hens of all family responsibilities. THE JUBILEE INCUBATOR

is cleanly and ornamental. Varnished and glazed in front, but for ii small funnel at one end from an oil Heater that rises above the surface like the top of a submarine, it might be mistaken for a drawing room table. Yet from these little pieces of furniture 250 chickens were recently obtained from 270 eggs', 393 chickens from 440 eggs, anti 408 chickens from 444 eggs. But this wholesale hatching involves a little trouble, for the temperature has to be regulated, and the eggs must be turned twice i\ day. The brooder is believed to be the largest in the Dominion. It is 125 ft. long, and divided into 10 hatches, all Slumbered. The hatches are simply divisions or apartments where the chickens romp among chaff,

enjoying a choice of tempera lure, and forgetting that they are inmates of a feathered orphanage. At one end, built in concrete, is an ideal stove, from which hot water circulates iu a pipe beneath the hatches. By a simple hut clever contrivance the temperature is automatically regulated so that, beyond supplying ix with gas or fuel, the stove needs no attention. As the weeks roll on the chickens are moved along from pen to pen till at last they reach the cool regions and become ready tor transport to the open air fully developed pullets. Thus the dangers of infancy are surmounted, the warmth of the nursery cools, and happy davs of childhood are forgotten. The house for the pullets is not quite finished. It is 1.55 ft. in length, divided into big compartments, furnished with well-con-structed boxes for food and grit, well Jittered with chaff and straw, and provided with perches, trays of asbestos slate 4ft. wide. From end to end is a trough of water from the tank on the hill which is kept scrupulously cool and clean. The asbestos trays are cleaned daily {Sundays excepted), and the lloor is cleaned and limed once a month. .Nests are provided, because the pullets start laying when they are live or six months old. Trap doors worked with cords allow the inmates access to the orchard, which is limed, ploughed, and cultivated, oats, barley, and clover being grown. The orchard is divided so that each division can be used alternately,and thus the rotation of cropping and manuring renews and fertilises the soil. The shed for the laying fowls is similar to the one just described, except that it is' 210 ft. iu length, and furnished with tiers of- nests, in which nearly a thousand eggs are laid every day. Outside at one end is a concrete tank with a capacity of 3.(500 gallons of water, obtained from the. roof, and this supplies the long drinking trough. This shed, with its numerous divisions, accommodates between 1,200 ami 1,400 laying hens. To see them busily at work, looking their best in faultless white plumage, with the nests tilled and in eager demand, hustling among the feed and grit boxes, and to listen to the eternal row of cackling that goes on, is an experience once witnessed not readily to be forgotten.

HOW “CHICKS” ARE MANUFACTURED.

Now for the manufacture. Chickens cannot become strong pallets nor pullets laying hens , nor hens truly productive without plenty of good nourishment. It is the fuel that feeds the boiler and makes the engine go, the fertiliser that produces good crops, and Mr Walker regards an abundance of the best poultry food as a prime necessity. Ho sends away tons of eggs, hut he imports to his farm from Feilding and other places tons of cereals. All a (died to each long building is a feed-house stocked with hags of maize, wheat, barley, bran, and home-made mash. In some cases the mash is given dry, hut the laying fowls have a supply every morning well scalded. The routine of meals consists of a scratch feed of grain at (i a.n., hot mash at 1) a.m., and scratch feed again at fj p.m. The hot mash is made from the gravy obtained the previous dav.

DOES IT PAY! The area available —SI acres —is reckoned ample for 5,000 fowls, but the pi'opcr management, of a big poultry farm involves labour and responsibility. The farm described keeps the owner, his son. and a man and a hoy busily employed. Over .‘>oo bens occupy 1 hi* breeding pen. from which Ihe cockrels, 20 in number, have been sold. Between fiO and 70 sacks of food are consumed every month. During the past two weeks the receipts from eggs amounted to £OS. The eggs, carefully packed are sent in boxes to Wellington, and the wholesale price at present is Is 4d per dozen. About 500 dozen are sent away every week. Air Walker considers a good poultry farm should yield a clear profit of 10s a year for each bird, and a man should manage about 500 without assistance. This will give him £250 per annum for his labour. During the year of excessive prices for feed that followed the war, Mr Walker, who keeps an accurate account of his expenses and returns, obtained an overage pro lit of 8s Odd from his stock. Poultry farming he looks upon as an important industry, capable of great expansion, and decidedly remunerative, but good management is essential.