POULTRY NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 216, 12 August 1937, Page 16

POULTRY NOTES

(By “Brooder.”) The poultry authorities in Australia are by no means satisfied as yet that soaked wheat food is preferable to the other well-known methods of feeding and the rations thereof. One year’s test, it seems, does not supply conclusive proof that soaked wheat is the ideal ration for laying birds. Attention is now called to the 1936 experiment in Australia in chick rearing when soaked wheat was used. There were three groups used for comparison and fed as follow : —Group 1: Ordinary ration; group 2, soaked wheat with 3 per cent, bonemeal and 7} per cent, milk powder up to 12 weeks of age, after which 5 per cent, meat meal with 60 per cent, protein content, the meat meal being increased to 6 2-3 per cent, when only two meals per day were fed ; group 3, given 10 per cent, meatmeal with 40 per cent, protein content as soon as they were changed from the ordinary ration to soaked wheat. In both groups with 6oaked wheat 220 z of salt per 1001 b was used. It is interesting to note the varying weights of the groups at periodic stages. In groups 2 and 3 where soaked wheat was used the pullets were lighter and the cockerels heavier than in the group where the ordinary ration was fed. The egg yield, too, is illuminating. Egg production began in the groups almost about the same time, but in six months there was a striking difference in the yields of each group. Group 1 showed up well ahead with 525 eggs against 400 for group 2 and 295 by group 3. If the report is to be accepted as a guide there is still one more important feature, for it says: “Although there was little difference in the weight of the fowls at the end of six months, there was a marked difference in their appearance, those receiving the ordinary ration being much better developed and more uniform and robust in appearance than the other two groups which received soaked wheat. More than this, we are told that* feather eating was verv prevalent in the groups fed on soaked, wheat. However, a further test to compare the groups over a 12 months’ period is continuing—and for results of that we must wait.”

Asked for an opinion, a local producer who has tried the soaked wheat methods, says the birds went exceptionally thin during the laying season, and therefore the use of soaked wheat was discontinued. Another finds that its use led to some of his birds laying, even whilst moulting, and they have continued so to do and a.re now reduced to almost a shadow. If there are others who would -dike to tell us what is their opinion of the use of soaked wheat, or better still, what effect did it have on their birds, tlieir viekl and condition, “Brooder” will be nle.ased to include them in these notes. In conclusion, we are told that many in Australia have none back to their old rations satisfied that soaked wheat is no improvement on that diet. One cannot help but be impressed bv the emphasis placed on the use of salt in the above tests. It is now in general use by poultry producers. After all. a moment’s thought tel's us that if salt is necessary for digestion and for many other reasons in all food or human beings, why should it not he also necessary to birds. Everywhere it is acknowledged, that salt is a necessary element in all food. For long it was thought that fowls would secure enough of the element from the green feed they consumed. But do they .always get enough green feed? The answer is in the negative and so we have the usual method. What is not there we add to the mash. One pound to every 100’h of food is considered enough. To go beyond this is unsafe, for salt can Wom’e a poison if given too freely. Chicks we are told a.re handicapped (rreatly if there is an .absence of salt in the rations fed. To secure proper development in chick life be sure. then, there is the proportion of salt required in the food supplied.