POULTRY NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24423, 8 October 1940, Page 11

POULTRY NOTES

By Terror

Answers to Correspondents “Interested” (Balclutha). —There axe many good books on poultry. If you visit the reference room of the Carnegie Library, Dunedin, you would be shown two or three of the best books that have been published, and any stationer could, obtain the one you prefer. A New Zealand publication would suit, you best, as it treats on poultry raising relative to local conditions.

D. C. (Stirling).—Judging by the symptoms you describe, the birds are suffering from dropsy of the heart bag. J. Woodruffe Hill, F.R.C.V.S., describes the symptoms of this trouble as follows: “Restlessness, moping, head thrown - backwards, inability to feed from the ground, and when attempted reeling and staggering backwards, tumultuous action of the heait, occasional spasms.” No treatment is recommended. Best thing'to do is to kill the ailing birds, seeing that , they are two year old and will never . be profitable, even if- they get over their present trouble. Possibly your two-year-olds are being overfed i.e., though not producing as they did as yearlings are getting as much food. Avoid Waste The Ministry of Agriculture in Great Britain is encouraging everyone who has three or four square yards of ground to spare in his back garden or yard to keep a few fowls, and it points out that table scraps and kitchen and garden waste, plus a little wheat, would feed them. This fact has been mentioned before in these notes, but the Minister of Agriculture has gone further than this in its endeavour to meet war-time conditions. He has abrogated—cancelled—the prohibitions of county councils and private landlords against the keeping of poultry by their tenants,, and it is now anticipated that thousands more people in England will start keeping fowls in a small way, and consequently there will be a great demand for layers to the:, benefit. ,pf commercial, breeders. Up to the preTseqfc 'it .Jjas x ajyfgys. been realised that hou seh elds crap sr edu c e the cost of poultry feeding far as' small holders are concerned, but that they do not bulk sufficiently to benefit large poultry plants. In England at any rate this argument will not hold in future for many large holders are already collecting household waste foodstuffs from door to door in their own neighbourhoods*. It is estimated that no less than 500,000 tons of stuff which could - be turned into suitable food for fowls and other live stock have in the past gone into the dustbins in England. Not only are large holders of poultry now collecting this household waste, but proprietary poultry food manufacturers are also collecting it. It is reported by one such firm in an area of London that within five days of starting collecting, one ,cf their men collected for the firm 14cwt. A system of collecting covering 15,000 houses has recently been organised, and according to Home papers (up to July 9) the first week’s collection yielded 12 tons 3cwt. The report lam referring to is headed “Perfect Diet.” and is as follows:

Tottenham' has been collecting 20 to 25 tons a week for some months and is keeping .‘pigs on some of it. Recently the experts of the Land Settlement Association, an organisation that sells some 50,000 pigs a year, visited the Tottenham works.

They, examined the product and were givem-Tts analysis. “That material is a perfect diet ior pigs and poultry,” they said, and* immediately gave an order for'all that Tottenham could produce v over : .and.2aboye the /needs of its own; pigs. ' " :v, ;• ; ’ Watford Corporation,; begancollecting house refuse for pigs in the last war, and built up a .world-famous pedigree .pig herd as -a result. ' To-day they are feeding 260 pigs with this material and have sold what they do not want, 131 tons, to neighbouring farmers for £167.

The method of treating it—and it must be remembered that all swill must, by law, be boiled before use—is simply to put it into large steamers, installed at a cost of £ 68. Their average collection is 10 tons per week. Of course with our small, population ■we cannot be wasting Valuable food in such large quantities' as'England; has been doing, but boasting-as we do that New Zealanders enjoji the highest standard of living in the..world, it is reasonable to believe that per head of population we waste more food than is wasted elsewhere. Anyone who walks the streets of any New Zealand city will see in the dust bins on the pavements on collecting days quantities of stale bread* portions of puddings, bones with meat on them, and can readily believe that there is other foodstuff covered up. Many of us talk glibly on the subject of economies, but the real importance of economies is in the practice, -, - ■. The more householders keeping poultry the fewer householders will require to buy eggs, and consequently the more eggs will be available for export and the greater our exports the greater our imports can become. There are people. I know, who think it beneath their dignity to bother about poultry. They say they can afford to buy all the eggs they want. . It is difficult to see that indignity attaches to the keeping of poultry, knowing, as we do, that members of the Royal Family of Great Britain, noblemen and wealthy aristocrats not oniv keep poultry. but authorise their caretakers to sell surplus eggs, and many such holders of poultry take pleasure also in competing at shows. As a war-time effort to help the Old Country we in favoured New Zealand should certainly do our best to increase our export of eggs, acknowledged the world over to be one of the most nutritious foods available to mankind. The more eggs we export the more we extend our own spending power, i.e., each householder's spending power, and the . spending power of the nation.

Add Eggshells to the Mash In normal times poultry keepers who added egg shells to the mash would be considered old fashioned, but owing to the fact that when short of suplies of shell-forming material the birds were apt to break their eggs and eat, the shells and thus formed the eggeating habits their custom of feeding the egg shells to their birds was not solely because their grandmothers did so To-day, indeed, this habit may be considered as a wise one. It is war time, and there should be no waste in war-time feeding. Many dry the shells in the oven and then pound them into small pieces; others pass them through the mincing machine along with stale or baked bread crusts. It is sometimes stated that the practice will encourage the birds to eat their eggs, but that is an erroneous assumption. It is more likely to aid in the formation of better shelled eggs.

Normally poultry-keepers fight shy o i these old-fashioned methods because they mean extra labour; but that is no argument to-day. If one cares to break up old crockery and bricks into small pieces for grit that can well be done. There was no waste from broken cups and saucers years ago, for they were always broken up for the fowls.

One need not give egg shells exclusively to layers, as they will supply beneficial mineral matter to growing stock.

' Reilly’s report only a small penning for Wednesday’s sale, with satisfactory demand for good" table birds. Cockerels—2 at 3s 10d, 2 3s 4d, 7 3s 2d, 7 3s, 5 25,, Bd. 5 2s 4d, 6 .2s; hens—B at 7s, 7 6s Bd, 12 6s 6d, 23 6s '2d. 14 6s, 2 5s 6d. ; 2 5s 4d; pullets—lo at 8s 6d, 66s 6d. All at per pair.