Management of Poultry on a Prize Farm.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 346, 27 February 1889, Page 4

Management of Poultry on a Prize Farm.

In the report in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society oi England on the first-prize farm at Nottingham, occupied by Mr S. C. Machin, of Papplewick, Nottingham, it is said : " Fowls area most impoitant item of the live stock of the Forest Farm. The return from them Jasfc year wa a £67, but probably next year ib will be much more, because of the great success of a new incubator by Hearson and Christy, which has replaced a very infeiior one previously used. This very capital artificial mother had hatched off 500 chickens in early July as fast as it could act and without a "check of any kind, and all of them were the very picture of health and thrift. The temperature is regulated by a most ingenious self-acting arrangement, which shuts off the heat when a proper degree of it is reached, and thus obviates the great danger which besets most incubators. The young chickens are generally fed with wheat, dari, and oats, and those of the early spring are sold for 5s 6d to 6s 6d a pair. In the autumn and winter they make 7d a lb to private customers in Nottingham, and the breed is so good that 161b is not an uncommon weight for a couple of them. The eggs are supplied from seven fowl-houses on wheels, which have been made at home from old carts or vans, and boarded in and properly fitted for the laying hens. Each contains, when desired, a separate breed, or a cross between them, of fifty or so in number, and the houses are drawn from field to field about the farm, to secure the healthiness of a new run, and to give the fowls an opportunity of living principally upon tho worms or insects which are useless or injurious to the faimer. As the fields are cleared after harvest, of course they are taken to pick up the leavings there. The eggs are gathered by the younger sons before and after school. A favourite cross is Plymouth Rock with Langshan or Dorking. Tho pigeons yield £19 a year, besides seven loads of manure fiom them and the fowls, which is also carefully treasured for the roots."