OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 280, 19 April 1911, Page 3

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

(By "Cock-o'-the-North"). . Finding that New Zealand pouitrymen i were not disposed to put the same -aith in the possibilities of my fowl-1 house as 1 was, I went to the lien Government poultry expert .and showed him what the house could do, and proposed to him that one should be built and tried on one of the Government poultry stations, and, if it succeeded,"Lo give the pouitrymen of the country the benefit entirely free of charge. The expert pooh-poohed the whole thing, and in •his extreme wisdom told me that mv house proved my utter lack of knowledge of poultry culture. This gentleman hail rather good reason to change his mind about this subject later on, but l! patented the house immediately, and since that date have enormously improved the effectiveness of the house and cheapness also. The fact remains, however, that the hundreds who have purchased the house, etc., from me would have had it for the asking, only for this poultry expert (?). As, however, I am not writing for the benefit of poultry farmers only, I should say to the Taranaki farmer, just try one decent house, with 30 good birds in it, and then draw a comparison with the cows or crops. Build a house 14ft deep from front to back and 12ft wide, have the front all wire-netting (lin mesh), to keep out sparrows in winter; keep water troughs, food troughs, dust baths and nests all from 15 to 10 inches above the floor, and have a shelf or battens in front, so that the birds may jump up and stand on it when feeding or drinking. Have a shelf 3ft wide extending the full width of the house, and 9in above this shelf have the perches, 4in by 2in, on edge, with the sharp edges taken off, and the ends fitting into slots cut into a Gin by lin board, which is nailed on to the side walls to i hold them. I One imperative point in any fowlhouse is this: Tar all joints before putting them together, and tar the whole inside of the house when finished, and outside, too, if you wish it. When the tar is dry, lime-wash on the tar, and your house will be practically vermin proof. The side and back walls should be absolutely draught-proof and the roof rain-proof. The cheapest material which can be used to cover'the frame is new sacks split open and stretched tightly on the uprights, the edges being fastened to battens nailed on the uprights at | suitable distances apart. The cost of this covering comes out at less than 3s fid per 100 square feet. The roof should be close boarded, no matter what roofing is used, but here again sacks may be used to advantage and tarred and sandI ed, making it rain-proof at all times, and one which is warm in winter and cool in summer. The floor should be kept covered to a depth of six inches with straw and the grain should always be fed to the birds in this straw, thereby compelling them to take exercise in scratching it out. Such a house is large enough to accommodate 30 birds, and, if running out, 40 or 45 birds. To the farmer who does a .lot of cropping, I should advise him to. build a similar house about oft wide and 14ft long on two runners (a sledge), and when the crop has been cut these houses should be placed in the paddock about 500 yds apart. This would convert all the insects, grain and seeds in the paddock into money. The cropping farmer does more to nourish and keep the sparrow pest than anyone else by placing the paddocks at their disposal when a few hundred good pullets decently housed would convert all that is left into sufficient cash to pay the r.ent (if any) of the land, the ploughing, sowing and threshing, and leave the grain clear to the farmer. The American farmer has long since recognised this, and the best farmers in the United States make heaps of money off their ground after the cutting and threshing is over by stocking the paddocks in the-way referred to above. Under any other conditions I am not in favor of the colony plan, as the labor is too heavy to attend to birds scattered over a large piece of ground. The city man and suburbanite will find the house mentioned above (the first one) the very thing for him,, as the house provides everything, or, rather, it is supplied to the birds from the house, and thirty birds may be run j in this house, thereby only occupying a piece of ground 14ft by 12ft.