POULTRY FOR PROFIT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 12, 8 July 1911, Page 4

POULTRY FOR PROFIT.

LI'X.'TUIiE AT TECHNICAL COLLEGE. There was a very fair attendance at the Technical College last evening, when Mr. E. C. Isaac, the Education Department's inspector in tecnnical instruction, gave what he termed "a little talk" on "poultry for profit." Mr. It. G. Whetter briefly introduced the speaker, intimating that it was Mr. Isaac's desire to establish at the college a .class for instruction in the keeping of poultry ill a domestic' way, not necessarily as a commercial industry.

Mr. Isaac explained that the people of New Zealand had yet to understand that the technical education system of the Dominion had to get close to the lives of the people if it was to achieve, its full measure of .success and benefit to the country. Poultry-keeping was. lie' said, or it should be, very cloho to the lives of the people. First of all, he touched on the question of breed. The common, barndoor variety of fowl, a combination, perhaps, of a dozen or hundred breeds, might lay up to 120 eggs a year, and these would not pay her keep. It was necessary to have breed. He liked a fowl that had cultivated the egg habit well, laying from early in the winter and right through the winter, giving, say, 200 or 270 eggs a year. The White Leghorn was the best egg-producer that he knew, but other breeds must be considered if one were looking fin- table birds. The home or housing of the birds was of great importance. A packing-case might be good enough fr a crowd- of barndoor fowls, but good fowls should have a good home—airy, roomy, well supplied with perch room. Fowls were fools. Tliey would lay whether they were decently Housed or not, and if'lhey were, given perches one above the other,' the fowls would make for the top perch, which was the worst place for them. The floor below the perches should he cleaned every day, and the perclfns placed at all the same height. "Multiply a ilea a million times, and then tlunk what it means to the fowl," he said, when the million of microscopic red mites infested them' on the perches at night, kerosene was a splendid thing to kill these, which lodged in the tiniest crevices of the wood. Fowls hated wet, hated wind, and needed to be kept act-, ive, and all of thise would be provided for by giving them a scratehing-hed, with a dry floor of straw, earth mould, sand, etc. Activity in the birds was absolutely necessary if eggs were to bn obtained. Both the scratching shed and the house shed should be wished with lye-wash occasionally. Last, but not lease, in the home there should be provision for a plentiful supply of pure water, preferably in a shallow,- scrjipulously clean vessel.

Haying settled breed and nomc, tlio next important question was feed. Fowls should bo fed early in the morning, before seven and early in the evening. The fowl produced its weight over and over again in eggs in a vear so it must be properly fed. A bran mash (a handful of bran, two handful*- of pollard, and a handful of cooked meat well minced) was a good egg-producing food. Plenty of grit must, V given of course, including plenty of fine *tones. lie emphasised at various points durin" the lecture that the fowl was one o"f the cleanest animnls, and evervthing about her should be «Ban. The' »reen food should not be -thrown on the ground, but hung up so as to he kept, clean Mr. Isaac advised keeping onl? the best fowls, even if thev cost JEI X o "'- He concluded by urging that the Board of Education was anxious to form .the domestic poultry class, and at the conclusion the technical organiser met a number of interested persons in this connection.