OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 53, 24 August 1911, Page 7

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

(Cock-o'-the-.Yoith.) \ We will now deal with No. ;> method i of feeding. In this method properly constructed hoppers are fitted in the fowlhouse and kept filled with a properly balanced dry mash, and the grain ration is fed in one or two feeds, but always in deep litter. This is, I think, as near a perfect system of feeding poultry as it is possible for the utility poultry-man to adopt, or, for the matter of that, for the fancier also. When 1 say properly constructed hoppers for dry mash I mean hoppers which will prevent the birds wasting the mash when eating from them. When the mash is mixed it is, or should be, identical in composition with moist mash with the, one exception of water or moisture of any sort. It contains all the egg, bone, muscle, flesh and fat-producing materials in proper proportions which are required for the daily maintenance of the bird, whether for bodily needs or egg production.

The opponents of the dry mash system of feeding fowls say that the system is only fit for those who wish to lie in bed in the morning rather than get up and feed their fowls. This kind of argument is simply nonsense, as a man having anything like a decent poultry plant has always more to do than he can manage apart altogether, from the question of feeding. It is not at all necessary for a .person to get out of bed on a cold wet winter's morning to mix up a mash; for his birds, just to show that he is not lazy, If he has an overwhelming desire to get out at that time, let him do so, and do something which will pay him better. Of course, this is a free country, and he can please himself.

Just let any • reader, who has resided in the country districts of Tarauaki try to picture in his mind the following scene, and say whether I over-rate'it or not. Take a morning, say, in June, with a leaden sky, pouring with rain, and blowing heavily from any point between south-east and south-west. As we all know, the paths on a farm are not usually metalled, and the poultry fanner would have to get out in this and mix up a mash, then go, slipping and sliding everywhere and half blinded with rain, to feed his birds. And what for? Just to vindicate the fact that he was not afraid to do so. Would lie make one shilling' extra by this? Not at all. The birds also would have to come and eat their food in ihe weather and be wet, miserable, and draggled all day. and |>e wretched-looking specimens of fowls altogether. Under the dry mash system the hoppers are all full ("or part full), and when the birds come down from the perch on a day like this they can go at once and in comfort, and help themselves. They are dry and 1 warm, and they get the food long before they would under the moist mash system. Again, under tins system of feeding on such a morning, (he poultry farmer would wake si ml listen to .the bowling storm outside, and, if he cared to do so, he could draw the bedclothes a litle bit snugger around him and have another forty winks, conscious of the fact that his birds were comfortable and happy in spite of the storm. How much would he lose by doing this? Not a groat. . In fact, he would be richer than ■the wet-masher, as his bird* if under a sensible system of accommodation as well as of feeding would not vary their egg production even if the storm lasted a week or two, whereas a couple of days of this kind of weather would cause birds under the old system to cease laying l , and it is very problematical .whether they would lay again before the spring, unless the weather became exceptionally line and mild. All this must be carefully weighed and thought out by those intending to keep fowls, whether it be few or many, as on the result of their decision hangs their success or failure. When building the dry mash troughs a thought should be. given to guarding against rats. If these pests are, troublesome, the simplest and most effective way is fn make the house rat proof, and here asj.iin the old style of poujtry culture fails badly, for a< it is necessary to leave an opening for the fowls' egress and ingress, it also leaves an opening where rats' can enter and conceal themselves' in the house. This same objection to the old style applies to sparrows also.