OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 140, 16 December 1911, Page 8

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

(By Cock-o'-the-North). Another very remarkable statement was made when speaking on the value of animal food by one of the same gentlemen whom I alluded to last week. He stated that he had sent a sample of dried blood to the Government Analyst, and that he had received a reply giving the actual analysis of this product. He thought that they had simply sent him the usual analysis because they were pestered with so many similar requests. At any rate, not feeling satisfied, he sent a sample over to Australia to be analysed, and the report came back that it was of very little use, as the cellulose had become too hardened around the blood, thereby making it practically indigestible. The gentleman making this statement is one conducting a poultry column in this Dominion, and one would naturally think that he would at least study the subject for himself as far as possible instead of making to his readers statements the correctness or otherwise of which he is absolutely ignorant. It

is such statements as there made by men professing to be past-masters of the profession of poultry culture that do inlinite mischief to the practical poultry man or woman with limited education. Of course, it may be advanced by those making these statements that they do not claim to be past-masters, but if this is so they have no right to presume to teach others, and still less to make statements which are liable to do harm in the way of depriving the poultryman of an extremely useful and economical animal food.

Now, readers, please remember thai the statement made was that the cellulose around the blood was so hardened that it made the blood indigestible. Now, considering the fact that there is no cellulose there to harden, readers may form a better idea of the rubbish often stated by would-be experts, on the assumption that others are equally ignorant as themselves and therefore unable to refute them. Cellulose is the approximate principle or substance of which the permanent cell membranes of plants are always composed of. I treated shortly some two years ago of this question in the Hawke's Bay Herald, but I now intend to go fully into the matter to show readers the folly of such statements as the one referred to above.

Since the subject of feeding fowls has been made a subject of close study, it has been discovered that fowls fed on a ration in which one-fourth the total protein was derived from animal sources laid better than fowls receiving a ration in which all the protein was of vegetable origin and fowls receiving a ration in which one-third the total protein supplied was from animal sources did still better. Xow, why was this? It was because the protein in vegetables is contained in these tiny cellulose cells and is therefore difficult of digestion; the animal not being able to make use of it as quickly as the animal whose food is wholly or partially animal food. Cows, horses', sheep and other herbivorous animals release the protein from these cells by the process of digestion and assimilation into the blood, and the carnivorous animal by eating the herbivorous animal assimilates into its system and profits by it much quicker than the herbivorous animal. This accounts for the fact of herbivorous animals eating a much larger amount of food for any given purpose than the carnivorous animal. At any rate, once the protein released from the vegetable source from which all protein is derived in the first place, it is on longer encased in cellulose attached to animal protein. This being the case. I should like to be told how heat lias the power to harden the. cellulose around the blood, and, further, where this cellulose came from. Again, if cellulose were present the application of heat would turn it into starch, for that is the effect of heat on cellulose, and therefore our dried blood would be of a whitish color instead of brown and black.

it was hold by some scribe in Australia tliut liis fowls laid better without animal food and were healthier than With it. The Hawkesbury College at once took up the matter to test it (though it lias been tested hundreds of tunes). T wrote at onee to a friend of mine in Sydney fa Mr. 0. B. T. Smith) and told him the fowls receiving no animal food would go down, and they are. *o far. fulfilling what 1 said, and' it is my opinion that from this out they will lapidly fall off. Dried blood contains !>1 parts of dry matter out of 100. Of the.,e 84.3 are protein and 2.5 are fat, the rest being mineral ash. It will thus he seen that it would be a shame to make poultrymen cease using this very valuable animal food to pander to the fads of any crank in existence. I have used no other animal food for my birds for years, and I guarantee that birds (a (lock of, say, 400) of the same strain will lav as well for me when using il a- for another man who uses animal food in other form.?.