POULTRY FARMING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8550, 8 October 1907, Page 6

POULTRY FARMING.

DOES IT PAY? "Does poultry farming pay?" said a poultry farmer in reply to a question put to him by a Wairarapa Age reporter. "Well, it does if carried on on proper lines and you have good luck. If you have to buy your own feed—and the price of feed, as you know, is high at the present time — and low prices are ruling for eggs and poultry, you require to have a big turn-over to make it pay. Then, again, you might get a disease amongst your fowls, and then where are you? To my mind, if a man has a farm and is carrying on ordinary farming pursuits he can then go in for poultry farming and make it profitable. He can grow his own feed, etc., and if he is married his wife can assist him by collecting the eggs, etc. He is not then solely dependent on his poultry for a living, and if a disease breaks out amongst his birds he is not, in a sense, so 'hard hit' as the man who goes in solely for poultry farming. There are so many things to take into consideration in connection with poultry farming that I would be a bit chary of advising anyone to go in solely for it. Rather, I should say, combine ordinary farming with poultry farming. Breeding on proper lines is absolutely necessary. I do not believe in trying to breed a bird that will be, at" the same time, a good layer and a good table bird. In my opinion, this cannot be carried out successfully. A poultry farmer must either breed from a laying strain or for table purposes, and not try to obtain the two qualities in the one bird."