POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10231, 6 May 1911, Page 6

POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

(By "Gock-o'-the-North.' ) Although' the husk'and water are of no practical use in yards, stall the poultry-keeper must reckon with them, as they seriously affect the quantity which must be fed; thus, if feeding dried blood one pound is quite sufficient for 100 birds for one day, because the blood contains when dried over 90 per cent (or ninetenths) of dried matter, i.e., food; but if the same blood were fed in its natural state to the fowls it would be necessary to feed lOlbs of the blood, as every pound fed would contain only one-tenth of a pound of animal food, the other nine-tenths being water would be of no practical use to the birds. The same thing applies to husk. If, say, one-tenth of any one pound of food be husk, the birds have only received nine-tenths of a pound of food, the husk being of no use except per- | haps to overtax the digestive organs.

The term "feeding for egg production" is often heard, but' the majority of the listeners (or readers) have no idea of what it means in reality, and to be quite candid many who use the term glibly have only a dim idea themselves of what it means. When a fowl is not laying, She needs sufficient to repair the daily waste of muscle and tissue, to supply bodily heat and energy for activity. If the bird be growing it will need a more nutritious diet than an adult bird, merely resting, as the youngster has to be fed sufficient to build up hone, muscle and flesh in addition to the above. When a fowl begins to lay, however, she needs an instant concentration of foods, as before she can continue laying she must have the material fed her with which to form the eggs. If this is not done, she is either compelled to stop or dies from sheer exhaustion.

Has any reader taken the trouble to work out what it means when a fowl does what is being don© in Christchurdi at present, where six birds have laid from May Ist, 1910, to April, 22nd, 1911, 1510. eggs, or over 251 eggs each. Now, if these eggs only weighed 240z to the dozen (a very light weight) this would mean ,that these six birds had laid a total of 502 ounces of eggs each, and if we allow 75 per cent of-that to be water, the bird has yielded a gross weight of 311bs of eggs. Now, if 75 per cent of these eggs is simply water, it means that if a Leghorn, though onl yweighing from to 51bs has layed a total of nearly eight pounds of solid dry matter (not bad this), she has yielded in eggs something like one and threeqUarter times the weight of herself, so that she can only continue laying at the expense of her life unless fed a ration that allows her to replace what the egg has taken to produce in. addition to supplying the daily t teds of her body. In. reality, the' hen lays a greater weight in eggs than this, s& an rujg contains only 72.7 per cent, of water, 15.0 per cent, protein, 11.3 of fats, and 0.8 of mineral ash, an J further, the eggs are more Mkely to tun 2£oa to the dozen, or more than 24

It "will bo seen, then, hotr imperative « matter it is to feed a ration of a pioper nutritive vabitj if one is tooking for a heavy egg jTeld from the birds, as the .strain, of producing these even under the most fovourab'lo conditions is tremednous. It is not only the actual . thing the bird has produced that must he thought of, but the effort it costs, .to produce it., Fqijriß da 1 adß lay eggs for fun, on fan the lov4 of laying them, for many of. them suffer keenly in laying the egg; but they are simply fulJaJMiiig their destiny, and overdoing it a little, not by any wish of their own, but by the work : of their masters, who compels them | to eat food which has th@ effect of making them lay haa.v%v . I When I u*& the terns nutritave value, I would Hke readers to remember that I simply m*an the effi* •ciency of the food (or foods) I am dealing with for any purpose for whaoh it is being fed to the birds. The difficulty with most men and women of ordinary poultry education i« to arrive at the nutritive ratio o| any food, and I wall endeavonf to. make this plain next week. CCo be oonitoniieid.)

mmmm posrwm Sife-meDaber that a. fowl on the average yields two ounces of maiiur« per night, or 780 ounces per annum, /with an equal quantity of soil or sand it ia an ideal manure for almost anything, and each-fowl can. be credited with lOOibs (roughly). If sold at only £8 per ton it would pay half the food ball of the bird. 3>o you save

yours? If not, why notP ****** Inferior grains when available at low prices for fowls are magnificent things—to leave severely alone. Tell the would-be vendor to feed his own fowls on it. ****** A very cheap incubator is mostly J an exceedingly expensive one in the> end, but the best machine made has j got ito hustle to beaf! a good old j drunken turkey hen (with apologies). *,** * * * What sort of heat do you use in your brooders? Hot air, or hot water? What kind do I perfer in mine, you say? Well, I prefer to have no artificial heat of any kind, winter or summer, hofl or cold, wot or dry, and I'll beat the heat brooders every time. Try ifc.