POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10281, 8 July 1911, Page 3

POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

| (Bv "Cock-o'-the-Nort!!.") \Yo will take fcr granted that it was the dry mash system which was tried at Ha.wkes.bury. Was it « fair test? Certainly not! AVhy? For these reasoars : The twenty peaas entered in this test were the property often, different owners, unci one of each pen was put on the dry mash and iuie others on the Avet mash. Mind, I am only conceding that it was the Cry mash system which was used for the sako or argument. Xow the owners of these perns of birds had to rely on one pen to (if possible) win- the competition, and it is oady fair to. assume that they would select the best birds (as far as they were able to) to be fed under a system they knew and understood, rather than under a system which (to them) was very Largely experimental, and thus in their opinion jeopardising their chance of winning. To have made a really fair test of it, the tea pens I of birds which were fed oia the da-y i mash system should, after the lapse I of a month, have been, put upon wet j mash, and those upon wet mash the I first month should have been put on J dry mash, and they should have been changed in this way every month till the end of the test. That this constant changing might have to a certain extent lowered the average egg yield of all of the pens is more than probable; but in my opinion the loss would have been trifling, and would have been, more than compensated fou by the absolutely reliable data afforded by a test carried out in this way. As matters stand at present, the test was absolutely worthless from the standpoints for education- for the poultryman, and is of no practical use to him. No test in which the chance of superior or inferior birds is not entirely eliminated is of value from an educational standpoint. Is Mr Thompson justified in pronouncing the dry mash system a fiasco on the actual results obtained at Hawkesbury? Let. us see. Ist. The dry mash fed birds cost 7s s£d per bird for food, and laid an average of 147 eggs each; while those fed oa wet mash cost 6s l£d per bird for food, and laid an average of 181 eggs each. The first showed a profit of 7s per bird over food, and the latter lis 6d over food. That word profit, as used in connection with poultry, is a farce; it is not profit, it is only the sum which the birds owned over the cost of their food. Labour has to be de- j bited against the birds at per head, interest on capital outlay, freight, repairs, and incidental expenses, and all that remains over this is profit. Now, had the profit been estimated in. this way at Hawkesbury, I am afraid that the • term fiasco would have been applied to ,tlie moist mash stylo of feeding as compared to the dry mash. You see, reader, a person atteaiding to 1000 laying birds and feeding wet mash would need, if ho cared for the birds as they should be cared for, to work long hours to do the. work necessary for this numbei- of birds. Suppose this to be 9 hours per day (and he would not do it in that) ait Is per hour labour would cost £164. per annum. Allow t £2O for repairs, another £2O for in- | cidental expenses and freight, and | £25 as interest in the capital outlay |of say £SOO at 5 per cent., and we j have a total of £229 at a modest ©s- ! timate. Now, if these birds paid, as J- at Hawkesbury, lis 6d per bird over ' ! food, they would returnp £575, and less the above, sum would give a not profit of £324, .which is "na sae. bad, conseederin'." A person, however, | on the dry mash as used at Hawkesbury, could run 4000 birds in far less time than 1000 could be run un- ; der moist mash. We will, however, allow eight hours per day as the J time at Is per hour. This would ' mean £146. Allow for repairs say , £BO, incidentals and freight £BO, 1 and interest at 5 per cent, on £2OOO, f £IOO. This would make a grand total of £456. Now, if the birds paid as at Hawkesbury 7s per head over food tney would return £I4OO, less £456, or a net profit, alter paying labour, etc., of £944 for less work .and less worry than under the moist mash for £324. Againi, the figures at Hawkesbury for fod for the dry fed birds include the loss by mice, sparrows, etc., which shows a defective system somewhere. Finally, that it was not the system of feeding wlrich was at fault is shown by the fact that the leadr •ing dry mashpeii laid an average, of lov£ eggs per bird, beating all the moist-fed pens with the exception of their own sisters, and if this pen ■could lay 188£ eggs each under this system so could the rest, had the birds been, equal to this "Hdllcrest" pen as : layers, for it was the feeding which was at fault all the dry fed p«ns would have been behind all the moist fed om/es. But, as I say above, the reverse was the case. So much' ] for the value of the Hawkesbury test, and its results. t