POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 1032, 12 August 1911, Page 3

POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

(Bv "Oock^-the-NortJi.'')

Continuing on the subject . f vr-i mash,, the reader may obj-c-:i \ iu.'. !; has kept fowls for man 3' 3"ca:3, rinc always 'fed a' wet mash, and th<. fowls laid well. Ido .not dispute such an assertion, but lot this r:\ul er take notice cf ivlnt :he < ir;:.. •.•.:... per dozen in time and lahr;-;- <y :: ]\ and tlv?n consider that if ;horo tencther nictiiic! cf fr--:l::',s . I:':!.. . I. . Kivn the :.; : 90 per 00: it. iocs tune and labour i think ■the- man is very .foolish if he I does not adopt it. New Zealand isI a ifree country (at least we are told &y), and every man and woman has a perfect right to please him (or her) self so long as the Law of the land is not hroken ; hut although there is no law gcvorning the feeding cf fowls etc., tlie person using the wet mash harj to pay the .penalty every whit as 'much .as if he 'were lined by a magistrate for so doing— iu the los sof time and labour, and consequently of money involved in feeding under this •style*. "Oh," says one reader, "but I only run thirty or forty .birds as a hohlby, and. I like to be pottering about among thorn.'-' I never yet knew a ibusine&s man who did not like his hobby to pay as well as it was possible to make it- pay. If then he desires' to potter about among them for say a, couple of hours pei- day, and under the present conditions of wet mash, etc., this means &ay 100 birds, and he finds that by pottering aibout among them, for tlio same two hours 'ho can j under another ipethod. of feeding I run say 500 hirdsi, and consequently make his hobby net him five times j the profit, and ho declines to do so, | he certainly is not a real business j man. I

"This is all very fine," says a .poultry man, "'bait I ai-se- the wet mash because it enables me to force imy birds." How? "Oh, I boil up some livers or meat, and also vegetables, and then mix it up to a nicecrumbly mass with pollard and 'bran and "bai Jove," they do-lay!" Now, what makes them, lay? Why, the meat, vegetables, pollard and bran ; but certainly not the water in, which, these were boiled. Well, if this is the case, and the meat -were fed raw, also the vegetables in addition to the bran and pollord, the bird would eat .and assimilate just asmuch egg forming matter a.s if these were boiled or stewed and ■mixed together, and at an, enormous saving in time, labour and fuel. The water given to drink will- do all the moistening which is necessary without all this useless labour. "But I don't mix .mine with' water," .says still lanother,' "I mix it with milk." Well, it all comes back to the same tiling. Give the milk to drink. Nature does not iboil the grubs and insects a fowl finds on free range, nor the herbs and grasses B'he eats; but many a progressive, farmer who has been sensible enough to obtain a good laying strain, and who keeps his fowls clean and in. a comfortable house, has better results than many boilers and stewens: obtain from their birds in spice of the so-called forcing. All the arguments in the world will not .alter this fact, viz., that "the eggs can be produced, but at such an excessive cost in labour and time as to make it doubtful if the game is worth tine candle, and hence the saying "poultry will not pay." Now ifor No. 2. This mas all the j disadvantages of No.-xl, with more; added-. It is mot very extensively ' used, 'bait the claim' put forward by the advocates of this system of! feeding is that thebirds have a nice warm meal to go to roost on, and -thus .be warm and comfortable on a cold night. Let any reader who is inclined .to favour this method try it, and at the .same time- feed am. equal number of birds in deep litter with grain. They will go on 'the perch at the same time, the one lot growing and warm from tlie exercisie induced by having to scratch the grains out from among the litter, and the other {presumably) ] warmed iby the warm mash ' the birds in the evening. Now at 11 p.(m.' go out to the fowl house with- a clinical thermometer. First hianxlle the (birds and feel the crop 3. Those fed with the grain ; will have the (drops partly full, while the crops of the mash fed'..birds will be completely empty. Now take, the temperature of the (birds iby inserting the thermometer just inside the thigh of the birds, and holding the leg in position, till the thermometer has registered the bird's tempera-, ture. It will then- ibe isoon. seen, which ration is best, and if the .poultry man will repeat this at .say 4 a.m. on a winter's morning he will get.such a- shock as .will most probably dure him- of any desire to continue this method of feeding. Ass a. matter of fact, the bird which has ib'een mash-fed at night has to pasts the longest, coldest and dreariest portion of the winter's night ■with an absolutely empty crop, and with a consequent lowering of the temperature, and the bird descends from, the perch in the morning,. cold, miserable, weak and partially exhausted,' thus offering 'an easymark for any (sickness which happens to be about; her .system craves for something at once, and .what does,she get? Why,, hard .grain which will take another couple of houra ibeforo any of it can be assimilated into the system. Let any man, after a hard day's, work, eat ~-a: meal of. porridge in the eyenin g, and then iseo how he feels on rising in; the morning.. He:.can them, liken-■ his sensations to tlie. fowl's;, as they •will, (be identical. So,miuch for. this, ■method. We will deal with the others later.