EGG PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1939, Page 9

EGG PRODUCTION

CINDERELLA OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES. (Contributed.) The production of the- very necessary egg is the one primary industry that has thoroughly earned the title of being the Cinderella of its group. The general public sees the question of egg prices from one angle only, and forgets the angle of production. There are two factors that ought to be more generally known about egg production. The first is: It costs, .at the present time, more than a shilling a dozen to produce eggs, in feed alone. To make this clear. I ask you to know that the average fowl lays less than 12 dozen eggs in a year and in doing it she eats a bushel and a half of feed that costs over 8s a bushel. Thus it is plain that feed alone costs more than one shilling a dozen eggs. Then there are the costs of housing, labour, losses, etc., before any profit comes to the poultry-keeper. The second factor to be remembered is that half the eggs a fowl lays are laid in three or four months of the year, August, to November. In this time the birds lay more eggs than the country can consume and so means must be found for dealing with this surplus. The means used are chilling, pulping and exporting. Exporting cannot be made profitable in any way. Pulping and chilling can be made profitable if the eggs arc sold at a low price; hence the temptation at this time of the year to bring eggs down to as low a price as possible. This is done by the middleman, called the agent, and his name would bo more justly that of robber, because he brings the price clown artificially, so that he can make the more profit in the winter months. This is the bane of the industry. It is interesting to compare prices in Australia at the present time with prices in this country. There, the winter price of eggs is Is a dozen, but wheat is about 3s a bushel, so that the price is all right for the poultry-keeper there. The whole problem, therefore, must be considered from the point of view of feed costs.

One may well ask. "Why do people still carry on with the production of eggs?" The answer is quite simple. Far the greater quantity of eggs are produced by people who keep so few fowls that their loss is not felt. There are only 500 people getting their living out of egg production in this country. On the other hand, 150,000 people keep 24 or less birds, and though they undoubtedly lose on the cost of production. the loss is not felt. The poultrykeeper with 500 birds and more is continually going to the wall, and numbers of this class do not increase. If ever there was an industry needing orderly marketing, it is the poultry industry, and by the same token if ever there was an industry suffering injustice from both public and Government it is this one. It is true to say that pure selfishness keeps this one industry on an inequitable basis.