SOAKED GRAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1941, Page 3

SOAKED GRAIN

VALUE AS POULTRY FEED. POPULARITY INCREASING IN AUSTRALIA. An article of interest appears in a recent issue of the “The Poultry Farmer,” relating to the feeding of soaked grain to poultry. It states:—Due to the prevailing shortage of mill offals, soaked grain feeding is becoming increasingly popular throughout the poultry producing States of the Commonwealth, and the system will become more firmly established, as there does not appear any prospect of improvement in offal supplies. It is of exceptional interest that practically all grains—wheat, maize, barley and oats —can be used; therefore the system tends to further cheapen feeding costs. Seeing the hundreds of commercial egg producers that are successfully carrying on their farms with soaked grain, and the hatcheries that are securing excellent breeding, hatching and rearing results, we might well say soaked grain is past the experimental stage and has proved itself by the acid test of £ s d —profits that keep men and women on their farms.

NO STANDARDISED RATION. Possibly there would have been a greater acceptance of the system if a standard ration was the order of the day—on lines somewhat similar to the general acceptance of the Hawkesbury ration for meal feeding. There are many different ways of preparing and feeding soaked grain, and to date no any one system can be regarded as the best. The time is opportune for an independent test of the various formulas, and coupled with that an egglaying test. ' The meagre egg-laying tests conducted so far can be regarded as worthless. Most of them were carried out on a soaking formula now regarded by even its staunchest advocates at that time as being out of date. Time never stands still, and the advances made in experiments and research connected with soaked grains want bringing up to date. Why is it individual farmers claim higher production when test committees cannot achieve results? Is it that the ration is better for large flocks and unsuitable for single pen-tested birds? These are things we want to find out.

VARIETY OF SYSTEMS. From 'a four-hour soaking to a 48hour period—with cold water, hot water and steam, with iron, concrete and wooden soaking utensils, with meatmeal added before, during and after shaking, with salt and without—provides indication of the variety of ideas held and practised; yet every farmer who 'has conscientiously tried soaked grain praises it, despite its varied preparation. Recently I noticed a critic of the system saying that loss of production outweighs any supposed saving, but. what is most perplexing is that while official tests invariably show lower pro'duction, individual farmers claim higher. There is no reason to doubt the accuracj 7 of either side, but there still remains the query—Why? SOAKED GRAIN NATURAL. If we go back to nature we find that the jungle fowl invariably fed on the dropped grains—those that lay on the ground, and rarely did they jump up to grass clumps or grain-bearing growths to dislodge ripe grain. The grain when on the ground would be moister and softer and relished by the bird. It is even claimed that if the moist grains were lying on the ground and, later, dry ones fell on top, the bush fowls would eat the moister ones first, scratching over to get them. That of course would depend on the birds’ hunger.

If we place dry and moist grain before domestic poultry the preference is for the moist. After carefully reviewing the possibilities of soaked grain feeding I am of the opinion that the system—coupled with a well sprouted grain—will overcome not only a wartime feeding problem, but counteract any possibility of deficiency disease due to lack of green feed in dry seasons. We must never lose sight of the fact that the whole wheat berry must have a far greater food value—and in a, more concentrated form —than meals I from which a great deal of different materials have been extracted. Whole grain is. logically, the natural diet of poultry.