Nov, 2, 1920.] Agricultutal Gazette of N.S.W. 829 



feeding is again brought on the same condition will reappear. Small 

 enclosures with no means of inducing exercise will accentuate the tendency 

 to put on flesh. -' 



Any attempt to deal with fleshy hens in an ordinary flock will interfere 

 with the proper feeding of the whole. In short, if hens are over fat and 

 do not lay they are fit subjects for culling out. 



Reserving Stud Birds. 



The altered conditions of the poultry industry will need to be carefully 

 studied by the poultry-farmer if the best commercial results are to be 

 obtained. A large section of poultry-farmers sell stud stock, but another 

 section market all their cockerels except those reserved for their own use, 

 and keep the pullets as layers. 



Under present conditions it is questionable which practice is the more 

 profitable. To a large extent, of course, it depends upon individual circum- 

 stances, but certain points must be taken into consideration. The poultry- 

 farmer who aspires to sell stud stock must be prepared to reserve his earliest 

 hatched birds for this purpose. These are the birds that command such 

 high prices early in the spring if sold as table poultry, and that have been 

 profitable even under the present high cost of feeding. 



Now let us see what happens when these same birds are kept to be sold 

 as stud birds. First, it should be taken into consideration that, allowing 

 that the parent stock is good, the prospects are that not more than one- 

 third, and probably only about one-fourth of even the early hatchings (and 

 much less of the later hatched cockerels) will be good enough to sell as stud 

 birds, and the balance cannot of course be sold as table birds at the griller 

 stage, because their quality as stud birds has not yet been determined. A 

 small percentage might be culled out and sold at four to five months, but 

 much the largest number must be kept to select from, because many of the 

 faults in a bird are not apparent until he commences to mature, say, six 

 to nine months. From seven months onward the average run of cockerels 

 are worth less as table poultry than at five to six months of age. Deprecia- 

 tion in value and loss in numbers through fighting and other causes of 

 wastage is then going on, until the larger part of the birds are sold either 

 as table birds or for stud purposes. There is usually, then, a balance of 

 " staggy " birds to be quitted, at what they will bring. These are a very 

 serious set-off to the higher prices made for stud birds. 



It will therefore be seen that, however attractive the stud bird business 

 might appear, unless it is carefully (handled it might be better to sell as 

 table poultry. In this connection it is to be feared that owing to high prices 

 early birds have already been marketed instead of being reserved for stud 

 purposes, and many later hatched ones will be kept to be used in the pens 

 that will be inferior and immature for the purpose. 



As a guide to reserving cockerels it might be stated that the number 

 reserved for stud birds should be about three to one for every one that will 

 be required, and this after a culling at four months old. Thus if a farmer 

 requires ten cockerels he will need to keep thirty early ones to select from. 



