REPORT OF THE POULTRY MANAGER 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



267 



Table I. — Individual hen records as shown by trap nests. 12 Barred Plymouth Rock 

 pullets, hatched May 20, 1905. Pen 1. Warm house. 



FROM NOVEMBP]R 1, 1905, TO OCTOBP^R 31, 1906. 



It will be noticed that the above pullets were inmates of a pen in a warm house. 

 The heating was done by coal stove situated in the centre of the building. 



RATIONS USED IN ABOVE PEN 1. 



The whole grain ration, which was fed morning and evening, was composed of J 



wheat ; J buckwheat ; 

 floor of the pen. 



Mash which was 

 bran; \ ground oats; 



oats. The grains were mixed and thrown in the litter on the 



given in small quantity at noon of each day, was made of § 

 ^ ground corn; ^ meat meal. 



Grit, broken oyster shells and pure water were in regular supply. ISTo cut bone 

 was given, as meat meal formed part of the mash. 



Quantities of different grains, &c., used in the months specified, were whole grains 

 538 lbs. ; mash, 198 lbs. ; grit, 28 lbs. ; oyster shells, 28 lbs. 

 Table II. — Pen 36. Showing the record of 13 Barred Plymouth Rock hens, 2 years of 



age, in an unheated house, as compared with 12 pullets of same variety in Pen 1, 



which was warmed. 



The results in the following record are interesting when compared with those of 

 the previous Table 1, as showing a difference in favour of the unheated winter house 

 of modern design. Pen 36, which contained 13 two year old B. P. R. hens, wa$ 

 one of two apartments in an unheated house situated some distance from the main 

 buildings. This apartment 36, as well as the other, had a scratching shed attachment, 

 the front of which was entirely of cotton with a window in the centre, facing south. 

 It was in this and other similarly constructed scratching shed attachments that the 

 disinclination of the fowls to stay, during cold dips, was noticed. The centre divisions 

 of the building were more substantially finished. They are known as the ' roosting 

 and laying rooms,' for, in thcju the hens do both. Instead of cotton, the fronts are 

 boards with windows in the centre. It was presumably because these apartments 

 were less cold than the scratching sheds attached to them, that the fowls showed in- 

 clination to ' bunch ' in them during cold periods. Notwithstanding, the winter egs 



