Dec. 1894.] POULTRY REARING AND FATTENING IN SUSSEX. 187 



will, according to Mr. Rew, display as much concern in the 

 selection of a suitable rooster as the owner of a pedigree herd 

 in the purchase of a new bull. 



One of the largest poultry-rearing farms in the district is 

 owned by an experienced farmer who has been rearing poultry 

 for the last 10 years. His farm consists of 200 acres, of which 

 about two-thirds are grass and 8 acres of hops. The stock on 

 the farm at the time of the Assistant Commissioner's visit 

 consisted of 48 head of cattle, including 10 cows, 38 young 

 stock aad calves, and 7 horses. Oats, grown for food for the 

 fowls, form the main cereal crop. Two of the fields which were 

 laid down to pasture about eight years ago have now good turf, 

 although they received practically no dressing but fowl manure. 

 About 8,000 chickens are reared on this farm each year. 

 Mr. Rew saw 50 coops, each covering a hen and brood, set 

 out in a pasture field of 12 acres. The chickens are fed four 

 times a day on oatmeal mixed with milk while in the coops, 

 and three times a day after they leave the hen. The larger 

 fowls have ground oats twice a dsiv, and whole wheat once a 

 day. The class of fowls kept is the Brahma-Dorking cross. 

 Several fine breeds, including Orpingtons, have been tried 

 without success on this farm. Rearing chickens go over the 

 farm field by field in rotation. On leaving the coops the chickens 

 are put into movable wooden houses or " night-hutches," which 

 permit them to range freely over the field during the day, and 

 in which they are shut up at night, or for shelter during the 

 day. In addition to these hutches, two or three larger hen- 

 houses mounted on wheels are kept for the sitting hens ; but 

 these are usually accommodated in fixed houses. The occupier 

 does not believe in poultry-farming pure and simple, but thinks 

 that fowls must be kept on a farm as a branch of the business 

 and not as the sole product of the land. 



Mr. Rew points out that the success of rearing depends so 

 absolutely on individual care and unremitting attention, that 

 there is naturally some difficulty in getting efficient labour. 

 This difficulty has been solved on the farm in question by an 

 adoption of the principle of profit-sharing analogous to that 

 adopted by flock-owners with their shepherds. The men who 

 attend to the rearing of the chickens receive a regular wage 

 and a commission averaging 9d. a dozen upon all chickens which 

 they successfully rear. 



On another farm the chickens are fed upon ground oats and 

 water four times a day while in the coops. Subsequently they 

 are fed three times a day and receive maize as well as oats. 

 The first broods appear in December, and fattening begins about 

 the end of March. The chickens are not allowed access to water 

 as they are said to thrive better without it. The practice on 

 this larm is to rear cocks for stock and buy pullets, while 

 most farmers buy cocks and save pullets. It is stated that 

 ground oats are universally used both for rearing and fattening 



