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Day With
A Poultry Farmer
By MURRAY TONKIN
THE South Australian Egg Board paid egg
' producers in South Australia nearly a mil
lion pounds for eggs during the 12 months
ended June 30 this vear — nearlv a nuarter of a
million pounds' worth more than they produced
before the war.
Poultry farmers are in front ofj
last year's production right nowj
by more than a million eggs. They
and their fowls are doing a vital
war service in providing soldiers
still in the field, and the home
front with food — one of the muni
tions of war.
This week I tried to find out
what the poultry farmer does to
produce a million pounds' worth
of eggs.
There are. of course, poultry
farmers and poultry farmers. Some
of them are in the business in a 1
very big way. own farms occupy
ing several acres, carry many
thousands of birds. These are the
men who ere finding themselves
.severely embarrassed by the pre
sent shortage of feed wheat.
The man we are interested in at
present, however — and the man
for whom the' Federal Government
is apparently catering in its feed
wheat allocations — is the one-man
poultry farmer who carries from
1.000 to 1.200 birds.
I say 'the man for whom the
Federal Government is apparently
catering' because, according to
poultrymen, he is the only one
who is getting a sufficient allow
ance of feed wheat for his flock.
15 Hours a Day
ITOW does the 'John Citizen'
poultry farmer make his Hy
ing? What does he get out of it,
and how does he earn it?
Well, to start with, he works
about 15 hours a day.
Right now — from June till De
cember each year — is the poultry
farmer's busiest time. It includes
the spring hatching, when South
Australian hatcheries turn out
anythipg up to three-quarters of
a million day-old chicks.
It's not heavy work — very — like
market gardening, for instance,
but it requires skill, knowledge,
commonsense. and constant atten
tion.
Like the dairy farmer, who Is ;
lied to his cows, the poultry man j
can't neglect his job when there
are incubators to attend to, or lay
ing hens to be fed.
Your one-man poultry farmer
gets up about 6.30 a.m. and starts
his day's work. He can't go to
bed before 9 or 10 p.m., because
that's when he finishes his job for
the day with a last visit to the in
cubators.
At 6.30 or 7 a.m. he starts to
make the hot mash that is the first
meal of the day for his hungry
family of 1.000 birds And how
fowls can eat! The grinding, mix
ing, and mashing of this meal takes
him till about 9 o'clock, when he
has his own breakfast — he may
even have eggs and bacon.
After breakfast he attends to his
mail, and replies to any inquiries
it may contain for chickens, eggs,
or settings of the strain in which
he specialises.
By the time he has finished this
it is time to start on the prepara
tion of the midday meal — fowls eat
three times a day like you and
me — and to make the first collec
tion of eggs.
Long Day Ends
The afternoon will probably be
spent in walking round the poul
try houses, segregating and attend
ing to any sick birds, cleaning out
houses, and doing the repairs and
hundred and one odd jobs asso
ciated with the keeping of any
kind of stock.
Then it is time for the evening
reed. the second collection of eggs,
ind the bedding down of chickens
?nd eggs in incubators for the
night. i
To the average worker the even
ing meal spells the end of the day,
'jut the poultrv man hasn't finished
yet
Afier tea he goes out to his egg
room, where he sets about the job
of cleaning and packing his eggs
for market.
Because the South Australian
Egg Board insists upon clean
shells, every egg has to be washed
before it is packed. In any case,
he would probably wash his eggs,
because clean eggs bring better
prices.
At this time of the year his hens
will lay anything up to 600 eggs
a day, and they've all got to be
cleaned, or at least examined to
see if they need cleaning.
Afterwards he puts in some time
testing eggs in the incubators for
fertility, checks up on the tem
peratures inside the machines, and
sees that any chicks are comfort
able. By this time it is 9 or
10 p,m.
? And so to bed.
And the Return
'T'WICE a week eggs have to be
-1- taken to the nearest depot of
the Egg Board, of which there arei
nine in the city. j
And what does he get out of
this?
Experts estimate that the aver
age laying hen should yield 13 to!
14 dozen eggs a year. At present
the Egg Board price is from 1/9% |
for the first grade down to 1/5 ai
dozen for eggs, but over the 12 1
months the price averages about j
1/8. This means that 1.000 birds]
would yield a maximum gross re-:
turn of about £1.167 a year. ]
That's good money — but he
hasn't paid his bills yet. I
Wheat, bran, pollard, meatmeal
all cost more since the war — what!
3rou can get of them. j
Again calling in the experts, it
is estimated that an adult bird
costs 7/ a year to feed. That]
means £350 for 1,000. This leaves!
£817. but only half of that is
profit, because pullets have to be
fed for six months before they
start to lay. During that six
months all they do is eat — and how
they eat!
At present it is reliably esti
mated that the average 1,000-birdj
'John Citizen' poultry farmer is!
making from £400 to £500 a year1
off his farm. That, however, is;
with greatly stimulated egg pro
duction for war purposes, and^
marketing through the South Aus- ;
tralian Egg Board, which controls
distribution.
Before the war, it is said, a
poultry farmer was lucky to have
made two-thirds of this.
$