• POULTRY FARMING IN CANADA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your notes in the issue of January 21st on the subject Of Poultry-keeping interest me (as a visitor spending • a -year in this Canadian Province), for I have been observing, so far as a layman in these matters may, the methods of poultry farmers here. • - British Columbian poultry has been obtaining high honours at the Ottawa shows, the prize hen bringing its B.C. producer £1,000 on sale. Hens are induced to lay as many as 350 eggs a year per hen, the best producer being apparently the White Leghorn, though the Barred Rock--a finer and prettier bird—also does well as regards the number of 'eggs produced.
Visiting the Provincial Government's ‘Experimental Farm at Agassiz, B.C., I learned something of the methods used 'to obtain the maximum output from;the best -hens. Such a hen is given a numbered label attached to the leg and on' entering the laying nest, which is a distinct box, the hen cannot 'get out of this box until liberated by the attendant, who secures the egg and marks it with the number corresponding to that on the label. Only the eggs laid by hens producing at the rate of 300 eggs a year are bred from, and thus a good egg- laying average is encouraged. Propagation, is (at least in large poultry farms) invariably by incubation, some machines having capacity for 3,000 eggs, which are turned automatically every day. No " sulking or " broodiness " is allowed in the hens, any tendency to these faults being corrected. or the hens eliminated.
What the hens think of such intensive methods I am not prepared to say. Why should a hen lay so many eggs and be denied the joy of bringing up a family ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
Victoria, B.C.
G. F. WALLERS.
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