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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

Profits of Poultry-keeping

Profits of Poultry-keeping.

It would be easy to give an estimate of the probable profits per annum on a given number of fowls if one knew she breed or cross kept, the exact strain the birds were bred from, the housing, shelter and management the locality (varying the price of grain, &c.), whether the food was bought wholesale or retail, and whether the eggs were sold retail or to a stored new laid eggs or sent to auction as box-eggs.

It is plain that in face of widely varying conditions tables showing receipts and expenditure might be very misleading to many. In the attempt here made to show results that actual experience has proved can be realised it is to be understood that birds of the best-laying strains only must be used to cross with; that the housing, shelter, and management must be good; and that the eggs must be sold to the storekeeper as new laid eggs, not sent to auction.

These things being made clear, let us suppose a farmer to keep fifth laying-fowls at liberty—say, Minorca-Langshans. When in full swine his year's accounts might be something like the following, taking Wellington prices as a standard:— page 11
£ s. d.
Yield of eggs for the year—say, 580 dozen at 1s. (an average of about 140 per head) 29 0 0
25 hens, sold in autumn, at 1s. 6d. each 1 17 6
25 cockerels, sold at four months old, in November or December, at 2s. each 2 10 0
33 7 6
Less cost of food—
Pollard 2,000lb. 4 10 0
Oatmeal, 100lb. 0 10 0
Oats, 30 bushels at 2s. 3d. 3 7 6
Wheat, 5 bushels at 4s. 1 0 0
Meat (livers, heads, &c.) 1 0 0
10 7 6
Net profit £23 0 0

In this case the birds will pick up a portion of the food they require, so that the quantity above given will be sufficient to rear fifty chickens every year—say, twenty-five pullets to take the place of old hens soli, and twenty-five cockerels, as well as feeding the laying stock, even if there be not a great supply of table-scraps.

The profit is 9s. per head of the laying stock, and it will be observed that the bulk of it is from egg-production.

Nothing has been allowed in the calculation for labour, rent, or interest on capital, the object being merely to show profit in excess of cost of food.

The price allowed for eggs—viz., Is. per dozen—is not too high, the Minoca-Langshan cross being a good winter layer, and one-half of the laying stock at the beginning of winter being pullets just commencing to lay so that there would be plenty of eggs in the dear months.

A return of 10s. per head net per annum from eggs alone, from fowls kept in confinement, is not an uncommon result. It has been done, to my knowledge, on asphalt, where the space was less than a square yard to every two fowls, but in this case the birds got a great deal of attention.

I am able to give an estimate of the margin of profit over the cost of food in rearing ducklings for the local market from a trial made last spring. They were sold at the age of ten weeks, and weighed a little over 41b. each. The price obtained (wholesale) was 2s. 6d. per head, the cost of food (bought retail) 9d. per head; the profit on each was therefore 1s. 9d.—a, handsome one, I think. These ducklings were not a cross of tow pure breeds, but hatched from common shop-eggs. The same birds would have fetched almost double the price in the London market in April.