RARE FEATHERS January 2015

RARE FEATHERS January 2015 1 PATRON Posie Graeme-Evans PRESIDENT Judi Walker VICE PRESIDENT Merv Hutt SECRETARY Jill Weaver TREASURER Peter Bradley PROMOTIONS OFFICER & WEBSITE ADMINISTRATOR Isaac Walker SHOW MANAGER Corrina Sloane 2 Meeting at RSL Club Our meeting at the new spot, the RSL croquet rooms was quite a success. Those who attended the meeting enjoyed access to a kitchen with kettle, cups, coffee, etc. just a few feet away from tables and chairs. One long wall is all windows and heavy curtains so the sun can stream in or be blocked out . A toi- let is just feet away from the building and a carpark big enough to hold 10 mac trucks! Some confusion was had as to selecting the right entrance with most people driving in behind the main buildings to begin with. The entrance is slightly up hill and runs beside the main entrance into the RSL carpark. Next meeting will be Sunday April 12th, 2015 at 10 a.m. RSL croquet room. ARTICLE CONTRIBUTIONS Once again we ask that anyone with a story to tell, or just an article they would like to put into our newsletter, please let us know or send us a copy. A funny photo or an interesting article you have read. For our newsletter to be successful it needs to have some interesting reading in it! BREEDERS DIRECTORY If anyone would like their name in the directory please send an email with the relevant information to the secretary, or phone or post. All our newsletters have a membership form which can be used to update your breeds you now keep, etc. (it is beneficial to everyone if contact details, etc. are kept up-to- date) Our directory raises quite a few dollars for our club and I would like to see a few more names in it to make it a little more worthwhile to the general public. Anything with feathers can go in the directory, pheasants, x-breeds, cockatiels, it doesn’t matter what. A lot of people with chooks and waterfowl also keep other birds and it would be good to see our directory eventually become a much sought after booklet. 3 WIN A PRIZE The club will trial an idea to keep members financial and perhaps get a few new members and some former members to re-join. Like all clubs we rely on membership fees along with what fund-raising we can manage to stay viable. The idea will work as follows:- All financial members will go into a draw to win a prize. Members will need to have renewed their membership on or before our annual show. (Membership falls due on June 30th every year with a two month lee-way allowing membership to be paid with entry fees at our annual show.) This year the prize will be a china salt and pepper shaker set as pictured below. This design can be found on many other things, such as teapots, cups, trays, etc. making the prize of more interest. I am unsure at this stage when the prize will be given out but most probably at our annual show. Any financial member not in attendance, if they should be lucky enough to win will have their gift posted or delivered to them. (Feedback on this idea would be appreciated.) 4 MORE TIPS AND USEFUL PRODUCTS Copper in the water Copper is a necessary trace element in the diet of all animals. In combination with phosphorus, copper helps bone development. Animals lacking in copper become very stunted and quite often die. A small amount of copper can be sprinkled in the water to stop or slow down the growth of green algae. Copper has other benefits as well. It can be used for the treatment of mycosis (in fact it is one of very few things that will completely destroy this problem). Mycosis is more commonly known as ‘sour crop’, it is actually thrush. Copper is often used in conjunction with apple cider vinegar to treat canker. (Canker is a disease caused by a protozoan which mainly lives in the digestive system. It can also be found in the crop, bile duct and throat.) It is recognised as one of the best treatments available for this complaint. Canker is occasionally referred to as ‘sour crop’ also. Four to seven days treatment is enough to kill canker. Do not give too much copper, or use over an extended period of time. Amongst other things it can cause liver damage if used to excess. Recommended dosage of copper in drinking water is 1 oz. (28.3 grams) of copper sulphate (bluestone) and 1 tablespoon ACV in 15 gallons of water. Garlic, more than a myth Worn around the neck in a pouch when going out in public to keep influenza away, it has been used for hundreds of years. It certainly has many good properties and is excellent for keeping colds away. One of the oldest known plants capable of curing many diseases and complaints. It saved the lives of many people with cholera. In 1720 a thousand inhabitants of Marseille were saved from the spread of The Plague by taking garlic. When garlic is freshly crushed it releases allicin and allicetoins that have antibacterial properties. It is also known to kill the bad bacteria or “pathogens” and not the “good” bacteria. Allicin is also thought to be a deterrent to red mite due to the taste of the allicins in the blood. Garlic reduces the sulphur content of the eggs and will alter the taste if fed too much garlic. A guide line is 3 crushed cloves to 6 litres of water. Minced garlic can be used. Do not give in a galva- nised steel container, it will cause toxic leaching of zinc into the water. 5 AUTOSEXING Gregor Mendel, a Czechoslakian monk born in 1822 took great interest in the ideas of “Darwinism” and in 1866 following experiments with peas, published his findings on inheritance which today is known as “Mendel’s Laws of Inher- itance”. Mendel’s findings were of little interest and he received little recognition for his work but after his death his work continued to spread and the importance of his findings were finally realised. British scholar Professor William Bateson re-presented Mendel’s work to the Royal Horticultural society in London. Bateson was instrumental in bringing Mendel’s Laws of Heredity to the attention of English speaking scientists. One of those scientists was Reginald Crundall Punnett born in 1875. Punnett was interested in Mendelian experimentation with both plants and animals and with Professor Bateson did experiments with plants and poultry. Their research greatly extended the knowledge and understanding of the importance of Mendelian genetics. In 1905 Reginald Punnett published a textbook on Mendelism. In addition to his scientific research Punnett had a great interest in poultry breeding and during World War 1 advised the government on all aspects of poultry breeding. In 1912 he became Professor of Genetics, the first in Britain. As a consequence of his research with poultry Professor Punnett wrote “Heredity in Poultry’ which was published in 1923 and was standard work on poultry genetics for many years. During the late 1920’s Professor Punnett identified a sex-linkage between gold males and silver females: if, for exam- ple eggs from a Rhode Island Red cock (gold) and Light Sussex hens (silver) are hatched all the pullets will be a darker gold in colour and the cockerels a pale yellow. Punnett subsequently identified a sex-linked barred feather pattern and as a result of these two factors instigated a series of breeding programmes to investigate the possibilities of utilising this knowledge for practical purposes, the result of which were the Autosexing Breeds. During the 1920’s and 30’s several autosexing breeds were developed following the creation of the Cambar from the gold Campine and the Barred Rock, whilst elsewhere breeders took on board the newly found knowledge and developed more autosexing breeds. In 1943 the Autosexing Breeds Association (ABA) was formed demonstrating the importance of the new breeds. Yet 25 years later the ABA was disbanded. Before World War 11 almost all poultry in Britain and the rest of the world even on a commercial scale were either pure breeds or a first cross between two pure breeds. Large scale commercial hybrid strains were unknown, so the research into autosexing had been in line with the ideas of farming using pure breeds. The use of modern commercial hybrids replaced the use of pure breeds as commercial layers and meat birds and the need for autosexing breeds had run its course as poultry farming around the world changed. However the developers and producers of some commercial hybrids still utilise autosexing techniques in their breeding programmes. Much of Professor Punnett’s work in the creation of Autosexing breeds had been based on barred plumage, and nu- merous crosses were made using the Barred Plymouth Rock. From these crosses Punnett had successfully proved not only the theory but had also created a small group of Autosexing breeds after the initial Cambar was derived from the Campine. The ‘barring’ pattern is sex-linked, the cockerels having two chromosomes and the pullets only one. This results in the chicks of a barred breed having a light coloured patch on the top of the head. In chicks with black down both sexes are very similar and sexing at day old will not be 100% accurate, however when the barring is combined with brown col- ouring there is a clearly defined dark brown 6 stripe down the body.

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