TJIE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



by Nature as a weapon to break the shell, and 

 which falls off by itself after a few hours), at the 

 tip of a chicken's mandible, or put a peppercorn 

 and a few grits down its throat, or dip the beak 

 in water to " teach it to drink." Anything of 

 the sort can do no good, while it often causes 

 pain, and may do real harm. Play no such tricks 

 with the young and tender beaks, but simply 

 offer the chicks food. Some of them will not 

 care for it, while others may eat a little ; but if 

 they are fairly upon their legs and look happy, 

 not the slightest anxiety need be felt about any 

 which neither eat nor drink the first day. 

 Nature herself has prepared and provided for 

 such a state of things. 



How the brood is cooped out will depend 

 upon circumstances. Under a shed with a dry 

 floor of earth or gravely or the floor of which is 

 covered with an inch of earth or ashes, the 

 old crinoline-pattern round basket-coop will 

 _ answer very well, the shed giving 



Coops. 1,117, r I 



the shelter. We have often used 

 several such coops side by side under a shed, 

 which should open or have a door at the front 

 to an open run, best of all if a grass run. Where 

 there is no sucli auxiliary shed, which forms an 

 important part of most establishments of any size, 

 the coop itself must be so constructed as to give 

 sufficient shelter, and such can be made or 

 purchased in endless variety. The most primi- 

 tive is that shown in Fig. 51, which we only 

 illustrate because it is still much used throughout 

 the poultry-raising districts of Hampshire, 

 Surrey, and Sussex, and has been extensively 



copied from thence in other districts, with mis- 

 chievous results. It is cheap, easily cut up and 

 nailed together, and when one is reversed upon 

 another, two pack in little space. But the 

 shelter afforded is not nearly sufficient for 

 ordinary circumstances. It is a form essentially 

 adapted for roadsides and hedgerows, or under 



trees, which give the shelter the coop itself lacks 

 and where it can be moved daily on to clean 

 and dry soil. Chickens reared under it in such 

 circumstances, and at perfect liberty, grow up 

 healthy and hardy ; but, lacking these advan- 

 tages, the brood gets wet and the ground damp 

 and foul, and the results are disastrous. But 



-bheUer Coo^_). 



even in the districts named this form of coop 

 is not now used so much as formerly ; and where 

 shelter and dry soil and unlimited fresh ground 

 are lacking, we must adopt other means. 



The best coop is a weather-tight one, with a 

 separate raised and internal wooden floor, the 

 latter, of course, to be covered with soft material 

 kept clean daily. Nearly forty years ago, in 

 the early days of our poultry-keepings we 

 devised for our own use the coop and floor 

 shown in Figs. 52 and 54. At that time nothing 

 of the sort could be obtained ; but the merits of 

 this coop were so self-evident, that it was not only 

 much copied by other breeders immediately upon 

 publication of our sketch, but the general design 

 has been widely adopted, with occasional slight 

 variations, by all manufacturers of poultry 

 appliances. Any of these such coops can now be 

 purchased at a cheap rate ; though these are in 

 most cases somewhat smaller than we advised. 

 We preferred, for hen and chickens alike, a 

 rather large coop, and made all our own two 

 feet square. The two principal features of this 

 coop were the internal wooden floor, and the 

 additional shelter-board in front. The dimen- 

 sions given will cut up all the wood without 

 waste and with the least amount of labour ; so 

 that with the materials at hand, we cut up the 

 timber and finished three of these coops, per- 

 sonally, in one Saturday afternoon, with the sole 

 exception of an external coat of tar, which they 

 received on the next possible opportunity. 



