CjS 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



clean. The hard ground will take much of the 

 wear and the droppings, and greatly preserve 

 the grass beyond it. It is better still to have, 

 at the other side of the grass run, another such 

 piece of hard earth or gravel, and to use this 

 alternately with the other, which can be disin- 

 fected and covered over in the meantime. A 

 run entirely of hard earth, with plenty of arti- 

 ficial green food, gives less anxiety in this 

 particular way, because it can be regularly swept 

 with hard bristles, scraped, or pared, and dug up 

 now and then. For six years we hatched fifty 

 lirahmas annually, and reared them through 

 chickenhood until the wasters could be picked 

 out, under a shed six feet wide and twenty-two 

 feet long, with an earthen run twenty-two feet 

 square. They were as healthy the last year 

 as the first. But we had the danger ever before 

 our eyes, and averted it by the most sedulous 

 care. 



At a period from four to ten weeks after 



hatching, the hen will seek to be rid of her 



charges, and what is best to be done will 



. depend upon age and circumstances. 



If they are well fledged, and of light 

 roosting breeds, she may have a perch two or 

 three feet high, and they may fly up to her ; for 

 a night or two she will partially brood them on 

 the perch, and they will know what to do when 

 she is taken away. The heavy breeds are 

 generally best left to sleep in their old coop, 

 where they will nestle together, and will be 

 \i'arm enough at ordinary seasons. Or any 

 large bo.x turned on its side and well bedded 

 with dry earth or peat moss, cleaned regularly, 

 will answer for a sleeping coop under a shed. 

 Small houses and coops are also sold ready 

 made for the use of chickens at this age. In 

 cold weather the sleeping-place should be en- 

 closed all round, and well bedded with clean, 

 straw chaff. If straight breast-bones are 

 desired, chickens of large breeds should not be 

 allowed to roost until well matured ; but this 

 question will be further discussed when treating 

 of stock designed for exhibition. 



As they grow up, the chicl^ens wifl either be 

 nb.sorbed into the other stock of a small 

 establishment, or in larger have to be moved 



away to make room for other 

 ■'^^'^'"S-out younger ones, and sorted out. In 

 Chickens. the former case they may still be 



given extra food by the use of an 

 open wire feeding-coop, in which the special food 

 is placed, the chickens alone being able to get 

 through the wires. In the latter case they will 

 be transferred to runs, and it is best, if con- 

 venient, to separate at the same time the cockerels 

 from the pullets. Unless this is done, the heavy 



breeds never grow so large ; and, moreover, a lol 

 of cockerels thus put together early will agree 

 perfectly and give no troubie. An old cock, by 

 the way, may be put with a batch of cockerels 

 whenever breeding is over. He will keep order, 

 and be far happier and more contented than 

 if penned up alone. If, on the otlier hand, 

 early eggs are an object, the pullets may 

 have a cockerel allowed to remain with them. 



Supposing sufficient accommodation, each 

 flock should be made up of birds not very 

 different in age ; otherwise, the smaller get no 

 fair chance, and the food itself may not suit 

 all alike ; certainly feeding times will not. Care 

 must be taken not to slight any of the older 

 ones for the sake of the younger, but to see that 

 there is no check in their progress. If specially 

 good results are desired, now is the time really 

 to study the question of diet for them ; for 

 instance, pushing cut bone or meat if early size 

 in cockerels or early laying in pullets is desired, 

 or perhaps checking it if combs have to be kept 

 small or moderated. The food should be most 

 carefully prepared, and judiciously varied. But 

 the old rule of preserving appetite must still be 

 followed, or disappointment may follow the 

 most liberal diet. 



In some circumstances considerable aid may 



be obtained in chicken-rearing of the larger 



breeds from the use of bone-dust, or dry bone 



„ , . meal, such as is used sometimes in 

 Bone-dust. .' , „, . . , 



pottmg plants. I his is not to be 



confounded with green cut bone, and its effects 

 are totally diff'erent. The fresh bone, as animal 

 food, hastens laying and maturity. Dry bone 

 meal rather postpones both, if anything, and is 

 chiefly valuable as supplying in an assimilable 

 form bone-making material to fast-growing 

 youngsters, thus assisting sturdiness and pre- 

 venting leg-weakness. It is also found a very 

 perceptible preventive of diarrhoea ; and the 

 careful experiment recorded in Chapter II. has 

 shown its value in supplying mineral salts in 

 cases where much animal food may be undesir- 

 able. About an ounce of bone meal may 

 be mixed with each half-pint of dry cereal 

 meals before mi.xing, the fineness being that 

 of medium oatmeal. Our old friend Mr. John 

 Stuart, of Helensburgh, first taught us the value 

 of bone meal used in this way, and since that time 

 many have proved it. We do not mean that it 

 is in any way necessary to small or moderate 

 sized fowls, or to any ranging over wide fields ; 

 but to the great races, reared in confinement, and 

 so peculiarly subject to leg-weakness when so 

 reared, we do know that bone meal is of the great- 

 est use. Burnt bone ground up has not the same 

 effect in all respects. It retains the phosphates, 



