CHICKENS IN SUMMER. 



99 



but cither in this form they are not so well 

 assimilated, or for some other reason the same 

 good effects do not follow. 



Season also requires study in successful 

 chicken management. Valuable as milk is, so 



long as it can be taken with appetite, 

 Shade in in hot weather it seems to sicken 

 Summer. many chickens, and should be left 



off in their food, though perfectly 

 sweet skim milk may still be given in food, or 

 for drink in the early morning, but taking 

 special care that any drinking vessels so used 

 are kept absolutely clean. Above all, special 

 care should be taken to provide shade, hot sun 

 being most prejudicial to vigour and growth. Of 

 course, living shade is far the best. Where there 

 are no trees or shrubs, creepers on the fence will 

 add to the utility as well as beauty of the 

 chicken run, and are in foliage just when they are 

 wanted ; sunflowers also grow rapidly, and give 

 a great deal of shade and root-scratching, as 

 well as excellent food rather later on. While 

 little, chickens do a vast deal of good and no 

 harm amongst bush-fruit. Much can be done 

 in these ways ; lacking them, artificial shelter 

 must be provided, or the growing chickens will 

 suffer, in growth as well as plumage. The house 

 and shed may have such an aspect as to suffice, 

 in which case the birds will gladly resort there 

 dunng the heat of the day. l'"ailing that, coarse 

 linen or sacking may be stretched on sticks like 

 a tent ; or four sticks can be driven into the 

 ground to stand out about a foot, and on these 

 the corners of a hurdle may be laid, to be 

 covered by fern, or branches, or straw ; the 

 chickens will get under this when the weather 

 is hot, and upon it when cool, and enjoy it 

 generally. In a confined run, such a shelter 

 platform practically increases the area available. 

 In yards where numbers of chickens are 

 reared, about or soon after the middle of the 

 summer they often appear to flag, or almost 

 to cease visible growth. One such 

 Ciiickens stage almost always occurs, when 

 Fia-ging.''^^ the first plumage is about com- 

 pleted ; but this is merely Nature's 

 pause after the effort of feathering — life and 

 vigour are not aff'ected by it, and growth is soon 

 resumed. What we here refer to is at a larger 

 and later stage, and is not universal. The 

 exceptions are such as grow up upon a farm, 

 or other free range ; these do not suffer in that 

 way, but march on making frame, and grow up 

 quite as large, though not while young so heavy 

 in flesh, as those fed in limited runs, which are 

 the subjects of the flagging here referred to. 

 One cause of it is sheer Dionotony, which animals 

 feel as much as we do, and is the reason why 



fowls will not walk and run about in a confined 

 place as much as on a farm. They know every 

 inch of ground ; there is no change ; and they 

 get listless, walk over it less and less, become 

 torpid and perhaps too fleshy ; all which is ver/ 

 good for table, but not for health and vigour in 

 stock birds. Besides that, the run has gradually 

 been getting tainted ; not perhaps oflensively 

 so, or even to a degree actually poisonous ; still 

 it affects the air close to the ground, where the 

 fowls live, more than higher up where we breathe 

 it ; and though not perhaps poison, the difference 

 is as great as between fresh country air and that 

 of the crowded part of a great city. Disinfect- 

 ants cannot help us much, except that in very hot 

 and dry weather copious watering with sodium 

 or potash permanganate occasionally, really will 

 supply actual oxygen to both ground and air, 

 which is what we want. The real remedy is 

 change to fresh air, just as it is with ourselves. 



Such a crisis generally comes in average 

 moderate yards just about the time when it is 

 imperative, if not done weeks before, to separate 

 cockerels and pullets. It is partly on this 

 account that the experienced breeder makes 

 every possible effort to provide by that time 

 izvo fresh and sweet runs lor these — runs which 

 have been vacant long enough to be sweet and 

 pure. If these can be grass runs, with a few 

 trees or shrubs, he knows how the birds, when 

 once removed there, will appear to spurt ahead. 

 It is not only the freshness; but the place is 

 j/ezu to them, and they tramp all about it with 

 renew^ed zest, which will last them till they have 

 passed the most susceptible age. But even fresh 

 and sweet bare runs will give an apparent fresh 

 start, if attended to, numbers rigorously weeded 

 down, and the birds not over-fed. It is still a 

 cliange ; it is fresher than where they came from ; 

 and the droppings of a few selected larger birds 

 are easier swept up and removed than those from 

 many small chickens. The breeder who knows 

 things, makes the best in this way of his limited 

 space, if it is limited, and takes care not to 

 grapple with more stock than he can manage in 

 some such manner. 



We need not follow the rearingof ordinary stock 

 any farther, and the special care of birds destined 

 for exhibition will be more fully and appropri- 

 ately dealt with in a later chapter. Chickens 

 reared for other purposes will be either gradually 

 drafted into the older stock, or in larger numbers 

 be placed in lai-ger or smaller flocks, with a house 

 to sleep in at night, larger than a coop, but 

 which need not be so large as an ordinary fowl- 

 house. So long as growth is proceeding they 

 should be still fed oftener and more liberally 

 than adult poultry, but otherwise they will give 



