Home Production of Poultry. S57 



in small zinc troughs placed in the central passage, the fowls 

 putting their heads between upright spells 2 inches apart, 

 after the principle followed in model pig-stjes. When a 

 hen wants to lay she creeps into a box placed outside her pen 

 in the central passage, and her nest consists of a circular earthen- 

 ware pan, 12 inches in diameter, and 5 inches deep, containing 

 some dry sandy earth. The perches are circular iron pipes, 

 which can be warmed by water from a boiler in a very cold 

 season. The floor of the inner pens is just the hard ground 

 covered with nearly a foot thickness of dry earth and sand ; and 

 it is found that, by sweeping off the birds' droppings every 

 morning, digging over the earth twice a week, and occasionally 

 renewing it, all smell is prevented, perfect cleanliness is secured, 

 and there is the same freedom from " taint " which engenders 

 disease as if the birds moved to a fresh surface of ground instead 

 of having fresh soil brought to them. This dry earth is also the 

 very best dust-bath in which the fowls can busk to clear them- 

 selves from vermin. Scrupulous attention, of course, is paid to 

 lime- whiting, and to every detail of cleanliness in the pens and 

 vessels. The outer pen is littered with stable-manure, which 

 provides ample occupation for the birds in scratching and 

 picking. 



At one end of this building, which accommodates the brood 

 stock, are the departments for fattening and for hatching ; the 

 fatting and sitting pens being like so many little cupboards, in 

 tier above tier, all bottomed with dry earth, while each of the 

 hatching-boxes contains an earthenware nest. 



The apparatus for artificial incubation, the department for 

 rabbits, the duck-houses and tanks, the boiling-houses, pig-styes, 

 manure pits, 6cc., occupy other portions of the premises, together 

 with a water-tower, the Manager's house and office, all which 

 I need not particularly describe. When I was at Bromley, early 

 in last winter, there were about a thousand head of poultry on the 

 premises ; and I saw some 300 half-grown and adult young fowls 

 in an open yard about 22 yards square, bounded by a 7-feet high 

 pale-fence, with stable-manure to scratch over, and a roomy house 

 to roost in. All the birds, both in the pens of the " Home " 

 and in the open yards, looked perfectly healthy, and doing 

 well. 



The feeding is reduced to a system : the diet consists of 

 green food, a portion of flesh daily, with grain, changed from 

 barley to oats, Indian corn, rice, potatoes, mangold-wurzel, and 

 so on, on different days. A little sharp grit is mingled with the 

 food to assist digestion ; and charcoal, camphor, and sulphate of 

 iron are put in the drinking water occasionally, as the birds 

 require medical or stimulating treatment. 



