TURKEYS. 



619 



sometimes it is prolonged a day or two. As soon as the chicks peep through the shell, the 

 mother makes it known by a peculiar plaintive sound unlike anything heard from her until 

 she has this new-born joy. A turkey will almost always hatch the larger part of her eggs, 

 frequently every one. Sometimes the hatching goes on so rapidly that you find a whole nest 

 of chicks before you suspect their appearance at all.&quot; 



Care of Young Turkeys. Like young chickens, the turkeys when first hatched 

 require no food for twenty-four hours at least, and if not fed for thirty-six hours after 

 hatching, they will not suffer, the yolk of the egg furnishing sufficient nutriment for the 

 young birds for that length of time. They are, however, not as strong as newly-hatched 

 chicks, in fact are exceedingly delicate, and should not be handled, but left entirely to the 

 care of the mother hen. When about thirty-six hours old, they should be taken with the 

 mother to a pen (which should be ready for them), and fed with hard boiled eggs chopped 

 fine, and stale bread or cracker crumbs moistened with milk. Unless suitable food be given 

 them at this early period they will be liable to die; a newly -hatched poult being the most 

 feeble and tender of all domestic fowls. 



They should also be fed regularly four or five times a day for the first two weeks, which 

 will give them a good start. They eat but very little, and want it often, and nothing should 



PEN FOR TURKEY POTTLTS. 



be left over to become sour or mixed with the excrement. Never put the food where it will 

 become mixed with dirt. The foolish practice, so tenaciously adhered to by old housewives, 

 of making the young poults each swallow a whole peppercorn to make them healthy, is now 

 generally discarded, such a diet being about as indigestible as a piece of lead. The mother 

 bird should be fed all she will eat of corn meal ground coarse and mixed with milk, also 

 grain, and be supplied with fresh water. They should be confined in a pen on a grass plot 

 for about two weeks, until strong enough to accompany the mother, who will be liable to 

 take her young brood on long rambles when they will be lost in the tall grass or grain fields, 

 or become too tired to follow her, unless this precaution is taken. In such cases the little 

 chicks find it impossible to keep up with the mother who soon gets out of hearing, and they 

 perish for want of food and covering. Carelessness in this respect and exposure to wet before 

 being fully feathered is the cause of more loss to turkey raisers, than all other causes 

 combined. 



A recent writer on turkey raising says: &quot; There is no doubt but that the chief cause of 

 the mortality among young turkeys is their exposure to wet before they are fully feathered. 

 The ordinary turkey-raiser trusts a good deal to the instinct of the mother turkey, and the 

 mother turkey, if left to herself, squats down just where night happens to overtake her; gets 



