POULTHY. 



1'OULTRY. 



M 



ducks', 



but very rarely ; chickens somewhat difficult to rer, unless in very 

 favoured *|>U ; nice birds for eating, but uall ; mutt havo a good 

 rang* to keep them in health. 



i. SfOitglrJ llambiuyt. Vary handsome, abumlaut layers, chickoni 

 tobnbly hardy, aod a rery good bird for the table ; their incubating 

 qualities are seldom manifested ; require a good run. 



6. PJuk. Qood Uyen, very elegant in form, rare incubators, chickens 

 very delicate at first, warm bousing indispensable. 



-Am. -Varied plumage, hardy, excellent eggs and more abun- 

 dant than any other breed, good mothers, chickens strong, and grow 

 rapidly under good feeding; good for table at four months oKl, but 

 not after ; require very liberal feeding ; feathers valuable. 



Those who intend to rear fowls or any kind of poultry on a large 

 scale, shook! have a distinct yard, perfectly sheltered, and with a warm 

 aspect, well fenced, secure from thieves and vermin, and sufficiently 

 inclined to be always dry, and supplied with sand or ashes for the 

 cocks and hens to roll in, an operation necessary to disengage their 

 feathers from vermin : running water should be especially provided ; 

 for the want of water, of which all poultry are fond, produces consti- 



;of the bowels and inflammatory diseases; and for geese and 

 bathing is an indispensable luxury. A contiguous field is also 

 ry for free exercise, as well ss for the supply of grubs and grass 

 to the geese. The fowl-house should be dry, well-roofed, and fronting 

 the east or south, and, if practicable, at the back of a stove or stables ; 

 warmth being conducive to health anil laying, though extreme heat has 

 the contrary effect. It should be furnished with two small lattice 

 windows, that can be opened or shut at pleasure, at opposite ends, for 

 ventilation, which is frequently necessary ; and the perches should be 

 so arranged, that one row of roosting fowls should not be directly above 

 another. 



M. Parmentier has shown (' Dictionnaire d'Agriculture ') by what 

 arrangement a house twenty feet long and twelve feet wide may be 

 made to accommodate 1 50 hens at roost. The plan is this : the first 

 roosting-perch (rounded a little at the upper angles only, for gallinaceous 

 fowls cannot keep a linn huld on perfectly cylindrical supporters) should 

 be placed lengthways, and rest on tresseU in each end wail, six feet from 

 the front wall, and at a convenient height, which muat depend on the 

 elevation of the house from the floor, which should be formed of some 

 well consolidated material that can be easily swept. Another perch 

 should be fixed ladder- ways (en tchdon) above this, but tu inches nearer 

 to the back wall, and so on, until there are four of these perches, like the 

 steps of a ladder when properly inclined, but with a sufficient distance 

 between the wall and the upper one to allow the poultry-maid to stand 

 conveniently upon when she has occasion to examine the nests, which 

 it is her duty to do every day at least once, and in the forenoon. The 

 highest of these she can reach by standing on a stool or step-ladder. 

 By this contrivance the hens, when desirous of reaching the nests, have 

 no occasion to fly, but merely to pass from one stick to another. If 

 the tax and form of the house permit, a similar construction may be 

 made on the opposite side, care being taken to leave an open space in 

 the middle of the room, and a sufficiently wide passage for the atten- 

 ,dant to pass along the walls. It is not at all required to have as many 

 nesU as hens, because they have not all occasion to occupy them at 

 the same time ; and besides, they are so for from having a repugnance 

 to lay in a common receptacle, that the sight of an egg stimulates them 

 to lay. It is however true that the most secluded and darkest nests 

 are those which the hens prefer. 



The nests, if built into the wall, are in tiers from the bottom to the 

 top, the lowest being about three feet from the ground, and a foot 

 square. If the laying-chambers consist of wooden boxes, they ore 

 usually funiohed with a ledge, which is very convenient for the hens 

 when rising. 



But the best receptacles for the eggs are those of basket-work, as 

 they are cool in summer, and can easily be removed and washed. They 

 ought to be fastened not directly to the wall, as is generally the case, 

 but to boards fixed in it by hooks, well clinched, and with a little roof 

 . to cover the rows of baskets. They will thus be isolated, to the great 

 ' 'action of the hen, which delights in the absence of nil disturbing 



influences when laying. All the ranges of nests should be placed 

 cheque-wire, in order that the inmates, when coming out, may not 

 startle those immediately under : those designed for hatching should 

 be near the ground (where instinct teaches the hen to choose her seat), 

 and so arranged that the hens can easily enter them without disturbing 

 the eggs. 



Wheston or rye straw U the most approved material for the bedding, 

 being cooler than hay : the hens ore sometimes so tortured by lice as 

 ake their nests altogether, in an agony of restlessness. A 

 Dorking housewife has assured us that she once lost an entire clutch, 

 from having, as ah* believe*, given a bed of hay-seeds to her sitting 

 hen. The chicks were all glued to the shells, and thus destroyed, 

 owing, as she thinks, to the high temperature occasioned by the fer- 

 menting seeds. 



ill purposes two cooks in a good run are considered in the 

 poultry fiiiii: - contiguous to Londun as sufficient for twelve or 

 fourteen hen, but in Franco they allow twenty mistresses to each 

 cock, which no doubt is on account uf the higher temperature thure. 

 In a confined yard, live hens are sufficient for one cock in our cold 

 country, and a double set will nut answer in very limited space. 



When there are two or more cooks, care should be taken not to have 

 thorn of equal age or sice, for in this COM they are always jealous and 

 quarrelsome; if one U decidedly ascendant, the other will never pre- 

 sume to dispute with him. It will be judicious also to avoid the 

 introduction or changing of cocks in the breeding sea- hens 



require constant intercourse with them, and several days frequently 

 laps* before they become familiarised with a stranger. The best 

 way is to bring in the new cook hi the summer, either as a chick, or 

 late in the year in the moulting season, when he will not take too 

 much notice of the hens. As a general rule It would be well to have 

 one a yearling, and the other a year older. In the third year, the 

 cock, who then becomes lazy and excessively jealous, Hh.mM U kill. . I. 



ler to have the earliest chickens, hens should be iu<l 

 in October, which they may do if they have moulted early. By . 

 tion in this particular, chickens can be brought to the market at 

 Christmas. But the object should be in general to set the eggs as 

 soon as possible after Christmas, in order to have chickens with the 

 forced asparagus in March, when they are worth in London from 7. 

 to 10<. a couple. 



In selecting eggs for hatching, care should be token that they are 

 not at the utmost more than a month old, but their condition for 

 hatching will greatly depend upon the temperature of the weather : 

 vitality continues longest when the air is cool 



It has been asserted that the future sex of the bird is indicated by 

 the shape of the egg ; the round producing the female, and the oblong 

 the male. But this is contradicted, and, we believe, with snll 

 reason ; and it is impossible not only to foretell the sex, but even to 

 ascertain whether the egg be fecundated. This however is certain, 

 that if the air-bag (at the obtuse end), which has been mistaken ir 

 the germ, and the purpose of which is to oxygenate the blood of the 

 chick, be perforated even in the least conceivable degree, the gene- 

 rating power is lost altogether. Those eggs only which have been 

 fecundated by the male are possessed of the vit.il principle. The 

 number of eggs for a hen should not exceed sixteen, as she cannot 

 impart the necessary warmth to more. It is by no means uncommon 

 with experienced breeders to place two hens on the same day on their 

 respective eggs, and then on the twenty-first day, when the broods are 

 out, to give the maternal charge of both to one of the hens, removing 

 the other to another set of eggs, which, if she be a steady sitter, she 

 will hatch as in the first instance. This however must be deemed a 

 cruelty, though some hens would instinctively continue to sit until 

 death. They would however become so attenuated by constant 

 sitting, as to lose the power of communicating to the eggs the neces- 

 sary degree of warmth. The practice of the Surrey breeders is to 

 feed the hen on oats while sitting, as less stimulating than barley, 

 which they give to the laying hens on account of this very quality. 



Some fanciers use artificial mothers, which effect the purpose of 

 imparting the necessary heat to the young chicks after birth, when 

 there is no natural mother nor a trained capon to brood them. These 

 artilicial mothers as used by Mr. Moubray, and described by him 

 are boxes lined throughout with wool. He recommends that a curtain 

 of flannel should be suspended over the opening of the box for the 

 exclusion of cold air. 



Mr. Young states that " five broods may at once be cherished under 

 an artificial mother. This mother may be framed of a board ten 

 inches brood and fifteen inches long, resting on two legs in front, two 

 inches in height, and on two props behind, two inches also in height. 

 The board must be perforated with many small gitnlet-holes, for the 

 escape of the heated air, and lined with lamb's skin dressed with the 

 wool on, and the woolly side is to come in contact with the chickens. 

 Over three of these mothers a wicker basket is to be placed for the 

 protection of the chickens, four feet long, two feet broad, and fourteen 

 inches high, with a lid open, a wooden sliding bottom to draw out for 

 cleaning, and a long narrow trough along the. front, resting on two 

 very low stools, for holding their food. Perches are to be fixed in the 

 basket for the more advanced to rooxt on. A flannel curtain is to be 

 placed in front, and at both ends of the mothers, for the chickens to 

 run under, from which they soon learn to push outwards and inwards. 

 These mothers, with the wicker baskets over them, are to be placed 

 against a hot wall, at the bock of the kitchen fire, or in any other worm 

 situation where the heat shall not exceed 80 degrees of Fahrenheit. 



' When the chickeus are a week old, they are to be carried with the 

 mother to a grass-plat for feeding, and kept worm by a tin tube filled 

 with hot water, which will continue sufficiently v. .urn for about three 

 hours, when the hot water is to be renewed. Towards the evening 

 the mothers are to be again placed against the hot wall." 



The artificial mother, however, is only a mechanical house for chicks 

 already hatched ; but the process of bringing the embryo of organised 

 life in the egg through all the stages of the vital principle until it 

 becomes matured, by means of heated ovens, has been long and success- 

 fully practised in Egypt. 



These ovens, which are constructed with bricks, are about nine feet 

 high, with galleries extending through the whole length, and containing 

 chambers into which a man con creep through a very contracted 

 lor the purpose of depositing the eggs, which are laid, to the 

 amount of several thousands, on mats or beds of flax over the brick 

 floors. The heat is conveyed through fire-places, and the material of 

 the slow fires, which are most effective, is the dung of cows or camels 



