68 DOMESTIC TURKEY. 



of young poultry. They must be kept particularly clean, and a 

 layer of fine, dry gravel, or sand, left for them, with a fresh tuft 

 of short, sweet grass. Too much milk is a purgative to all birds. 

 When the chicks are three or four weeks old, coop the hen abroad 

 for a couple of hours, daily, in fine weather, with a moderate sun. 

 When six weeks old, coop the hen out of doors, daily, for a fort- 

 night, that the chicks may obtain strength before the hen is set 

 at large. When half grown, and well feathered, they become 

 sufficiently hardy, and, in a good range, will provide themselves 

 throughout the day, requiring only to be fed at their out-letting 

 in the morning, and on their return at evening the same in 

 spacious farm-yards. If confined to the poultry-yard, their food 

 and treatment are similar to the common cock and hen. Turkeys 

 would prefer roosting abroad, upon high trees, in the summer 

 season, could it be permitted, with a view to their safe keeping. 



Breeders complain of the difficulty of rearing turkeys. That 

 can be obviated, by keeping the chicks dry ; they will not bear to 

 be draggled through the ditches, or subject to the rain ; and after 

 shooting what is called the red, which, at a certain age, becomes 

 the colour of the head, they become hardy, and evince a desire to 

 perch in the open air a circumstance which should not be per- 

 mitted, till they are two or three months old. Open sheds are, 

 consequently, best suited to them, with roosting-bars, fixed as 

 high as convenient, from the ground ; if housed, they require a 

 roomy place, well ventilated, and cleaned. 



If you can take the chicks from any of your hens, and add 

 them to another clutch, the hen from which you take them will 

 speedily begin to lay, and have a second clutch about July. 



They evince their wild propensity, if in the neighbourhood of a 

 wood ; they will stray away and procure their food, at all seasons 

 of the year. Our Irish climate is said to agree better with them 

 than that of England. A turkey loses a third of its weight when 

 ready for the spit. Live weight, 21 Ibs ; dead weight, 14 Ibs. 



Turkeys are said to be the most difficult to rear of any of our 

 domestic fowl, but with due care and attention, which, rightly 

 considered, in all things, give the least trouble, they may be pro- 

 duced and multiplied with no loss ; and the same may be averred, 

 with all truth, of the rest of our domestic fowl, the losses and 

 vexations annually deplored, arising almost entirely from igno- 

 rance and carelessness. Turkeys, as well as geese, under a 

 judicious system, may be rendered an object of ascertain degree of 

 consequence to the farmer. The feathers of the white turkey are 

 a valuable article of commerce in the London market- 



