POULTET. s 269 



Like most birds known both in a wild and domestic state, the latter ex- 

 ceed the former in weight and magnitude. 



FEEDLYG POULTRV.— It is a bad practice to under feed poultry. From 

 the very first they should have good and solid food. Steamed potatoes 

 and other roots mixed with meal of the various grains, form a cheap 

 and excellent food. It is not necessary to soak, grind, or boil the grains 

 for fowls, however, where they can have free access to pebbles to supply 

 their own grinding-mills, by which they turn their own grain into flour. 

 But when pent up and unable to procure what they so much need, meal, 

 and boiled and crushed food should then be given them. The poultry- 

 house, however, should be constantly supplied with fine gravel, lime, and 

 pulverized charcoal — articles indispensable to the health and improve- 

 ment of fowls. Green food should be given them daily. Cabbages hung 

 where the fowls can pick at them are a good article. In winter, chopped 

 potatoes, turnips, etc., are the only convenient green food. When prac- 

 ticable, fresh animal food should be frequently given fowls that are shut 

 up, or at seasons when they cannot procure insects or worms. A bul- 

 lock's liver, thrown in the yard, is a cheap and good food for them. 

 Indian corn is an excellent food, and may be freely given. 



Cayenne pepper, indeed all descriptions of pepper, especially the 

 cayenne in pods, will be found a favorite with fowl, and will be greedily 

 devoured by them ; it acts as a powerful stimulant, and remarkably 

 promotes laying ; and, when mixed in a ground state with boiled meal, 

 will be found productive of the best effects. In this, however, as in 

 every thing else, let moderation be your ruling principle. 



A different system should be adopted in treating poultry for the table, 

 and for the laying and breeding department. 



With regard to feeding fowls for the table, much depends on circum- 

 stances. Spring chickens may be put up for feeding as soon as the hen 

 ceases to regard them, and before they lose their first good condition. 

 In their fattening-pens they will have no opportunity of picking up 

 little pebbles ; their mills, therefore, will be inoperative, and the diet 

 must consequently be pultaceous, viz., bread and milk, barley-meal, or 

 oatmeal and milk, and meal of steamed potatoes mixed with barley- 

 meal. Some recommend the occasional addition of a few grains of 

 cayenne pepper, or of dried nettle-seeds, which the foreign feeders are 

 in the habit of giving. Where chickens have the run of a good farm- 

 yard, and plenty of food, it is a work of supererogation to pen them for 

 fattening; they will be ready at any time for the table, and their flesh, 

 being in its healthy state, will be sweet and juicy, delicately tender, and 

 sufficiently fat. Some, indeed, prefer fatted fowls ; but this is a matter 

 of taste; to many the greasy fat of poultry is very disgusting. 



The practice of cramming poultry by the hand is quite common, 

 though not to be recommended. In France they have machines by 

 which one man can cram fifty birds in half an hour. It is somewhat 

 on the principle of a forcing-pump. The throats of the birds are held 

 open by the operator until they are gorged through a pipe, which con- 

 veys the food from a reservoir below placed on a stool. In fifteen days, 

 fowls are said to attain the highest state of fatness and flavor by this 

 feeding. In addition to the ordinary paste of barley-meal, or meal made 



