150 TURKEY CULTURE. 



hens at the same time, or as near that as possible. In or. 

 der to do this, I do not allow the turkeys to set until 

 after the second laying. I then give all the young turkeys 

 that are hatched to the two old mother turkeys ; they, each 

 having a large brood, and being so near of an age, can run 

 together without injury. I have invariably found that 

 where there are several broods of different ages, the oldei 

 ones will trample and pick the smaller ones to death be- 

 fore they are half grown. 



When the little turkeys begin to eat, I feed them 

 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine, for the first week, then I 

 begin feeding wheat bread, crumbled, and mixed with the 

 eggs, and it is very amusing to see them pick eagerly 

 around for the bits of egg, leaving the bread crumbs until 

 they are obliged to eat them. They greatly prefer a diet 

 of egg alone, but soon grow accustomed to the change. 

 When they are about four weeks old, 1 begin mixing 

 whole wheat with the bread, and continue this, using less 

 bread, until they will eat the clear wheat. This, I think, 

 makes the best food for growing turkeys. 



Besides this, as soon as they are a couple of weeks old, 

 I give them broken earthen ware, pounded up into small 

 bits. To those who may think this a queer article of diet, 

 I will say that I learned its value by accident. Some 

 broken dishes were thrown into the turkey yard, and I 

 found the turkeys trying to swallow them. Every bit that 

 was small enough to go down their throats (and it is as- 

 tonishing how great their capacity is in that direction), 

 soon disappeared, and they clamored for more. I supplied 

 them freely with ground oyster shells, thinking that would 

 be much better. But no, the fastidious creatures turned 

 from them in disgust, and I went to pounding up all the 

 broken dishes I could find. I never saw fowls so eager for 

 anything as they are for those sharp, white fragments. 

 Nowadays if a dish is broken by accident, scarcely a sigh 

 is heard, as some one exclaims, "Oh, save that for the tur- 



