OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



and are often made sick by it. Blood and lean meat are not 

 very injurious, but too much fat meat has very bad effects. 



It is not necessary to give the fowls water when there is 

 snow on the ground. Delicate fowls that are accustomed to 

 close confinement may not be able to stand running out on the 

 snow, but if they have a comfortable house, with a good supply 

 of litter on the floor, and are free to go and come at will, rugged 

 birds that are out in all kinds of weather are not in the least 



hurt by going out on 

 snow and ice and wet 

 ground in cold weather, 

 and will usually take 

 snow in preference to 

 water when they can get 

 it. When the ground is 

 bare and frozen, water or 

 finely chipped ice should 

 be supplied. In extreme 

 cold weather the latter is 

 better, because the water 

 soon freezes and the fowls 



FIG. 90. Barred Plymouth Rock hen with 



Light Brahma chicks go thirsty until a fresh 



supply is given them. 



Reproducing the flock. Fowls are short-lived creatures. They 

 mature in less than a year; their period of greatest productive- 

 ness is usually over before they are two years old, and only a very 

 small proportion of a flock are worth keeping after that. Hence 

 the entire stock of fowls on a farm is renewed in two years. 

 Most farmers intend to kill off all their two-year-old hens each 

 year, thus keeping up the number in the flock by growing annu- 

 ally about as many young birds as there are hens in the flock. 

 To allow for losses, for an excess of males, and for inferior 

 pullets which are not worth keeping for layers, it is necessary to 

 hatch about four times as many chickens as are to be reserved. 



