POULTRY. 



265 



washing with hot lime-water, to free them from 

 vermin, which greatly torment the sitting hens. 

 For the same purpose, Poultry should always 

 have a heap of dry sand or fine ashes laid under 

 some covered place, or thick tree, near their 

 yard, for tiiem to dust themselves in ; this being 

 their resource for getting rid of the vermin with 

 which they are annoyed. 



The office of keeping and managing domestic 

 fowls should be performed by some individual 

 whom the hens know, as the voice and presence 

 of a stranger scare the fowls and disturb the 

 operations of the henhouse. To distribute food 

 and drink at regular hours, to visit the nests, to 

 remove eggs as soon as laid, and carry them to 

 a cool place, to examine by candle-light what 

 eggs are fecundated, and to place these under 

 the hen, and mark the time, are among the daily 

 duties performed by the keeper. When the 

 hens lay in a secret place, the keeper may 

 readily discover it by placing a few grains of 

 salt in the oviduct, which hurries on the process 

 of laying, and causes the hen to retire to the spot 

 anew. 



Feeding. — Most persons are doubtless aware 

 that fowls swallow food without mastication. 

 That process is rendered unnecessary by the 

 provision of a crop, an organ which is somewhat 

 similar to the first stomach of the cow,and in which 

 the food from the gullet is macerated, and part- 

 ly dissolved by secreted fluids. From the crop, 

 the food passes do^vnwards into a second .small 

 cavity, where it is partly acted on b^digestive 

 juice ; and finally, it is transfeiTed to the gizzard, 

 or last stomach, ^vhich is furnished with muscular 

 and cartilaginous linings of very great strength. 

 In the gizzard, the partially softened food is 

 triturated, and converted into a thin paste, fit to 

 be received into the chyle-gut, and finally ab- 

 sorbed into the circulation. Such is the power 

 of the gizzard in almost all kinds of Poultry, that 

 hollow globes of glass are reduced in it to fine 

 powder in a few hours. The most rough and 

 jagged bodies do no injury to the coats of the 

 gizzard. Spallanzani even introduced a ball of 

 lead, with twelve strong needles so fixed in it 

 that their points projected a fourth of an inch 

 from the surface, and the result was, that all the 

 needles, with the exception of one or two, were 

 ground down in a short time to the surface of 

 the ball, while those left were reduced to mere 

 stumps. It is remarkable that, to add to the 

 triturating powers of the gizzard, fowls are 

 gifted with the instinct of swallowing stones 

 with their food. 



Fowls, when left to roam at large, pick up all 

 soits of seeds, grains, worms, larvse of insects, 

 or any other edible substances they can di.scover 

 either on the surface of the ground or by 

 scraping. They also pick a little grass as a 

 stomachic. The more that hens can be allowed 

 to run about to pick up their o^vll food, the bet- 

 ter for their own health and the pockets of their 

 keeper. When secluded and fed altogether in 

 an artificial manner, their keep becomes ex- 

 pensive, and is, on the whole, seldom compensa- 

 ted by their produce. We have, indeed, great 

 hesitation in advising any one to keep fowls who 

 cannot unexpensively give them plenty of 

 refuse from the table or kitchen, or permit 

 them to range in the field or lane in quest of 

 what seems proper for their natural appetite. 

 The very pleasure of ranging and scraping 

 seems advantageous to the animals. 



If kept in a court yard or pen, and requiring 

 altogether artificial feeding, their natural tastes 

 (56.5) 



should be consulted as far as conveniently prac- 

 ticable. They should be fed regularly' and with 

 amiscellaneous kind of diet : allowed at all times 

 access to clean water for drinking, and have 

 earth, sand, or dust, to scrape at pleasure and 

 roll them.selves in. A certain quantity of chalk 

 or lime should al.so be scattered about for them to 

 pick up, as that material is required by them in 

 the production of eggs. Speaking on this sub- 

 ject. Professor Gregory of Aberdeen, in a letter 

 to a friend, published in a newspaper, observes, 

 " As I suppo.se you keep Poultry, I may tell you 

 that it has been ascertained that, if you mix with 

 their food a sufficient quantity of egg-shells or 

 chalk, which they eat greedily, tlicy will lay, 

 other things being equal, twice or thrice as many 

 eggs as before. A well-fed fowl is disposed to 

 lay a vast number of eggs, but cannot do so 

 without the materials for the shells, however 

 nourishing in other respects her food may be ; 

 indeed, a fowl fed on food and water free from 

 carbonate of lime, and not finding any in the 

 soil, or in the shape of mortar, which they often 

 eat off the walls, would lay no eggs at all, with 

 the best will in the world." 



In a state of domestication, the hard food of 

 which fowls seem most fond are peas and bar- 

 ley (oats they do not like) ; and besides a pro- 

 portion of these, they may be given crumbs of 

 bread, lumps of boiled potatoes, not too cold, or 

 any other refuse. They are much pleased to 

 pick a bone ; the pickings warm them, and ex- 

 cite their laying propensities. If they can be 

 supplied with caterpillars, worms, or maggots, 

 the same end will be served. Any species of 

 animal food, however, should be administered 

 sparingly ; and the staple articles of diet must 

 always be of a vegetable nature. When wanted 

 for killing, the quantity of food may be increased 

 and be more substantial ; they should always be 

 kept more within the coop. A fortnight's feed- 

 ing in this way will bring a fowl of a good breed 

 up to a plump condition. 



Laying. — The ordinary productiveness of the 

 hen is truly astoni.shing, as it usually lays, in the 

 course of a year, two hundred eggs, provided it 

 be allowed to go at liberty, is well fed, and has 

 a plentiful supply of water. Many instances 

 have been known of hens laying three hundred 

 in a year. This is a singular provision in nature, 

 and it would appear to have been intended 

 peculiarly for the use of man, as the hen usually 

 incubates only once in a year, although she will 

 occasionally bring out two broods. Few hens 

 are capable of hatching more than from twelve 

 to fifteen eggs ; so that, allowing they were all 

 to sit twice a year, and bring out fifteen at a 

 time, there would still bo at lea.st one hundred 

 and scvent}- spare eggs for the use of man. It 

 is therefore evident, that in situations where hens 

 can pick up their food, they mu.st prove very 

 profitable ; for, supposing that the egps of one 

 fowl during the year were sold, without any of 

 them being hatched, they would bring (if near 

 a large city) on an average ninepence per dozen, 

 or fourteen shillings, and the hen herself w^ould 

 be worth two shillings at least. As the number 

 of eggs which are annually brought out by a 

 hen bear no proportion to the number which "she 

 lays, .schemes have been imagined to hatch all 

 the eggs of a hen, and thus turn her produce to 

 the greatest advantage ; so that, in place of 

 twelve or fourteen chickens, upwards of two 

 hundred may be produced. 



Hens will lay eggs which have received no 

 impregnation, but from these, as a matter of 



