170 ESSAY ON REARING TURKEYS. 



cleanliness. The way once learned into the building, there is 

 no trouble in their returning to it afterwards. The turkey is 

 a close sitter, so close that I have almost uniformly been oblig- 

 ed, on removing the lattice, to use some effort to drive her 

 off. She quits reluctantly ; when off, she feeds, she drinks 

 eagerly ; she runs about quickly, pecking the green grass, and 

 if she can find any loose dry dirt, she settles herself in it, flop- 

 ping the dirt rapidly with her wings over her body, and then 

 hastens back to her nest. This adhesiveness to her eggs grows 

 stronger as the time of hatching approaches. She should then 

 be disturbed but seldom. Four weeks is the usual term of her 

 incubation, but it is sometimes protracted a day or two longer. 

 It happens not unfrequently tliat turkeys, like some hens of the 

 common fowls, do not incline to sit. When this is the case, 

 they continue to lay litter after litter during the season, as do 

 often the turkeys that have hatched, after their broods have 

 attained to some size. The eggs may be used in the family. 

 It is not advisable to have a hatch from a late litter of eggs ; 

 the chicks will not repay the cost and trouble of attempting to 

 rear them. Turkey eggs may be placed under common hens, 

 and hatched with success, if no more are used for this purpose 

 than can be fully covered. This is a convenient arrangement 

 in the spring, in order to enlarge other broods. 



As soon as the chicks break the shell, it may be known by a 

 peculiarly soft and tremulous sound uttered by the mother, as 

 if recognizing the new-born brood, and expressing the anxious 

 sensations that now throb in her bosom. I know of no sound 

 more touching and plaintive — a sound which she never makes 

 till this epoch in her existence. As they are hatched, it is well 

 to remove the young chicks to the house, and to clear the nest 

 of shells. But the chicks should be returned to the mother at 

 night, or before ; the natural warmth of her body being of more 

 help to them than any artificial substitute. Sometimes a chick, 

 in consequence of the pellicle which lines the interior of the shell 

 adhering to it, is unable to free itself. Gentle means may be 

 used to separate them, but care is necessary in the operation, 

 or it may prove disastrous. A turkey will aUnost always hatch 

 out the larger proportion of the eggs on which she has sat, and 



