FEEDING.] 



POULTET. 



[feedixo. 



had to take them out and place under one 

 hen, and some in flannel on a stove. So that, 

 in fact, it might be said that one hen and the 

 stove hatched these 17 chickens — which were 

 perfectly strong and healthy. 



The only sickness he had with chickens was 

 caused by lice, which destroyed great numbers. 

 The bad hatching of eggs was not confined to 

 hens, but extended also to ducks ; for out of 

 24 duck-eggs, he had only five ducklings. He 

 reared 29 chickens over nine months old. For 

 his breeding stock he had two cocks, with five 

 hens each. Only one case of roup occurred; and 

 as the hen was not a valuable one, he destroyed 

 her. One hen died from paralysis, and an- 

 other from diseased liver. The number of eggs 

 he had was nearly 2,000 ; and he knew, with 

 the exception of 17, to what purpose every egg 

 was applied. A stock consisting of 17, in- 

 creased to 60 by chickens in the spring, and 

 purchases, consumed — 



^^19 loads, at a cost of 

 £12 13s. 6d. 



The expense of rearing fowls, as we have 

 said, is subject to great variation ; but let us 

 suppose that there were but one kind of 

 cereal on which poultry could be fed, and that 

 it maintained one invariable price throughout 

 the kingdom ; " still, the proportional amount 

 of hand-feeding, required by an equal number 

 of fowls, varies greatly, according to the cir- 

 cumstances of their owner. A head of fifty 

 birds, kept at a suburban villa, with high- 

 dressed gardens, and little other elbow-room, 

 •will not be able to obtain for themselves the 

 same amount of unpurchased food as the fifty 

 which belong to a small farmer, who has a 

 common in front of his yard, and a young 

 plantation at the back. The fifty that are 

 kept on a dairy-iarm will fare diff'erently from 

 another fifty, in whose master's barn the flail 

 is perpetually going. Cochin-China fowls, 

 too, and Malays, will consume a different 

 amount of food from what bantams do ; and 

 to strike an average on a miscellaneous col- 

 8(52 



lection, gives, in truth, but the phantom of a 

 precise result." 



The writer from whom we have just quoted, 

 suggests, as the only way to obtain a safe cal- 

 culation, to shut up a given number of fowls 

 of the same breed and age, and mark what 

 they consume in a given time. " But the ex- 

 perimenter should be warned, that the birds, 

 when first confined, will probably sulk, and not 

 eat nearly so much as their brethren at large ; 

 and so an error will be admitted that would 

 prove of considerable importance, if the calcu- 

 lations founded thereon, were of equal conse- 

 quence with those on which astronomy, navi- 

 gation, or even large mercantile enterprises 

 rely for satisfactory results. It is better, 

 therefore, not to attempt giving any account 

 of the quantity of grain each bird may be ex- 

 pected to consume, than to give such an ac- 

 count as must necessarily mislead, if it is 

 made the groundwork of any calculation in- 

 tended to be generally applicable." Instead, 

 therefore, of aiming at anything like exactness 

 in this matter, we will quote, from the Agricul- 

 tural Gazette, a tolerably full account of the 

 miscellaneous collection of an amateur, and of 

 the way in w'hich they were fed and managed. 



"It may be premised," says the writer, 

 " that my object in keeping fowls is not mere 

 money profit. If it were clearly proved to me, 

 that, at the end of the year, I lost a small sum 

 by them, I should still go on keeping them, 

 for convenience and amusement sake ; and so 

 would many other country ladies, gentlemen, 

 and clergy. If it could be demonstrated to 

 me that the eggs laid at home cost more, per 

 score, than what eggs can be bought for in 

 Leadenhall market, I would still indulge in 

 the home-produced article, instead of French 

 eggs, twenty-four for the shilling — just as I 

 would prefer a joint of home-fattened pork ; 

 although meat, spelt with the same four letters, 

 might, perhaps, be bought in a neighbouring 

 city one-eiglith of a farthing cheaper per 

 pound. If men want to enter on the business 

 of fowl-dealing and fatting on a large scale, as 

 a trade to live by, let them serve a short ap- 

 prenticeship, and they will soon discover the 

 most profitable way of proceeding, according 

 to the produce and the demand of their own 

 special locality. This class of very useful 

 persons are, in general, too acute and too 



