FEEDING.] 



POULTET. 



[feeding. 



savings, which poultry get from off their walk, 

 to the sparing of the barley-sack, perpetually 

 vary. Thus, from Midsummer to Michaelmas, 

 ducks cost very little to keep, where they 

 have a proper range ; and so do other poultry. 

 Nature is then in her most liberal mood. 

 But when the ground is petrified by frost, and 

 covered with snow, it becomes quite a different 

 affair. Powls are then at their most costly 

 time. A calculation of the expense of keeping 

 them, at either period, cannot but mislead. 

 And as the greater number of ducks do not 

 live six months, their yearly average consump- 

 tion cannot be taken. 



"In the same way, turkey-chicks and common 

 chickens are, with us, assiduously fed on their 

 proper diet, their mothers being cooped, and 

 dependent on the grain given to them. As the 

 younglings gain strength they are gradually 

 released ; and, when finally turned adrift, have 

 the range of more than eight acres of lawn and 

 grove, where their mothers and themselves 

 find abundance of nutriment, which, though 

 valuable, cannot be charged in any bill for the 

 maintenance of the growing families. During 

 the time the mothers remain cooped, a per- 

 son goes round to them as often as is thought 

 needful (that point being much regulated by 

 their respective ages), with a supply of suitable 

 food. It mainly consists of hard-boiled eggs 

 chopped up with lettuce and onions, bread- 

 crumbs, boiled rice (costing Is. 4<d. the stone 

 of 14 lbs.) as a variety, barley-meal, and fine 

 pollard, either mixed with parboiled rice, or by 

 themselves, with as little water as is sufficient 

 to bring them to a consistence. Little chickens 

 are treated to a few kernels of wheat. The 

 most economical way of distributing grain is 

 to scatter it on the bare ground, and to give 

 no more at a time than the fowls will quite con- 

 sume ; and we find that the only mode of pre- 

 venting the sparrows from getting much more 

 than their fair share (their really fair share 

 should be none at all), is to remain with the 

 birds and chickens while they are eating, till 

 they are quite satisfied, and to repeat the 

 visit after a short interval, Youus: chickens 

 never should go more than two hours at most 

 without a supply of food ; for adult birds, three 

 times a-day is plenty. It does not appear to me 

 that extreme precision in stating tho weights 

 and measures of the articles used as food 

 SGI 



for live stock, is so very necessary or expedient. 

 For creatures that have either to work hard, or 

 to grow, or to get fat, a little too much food is 

 better than a little too little. "We should pre- 

 fer even some waste by sparrows, to seeing our 

 poultry stunted in their growth, or checked iu 

 their moulting, or moping about in ill-con- 

 ditioned plumage. Full-grown guinea-fowl, 

 that have a range (and they should not be 

 kept otherwise), require no more corn for 

 their maintenance in health and in full laying 

 powers, than what they tvlll have when the 

 poultry is assembled by the rattling of the 

 corn-measure at morning, noon, and night. 

 AVith us, the least profitable birds are, we 

 believe, the pigeons, of which there are about 

 forty. Besides the corn which these get at 

 the general mess, they are entertained with 

 peas, at the rate of about a peck a- week, in 

 their private apartment, the pigeon-loft, to 

 which, however, they are not at all confined. 

 They are fed at an extra rate to prevent them 

 trespassing on our neighbours' fields. Pigeon- 

 pies, in sufficiency, could be had at a less cost ; 

 and the sale of choice pairs is not resorted to 

 as a means of lessening the expense of keeping 

 the flock. 



"The commissariat department of every 

 rearer of a general stock of poultry, must be 

 arranged, not as for a regular army, where the 

 men are all of a certain equal height, and are 

 supposed to be of a certain equal capacity of 

 stomach ; but as for a mixed multitude or 

 rabble, such as the followers of Peter the 

 Hermit ; or a disorganised riotous populace, 

 consisting of old and young, male and female, 

 healthy, sick, and lame. To the entire mass 

 of this feathered band of insurrectionists (rjnd 

 very riotous tliey do become as the pangs of 

 hunger continue to pinch them), it may be 

 advised that three feeds of corn a-day be ad- 

 ministered till they are tolerably satisfied. It 

 is an error to believe that poultry will eat corn 

 to repletion; they will turn from that, when 

 they feel they have had a sufficiency, to pounce 

 upon the fly, drag out the half-hidden worm, 

 or crop the sprouting grass. Wastefulness iu 

 giving corn to fowls, consists in throwing them 

 down a large quantity at once — more than 

 they care to have — and then leaving them to 

 themselves, instead of doling it out, handful 

 by handful, and stopping the distribution as 



