HOUSING.] 



POULTRY. 



[HOTJSIN&. 



trouble will be amply repaid by their growth 

 and health. As they get older this may be 

 gradually discontinued, and they may feed 

 with the old fowls on whole corn. But even 

 with old birds a change of food is not only 

 advantageous, but necessary ; and I would 

 therefore advise that, once a fortnight, the food 

 be changed for a day or two, and boiled or 

 crushed corn substituted for whole. They 

 must also have constant opportunities of pick- 

 ing among grass and other herbs. Fowls in 

 confinement will starve and pine to death with 

 heaps of barley around them, unless they have 

 such opportunities." An observance of these 

 rules would save the editors of agricultural 

 journals the task of answering many a poultry 

 inquiry, in their '■ xM'otices to Correspondents." 



For the banquets of the ancient K-omans, 

 poultry was carefully reared and fattened, as 

 well as crammed; the operation of which, ac- 

 cording to authority, does not seem to have 

 greatly differed from that practised in our own 

 day. The tastes of the birds, and the advantages 

 to be derived from feeding them in a dark 

 place, were well understood. 



In France, the practice of cramming is, at 

 present, quite common. For this purpose a 

 machine is used, constructed on the principle 

 of the forcing-pump. With the aid of this 

 instrument, one man can cram fifty birds in 

 half-an-hour. In operating, the throat of the 

 bird is held until the stomach is gorged through 

 a pipe, which forces the food from a reservoir. 

 This process causes the fowls to attain the 

 highest state of fatness and flavour in fifteen 

 days. 



HOUSING. 



In choosing a hen-house, as in many great 

 events of life, most persons have to consider 

 what they can have, rather than what they 

 would prefer. The house musi be weather- 

 tight and well ventilated ; it should occupy a 

 sheltered spot, and enjoy a warm, sunny as- 

 pect. Crowding should be carefully avoided : 

 a dozen fowls is enough for a house ten feet 

 square, and so in proportion. The talented 

 author of the Poultry Pentalorjue, says the 

 house " should be composed of non-conduct- 

 ing materials, that it may be comparatively 

 warm in winter, and cool in summer." This 

 would promote laying in cold weather, and 

 866 



mitigate distress from heat. " My own fowls, 

 however," he continues, "never did better 

 than when kept in a rough weather-boarded 

 place ; but then it was but loosely parted off 

 from the end of a large cow-house, which was 

 always filled with cattle in the winter, and 

 empty in the summer." 



It sometimes happens that mortality, for 

 which we can assign no reason, makes most un- 

 welcome inroads on our poultry ; and when we 

 reflect upon the manner of life of our favourites, 

 it is difficult to find a solution of the dis- 

 couraging enigma. The fowls had access to 

 gravel, lime, grass, and also had a liberal sup- 

 ply of food properly varied ; yet sickness and 

 death were of frequent occurrence. As whole- 

 some air is as necessary to the well-being of 

 every living animal as wholesome food, the 

 breeder of stock, of every description, will find 

 it advantageous, occasionally, to visit the sleep- 

 ing-places at night. When fowls follow their 

 own instinct, they seek a lofty place to roost 

 upon. Now that we bring them to a weight 

 and buUc which they would never attain in a 

 state of nature, we counteract this instinct; 

 and, as the wings of such heavy birds are in- 

 capable of saving them from injury in a great 

 descent, we oblige them to roost near the 

 ground. By this means we bring them nearer 

 to the carbonic acid gas, which, from its specific 

 gravity, falls to the ground. Many useful 

 hints, on different subjects connected with the 

 rearing of stock, may be found in a work entitled 

 Agricultural Chemistry,\ij^. C. Nesbit, F.G.S., 

 F.C.S., &c. ; to which we refer the reader. 



A piece of any convenient part of the hen- 

 house may as well be left unfloored, to be 

 divided off into nests, leaving the bare earth 

 for the bottoms of them. They will do either 

 with or without straw. If baskets or boxes 

 are used for nests, for the safety of the eggs, 

 they had better have an abundant supply of 

 straw. 



We have just observed that large fowls should 

 never roost high ; for if lialf-a-dozen hen-ladders 

 are placed for their convenience, they prefer 

 to use their wings, which were never made to 

 poise, in mid-air, from seven to eleven pounds 

 of fatted, feathered flesh and bone. The best 

 practical judges reckon that the perches should 

 be witUn two feet of the ground, and made of 

 poles from four to six inches in diameter 



