38 Practical Game Preserving. 



it be worked as advised, every element of success in rearing 

 strong healthy birds will be present. 



When a week old, the chickens are removed in their rips 

 to this rearing ground, and when they have attained a further 

 seven days' growth, the outside runs can be removed, and 

 the chickens attain freedom to roam about where they will. 

 The whole day long, nearly, they will run about the unmown 

 portions of the field, picking up countless little seeds and 

 insects which would otherwise be debarred them. For the 

 first month care must be observed not to let them out of the 

 coops till the dew is off the grass, and to get them in before it 

 rises in the morning. Wet caused by a shower of rain does 

 not matter, but the dew must at first be certainly avoided. 



As the youngsters progress towards maturity, they will 

 commence to roost about, not in, the coops, and the benefit 

 of a bit of young covert adjacent is then obvious. At all 

 times the most assiduous watching is necessary against both 

 human and animal depredators. The former will, doubtless, 

 be on the look out at night when the birds are leaving the 

 coops, but the latter will be on predacious intent at all times. 

 By day, crows, magpies, and the weazel tribe ; at night, cats, 

 dogs, and foxes, and the ubiquitous mustelidae as well. The 

 nearer the field to the keeper's house, or the dwelling-house 

 and other buildings the better, for there is no doubt that this 

 materially protects the coops from the attacks of some sorts 

 of vermin. In any case, each coop or run ought to have a 

 gin or two tilled near it every night, and the result will prove 

 that " one bit makes half a dozen shy." 



Of course, if there be no handy field of the kind advocated, 

 recourse must be had to some other description of ground, 



