FOOD OP FOWLS. 235 



The management of a large poultry-yard should be 

 the office of one person. A good-tempered, cleanly girl 

 may perform its duties well, if she be careful and at- 

 tentive. No one else should be allowed to go into the 

 hen-house, as the voice of a stranger will disturb the 

 laying-hens. The hatching-house should be still more 

 strictly guarded from the intrusion of strangers. The 

 feeding of poultry should be regular. Their fattening 

 and general well-being greatly depend on regularity. 

 The same quantity of food given at uncertain intervals 

 would not produce the same effect ; and even when, 

 barn-door fowls may be supposed to gather up enough 

 for their subsistence, it is desirable still to feed them 

 (however small the quantity given) at stated times. 



The keeper of the poultry-yard should know how to 

 distinguish between different sorts of food. She should 

 observe what appears to be heating, and what cooling 

 to the fowls. She should well understand the different 

 diseases which poultry are liable to, and what are the 

 remedies. If the pip become prevalent, she should know 

 that it is owing to a scarcity of fresh water, and take 

 immediate steps to prevent this scarcity from occurring 

 again. If the shells of the eggs are rather soft, it is a 

 sign that the hens are becoming too fat, and that they 

 need to have their food diminished, and chalk mixed 

 with their water. 



The food of fowls is various. Not only do they 

 thrive on barley, wheat, and oats, (their principal depen- 

 dence,) but on almost every kind of food that can be 

 mentioned. Boiled potatoes, if given warm, are excel- 

 lent food for them ; also boiled peas and beans, carrots, 

 turnips, parsnips, &c. Either of the latter kinds of 

 root, mashed up with bran or pollard, makes a substan- 

 tial evening meal, when grain has been given in the 

 morning. Millet, tares, rice, refuse from the kitchen, 

 such as fruit, crumbs of bread or pie-crust, biscuit- 

 dust, cuttings of greens, parings of apples, almost every 

 kind of refuse aliment that can be named, is useful to 



