130 BKKI.LUNG AND EXHIBITION OF PllIZK POULTRY. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE PREPARATION OF FOWLS FOR EXHIBITION, AND VARIOUS 

 MATTERS CONNECTED WITH SHOWS. 



CHICKENS are rarely fit for exhibition until at least six months 

 old, or even more. If the cockerels and pullets have been 

 separated, as recommended in the last chapter, there will 

 rarely have been any eggs laid before this time ; and stimulat- 

 ing food should now be partially discontinued to retard their 

 production as long as possible, bearing in mind that the com- 

 mencement of laying almost, if not quite, stops the growth, 

 which it is desirable to prolong as far as possible for exhibition 

 birds. In this respect the fancier and the ordinary poultry- 

 keeper proceed upon contrary principles, the one endeavouring 

 to get his pullets into laying order as soon as he can, the other 

 using every expedient to procure a precisely opposite result. 



If the chickens have been from the very shell properly and 

 systematically fed, they will, by the time they are fit for show- 

 ing, be in quite as good condition as they ought to be. By 

 giving them two or three times a day as much soft food as they 

 will eat, they may easily be got up to any degree of obesity ; 

 and such a system of feeding is necessary to success under 

 some few judges, who seem ignorant of the proper condition 

 of a really healthy fowl ; but we must most emphatically raise 

 our voice against the practice. We have known a splendid pen 

 of Dorkings, far superior in real size, as measured by the frame- 

 work of the fowl, passed by contemptuously because inferior in 

 mere dead weight to a pen which it would have been hopeless 

 to breed from. This is much less common now than formerly ; 

 and the most eminent judges now generally refuse to award 

 prizes to pens which they consider over-fattened, and thereby 

 lo all they can to check the system ; but at Birmingham it is 

 still rampant in the duck and turkey classes, which are ofU;n 

 gorged just before judging takes place. 



