226 TURKEYS, ORNAMENTAL POULTRY, AND WATER FOWL. 



rather turkey-chicks, giving them a board coop made tight and 

 sound, and only letting them run on grass when quite dry and 

 warm ; and always giving them perfect shelter from wet and cold 

 winds : but at the same time plenty of fresh air. They must, 

 however, have more animal food than other chickens ; and for 

 the first few days it is best to feed entirely on hard-boiled egg 

 chopped fine, ants' eggs, and curd pressed through a cloth till 

 quite dry, with now and then a little stale bread-crumb soaked 

 In milk. For green food, leeks or onions minced small are best. 

 A.fter a week their staple food may be oatmeal dough mixed 

 very dry, and made into little pills, or Spratt's Food, varied 

 with chopped egg and bruised hemp-seed, and occasionally 

 crushed wheat, animal food being also given. Ants' eggs, as is 

 well known, are the very best animal diet for young pheasants, 

 and almost necessary to any great success in rearing, though- 

 much may be done without by care and attention. 



The chicks must be fed for some time nearly every hour ; 

 and their water, which should always be drawn from a spring, 

 must be renewed several times a day. This is the only way of 

 avoiding the dreaded "gapes," which is tenfold more fatal to 

 young pheasants than to any other fowls ; but which may be 

 kept off by keeping the water always clear, and never letting 

 them out, while young, on wet grass. Adult birds, however, 

 are very hardy ; and do not, if the soil be tolerably light and 

 dry, require shelter from any ordinary weather, beyond what a 

 few shrubs, or even dry brambles, thrown in their pen, will 

 afford them. 



Feeding-boxes, so commonly used, we consider bad. Keep 

 the ground clean, and scatter the food broadcast. There is no 

 better than buckwheat and barley for old birds, with green food 

 regularly, and a little animal food now and then, like other fowls. 



For rearing on a large scale, Mr. Baily, who has had great 

 experience, recommends laying pens twelve feet square, to be 

 erected on light dry grass land, if possible on the side of a hill 



