CHAP. VI. 



FATTENING POULTRY. 



639 



the weight of the shelf above. The front of each coop is a barred 

 door turning on hinges, while a hinged flap runs the whole length of 

 the coops, deep enough to admit of the introduction of a scraper to 

 each of the pens. A projecting ledge supports the troughs which 

 contain food. 



" The process may be described briefly as follows : Keep rigidly 

 clean ; let the place be rather dry, and the birds not see each other ; 

 feed twice a-day the first fortnight, and three or four times a-da} T after 

 that ; keep to the exact time of feeding, and remove all food left after the 



Fig. 188. Bone Mill. 



Fig. 187. Poultry Cramming Machine. 



appetite is satisfied; no sour food or dirty dishes must be used; for 

 food give barley-meal, maize-meal, buckwheat-meal, oatmeal, toppings, 

 boiled barley or rice, and skim-milk ; kill the bird (after starving for 

 12 hours) when it is fit." Messrs. Charles Hearson & Co. have 

 introduced a capital fattening machine (fig. 187). This is similar to 

 that used so largely in France. Sussex fattening pens are made of rods 

 of wood, open on all sides. Fig. 188 shows a mill for grinding bones, 

 supplied by Spratt's Patent Co. 



How to fatten geese has already been mentioned, and the process as 

 to ducks is pretty much the same. The method adopted in the Ayles- 

 bury district is to keep them in flocks of about twenty or thirty in pens 

 well littered with straw, and here they are fed upon boiled rice or 

 barley-meal, mixed with chopped bullock's liver or tallow greaves, and 



