176 



THE AMERICAN POULTERER'S COMPANION. 



gather abound and warm themselves beneath 

 her. She continues to bestow these cares on 

 them until they are quite feathered, when they 

 are fit to shift for themselves. 



The first day after hatching, the chickens do 

 not want to eat, and should be left in the nest. 

 The next day, the whole brood being hatched, 

 the hen with them may be removed and placed 

 in a box with high sides, if the weather be cold 

 or wet ; or put under a coop, upon a dry, shel- 

 tered spot, and, if possible, not within reach of 

 another hen, since the chickens will mix, and 

 the hens are apt to injure, and often kill such 

 as do not belong to them. Nor should they be 

 placed near other fowls, as they would rob them 

 of their food. 



Their first food may be eggs boiled hard and 

 chopped fine, or curd broken fine ; coarse corn 

 meal or millet, fed sparingly, a little at a time 

 and often at first, as, from our experience, we 

 are certain more chickens are destroyed by 

 over-feeding than are lost by the want of it. 

 We have remarked also, that hens which stole 

 their nests generally hatched all the eggs ; and 

 if suffered to seek the food for their chickens, if 

 the season be somewhat advanced, they would, 

 unless some casualty occurred, raise the whole 

 of their broods, while with too much kindness or 

 officiousness, not half would be raised. All wa- 

 tery food, such as soaken bread, or potatoes, 

 should be avoided. If Indian meal is well boil- 

 ed, and fed not too moist, it will answer a very 

 good purpose, particularly after they are eight or 

 ten days old. Pure water must be placed near 

 them, either in shallow dishes or bottle-fount- 

 ains, as in page 77, that the chickens may drink 

 without getting into the water, which, by wet- 

 ting their feathers, benumbs and injures them. 

 After having confined them for five or six days 

 in the box, they may be allowed the range of 

 the yard if the weather is fair. They should 

 not be let out of their coops too early in the 

 morning, or while the dew is on the ground, 

 far less be suffered to range over the wet grass, 

 which is a common and fatal cause of disease 

 and death. Another cause of the utmost con- 

 sequence to guard them against, is sudden, un- 

 favorable changes of the weather, more partic- 

 ularly if attended with rain. Nearly all the dis- 



eases of gallinaceous fowls arise from cold mois- 

 ture. 



At the end of four weeks the hen may be al- 

 lowed to lead her little ones into the poultry- 

 yard, where she will soon leave them and com- 

 mence laying again. It should be the aim to 

 have some of the hens hatch as early as possi- 

 ble, so that the chickens will attain a good size 

 by the first of July ; and, if fat, will return the 

 best profit in market, in proportion to their age 

 and food consumed. They are naturally most 

 fat at six weeks old, or about the time they 

 leave the hen, and have not run off their brood- 

 ing flesh by exertion for food and by growth. 

 Particular birds can be selected for breeding 

 stock, as their color and form will be by that 

 time apparent, so as to make the choice with 

 safety ; also, it will be easy to tell the males 

 from the females. 



If their keep costs nothing, and they are 

 raised near or are convenient to a market, they 

 may, in some cases, be advantageously retained 

 till the holidays, when they seldom fail to com- 

 mand a ready sale and a good price ; but if a 

 large number are raised, they will, of course, 

 require to be marketed regularly. Of this, how- 

 ever, the farmer will be the best judge. In 

 many cases it will be more advantageous to sell 

 to the dealers, who travel the country in all di- 

 rections with wagons prepared to take the fowls 

 from the yard, and pay cash price sufficient- 

 ly liberal to return a handsome profit to the 

 breeder. 



The process of incubation of the chicken is a 

 subject curious and interesting to the student 

 of nature. It generally takes twenty-one days 

 to hatch a brood of chickens, although a close- 

 sitting hen will sometimes hatch in eighteen 

 days, if the weather is favorable. The expira- 

 tion of the time should be carefully watched 

 for; not that the chicken requires any assist- 

 ance, but, on the contrary, interference with 

 them is much more likely to injure than benefit 

 them ; a healthy chick will perform all that is 

 required to free it from the shell. It is truly 

 wonderful the power they possess while rolled 

 up in so apparently helpless a mass ; but so it 

 is, and the head, that makes the most exertion, 

 is placed so as to leave room for reaction, and 



