TURKEYS. 



217 



Food. The French, and all foreign writers, 

 recommend for their first food, "bread crum- 

 bled and soaked in wine." The best food, how- 

 ever, which we have found for them, was eggs 

 boiled hard and chopped fine ; thick sour milk, 

 boiled, which makes a thick curd; the whey is 

 separated by putting it into a colander, or coarse 

 sieve, and when cold, rubbed fine in the hands, 

 and fed to them in small parcels, and often. 

 Indian meal wet in the ordinary way is injuri- 

 ous to them, until they are several weeks old. 

 Chives cut fine and mixed with their food, is 

 eaten with great avidity. In case of the chicks 

 appearing sickly and the feathers ruffled, indi- 

 cating a chill from severity or change of weath- 

 er, ground malt, with a little barley-meal, is al- 

 lowed, and, by way of medicine, powdered car- 

 away or coriander seeds. Boiled meat pulled 

 into strings, in running after which the chicks 

 have a salutary exercise. It will be borne in 

 mind iiuit the above diet is beneficial for ev- 

 ery otuer species of chicks, equally with the 

 turkey. 



Water should be given them in very shallow 

 vessels, in which they can not wet themselves, 

 as this would be very injurious. In order to 

 prevent the mother turkey from robbing the 

 chicks of their food, they should be fed in a 

 separate coop at such a distance from her as to 

 be out of her reach. 



Some recommend removing the chicks from 

 the mother as they are hatched, but we are not 

 of that opinion ; nature seems to be the best 

 guide, as they generally keep under the mother, 

 as animal warmth is, without doubt, infinitely 

 more necessary to them than food. It is well 

 known that birds, on leaving their shells, quit a 

 warmth of sixty or seventy degrees', and that 

 they often perish, sooner or later, on account 

 of the difference of temperature through which 

 they pass so suddenly ; and being so exces- 

 sively delicate, they should not be taken from 

 warmth and repose ; therefore in the beginning 

 of his existence, the new-born chick remains 

 under the wings of his mother, where he finds 

 the warmth nearly equal to that he had in the 

 e gg V removing him from this shelter, to 

 handle and feed him, he passes too suddenly 

 from heat to cold, from rest to exercise; and 



this sudden change, so hurtful to grown ani- 

 mals, becomes more especially so to the turkey- 

 chicken, where natural delicacy and want of 

 feathers render him more sensitive to the tran- 

 sitions. 



When young, they should be kept in a warn) 

 and dry place ; and when introduced into the 

 open air, it should be by degrees, and choose 

 the finest days. They should not be suffered 

 to go abroad in the morning till the sun has 

 dried the dew, and they should be shut up be- 

 fore the fall of the evening damps. On their 

 return at evening they should be fed, except in 

 harvest time, when they have gathered enough 

 in the fields. 



The mother leads them with the same solici- 

 tude that the hen leads her chickens ; she warms 

 them under her wings with the same affection, 

 and protects them with the same courage. It 

 would seem that tenderness for her offspring 

 gives quickness to her sight; she discovers a 

 bird of prey at a prodigious distance, when it is 

 yet invisible to every other eye. As soon as 

 she perceives her dreaded enemy, she vents her 

 fears by a scream that spreads terror through 

 the whole brood ; each little turkey seeks refuge 

 under a bush, or squats in the grass, and the 

 mother keeps them in that situation by her 

 cries, so long as danger is impending; but when 

 her apprehensions are removed, she informs 

 them by a different note, and calls them from 

 their concealment to assemble around her. 



Young turkeys are interesting, for they have 

 different tones, and different inflections of voice, 

 according to their age, their sex, and the vari- 

 ous passions by which they are influenced ; their 

 pace is slow, and their flight tardy. 



At two periods of their lives turkeys are very 

 apt to die ; viz., about the third day after they 

 are hatched, or when they throw out what is 

 called the " red head," which they do at about 

 six weeks old. It is a very critical period in 

 the life of a turkey much more so than the 

 period of moulting; the food must, therefore, 

 be increased, and rendered more nutritious by 

 adding boiled eggs, wheaten flour, bruised hemp 

 seed, or a few bruised beans. 



Turkeys are the most tender and difficult to 

 rear of any of our domestic fowls ; but with due 



