138 The Illustrated Boolc of Poultry. 



with the same food, and when these have done I am in good order for my own breakfast. While I ■ 

 am feeding the stock, I have a man going round rinsing all the drinking-pans out, and putting in 

 fresh clean water; this will take him until breakfast-time. His next work is to remove- all the 

 coops, raking up the dirt that has been made during the day and night previous. It is much the 

 best to coop hens on gravel near grass-run, so placed as to catch the early sun ; but when the sun 

 is hot and bright, turn the coops with their backs to the sun. Let the pans with water be carefully 

 screened from the sun. The man's next duty is to attend to the old birds, cleaning out the roosts, 

 shaking up the straw that is placed in one end of the roost for heavy birds — such as Cochins and 

 Brahmas — to sleep on ; the yards are also carefully raked over. When this is done, a few fresh- 

 pulled lettuce or cabbage leaves are thrown down in each run, or what is better, tied up on the side 

 partition of the yard. From ten to eleven o'clock I go round the chickens with wheat, changing it 

 once or twice a week for hemp-seed. At noon the man has to go round with fresh clean water. 

 From three to four o'clock in the afternoon is my feeding-time, being soft warm food same as the 

 morning, adding at times a saucepanful of boiled rice, boiled in skim milk. If the sides of the 

 saucepan be rubbed with a lump of suet, the rice when properly boiled — that is, when the rice is on 

 the point of bursting — will all come clean away from the saucepan. Take and turn it out in your 

 mixing-pan, and mix tt well up with fine middlings. Feed the chickens on this ; there is nothing 

 they like better, and you can almost see them grow : and this feed keeps away the 'scours,' which 

 I am scarcely ever troubled with. 



" When the chickens are returning for the night to roost, go round them with wheat or broken- 

 up maize, throwing them a few handfuls, but standing while they eat it, and carefully avoid giving 

 any more than they will eat. While they are eating you can count them over to see they are all 

 there. If you can put in each of the chicken-runs a heap of burnt oyster-shells broken up, and 

 broken bones, the chickens will thrive all the better, and be seldom troubled with leg weakness. If 

 you can, give them now and then a barrow-load of lettuce ; if they have ever such a grass-run they 

 will eat it, and nothing can be better for them. 



" My old stock are fed in the morning on the same food as chickens, the latter being served 

 the first. In the middle of the day the stock have a little wheat ; in the evening they are generally 

 fed on small maize. I may add that I always mix the food and attend to the feeding myself, and I 

 think it the duty of any superintendent of a prize poultry establishment to do the same. By so 

 doing he can see at once if a chicken refuses to eat, or has met with an accident, and by prompt 

 attention they are soon set right again ; where an assistant would in nine cases out of ten never 

 notice anything until the chicken was past recovery. Then again, there is no estimating how much 

 , food is saved by doing it yourself The above system of feeding and management of chickens I 

 have proved to be satisfactory, their growth and condition being all that could be desired." 



Mr. Wragg's own experience refers chiefly to Asiatic breeds, and it will be' instructive to 

 compare his general directions with those of Mr. John Martin for rearing Dorkings, or those of 

 Mr. Douglas for the care of Game. But the general principles to enforce are th- same in all ; and 

 his last remark, relative to the saving in food by careful feeding, is particularly worthy of attention. 

 In a large fancier's yard, rearing from one to four hundred chickens, the consumption of meal is 

 very great, and it is of the utmost importance to see that just enough is given and no more. In 

 this way a waste of from ^^20 to ^50 per annum may be avoided ; and an economical feeder will 

 thus be able to ajford the purchase occasionally of the "crack" bird of the year, without costing his 

 employer any more, or even so much, annually, as another poultry-man who makes no purchases, 

 but is less careful over the ordinary expenses of the yard. 



