BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT 43 



The preparatory feeding for breeding stock should be 

 of a character calculated to make muscle and not fat. 

 Canary seed and rape, together with plenty of green food, 

 and very occasionally a little egg-food, and the same 

 feeding should be continued when they are mated until 

 the young make their appearance, except that the hens 

 may be given a little inga seed for the last week or ten days 

 before mating, and that after mating a little of the same 

 seed may be given the birds twice or thrice a week, but 

 very little, not more than half-a-teaspoonful for each pair. 

 If more is given it will tend to fatten the birds, whereas 

 when only a little is given it has a good effect upon the 

 egg passage. 



The Time of Eggs. 



Although generally practised, the removal of the 

 eggs day by day as laid is by no means the uniform prac- 

 tise. There are those who say it is wrong to remove the 

 eggs. The argument of those who do remove them is that 

 all the batch hatch at once. Those who do not remove 

 the eggs dispute this, and assert that the hen does not 

 brood her eggs until she has finished laying the clutch, 

 she only stands over them in a protective manner, and in 

 such circumstances all hatch out together. 



When the eggs are removed each day as laid, this 

 should be done about breakfast time in the morning, 

 the eggs being placed in the compartment of the egg box 

 bearing the number of the cage. On the morning when 

 the fourth egg is laid, the trio laid on the three previous 

 days should be returned to the nest, and fourteen days 

 from thence the young may be expected. That is when 

 all has gone as it should go ; unfortunately things do not 

 always work smoothly, and one of the greatest difficulties 

 breeders have to meet with comes at the time of the first 

 egg of the season, I refer to egg-binding. 



Egg Binding : Its Prevention and Cure. 



Egg-binding is looked upon by some men as a complaint 

 that must come. That is not so. Egg-binding in nine 

 times out of ten the fault lies with the owner. In some 

 cases over-feeding with too generous food is the cause, 



