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to pick up than at a more advanced age; it is policy to look round your aviary or loft 

 for these birds and place them inside the pen constructed for them. You will now 

 observe what I have been driving at, that is, the old birds coming to feed and water, 

 taking care they cannot get elsewhere (only water on the days you allow them to wash), 

 teaches the young birds to feed and drink. 



529. It does not follow because you have placed them under this pen for the old ones 

 to teach, they will feed; you must have your eye and judgment upon them, and feel their 

 craw or crops if it is filled with food. To assist you, I will suppose a case. You have 

 brought down six young Almonds, their ages differing a little, and placing them in this 

 pen in the morning, between five and six o'clock in the evening examine them by feeling 

 their crops, which is easily felt by your hand ; should only one have fed full, leave it 

 under the pen, and put the other five back to their places from where you took them, 

 the old ones will fill them full for the night; repeat this plan, by putting them under 

 the pen in the morning ; if there is not sufiicient food in them in the evening, place 

 them back where you took them, continue this plan until they feed themselves, it will 

 prove my assertion, while some birds will feed at a month, others are not safe to be 

 trusted at six weeks; be svire before you draft them off to another place they feed them- 

 selves, it may turn out they are fed from old birds about the place (that have lost their 

 young by death or being shifted) through the wires of the pen, as some will feed any 

 young ones. I have tried experiments by way of enticing them to eat, giving them 

 hemp, rape, wheat, &c. I think these are bad, and often prevent their feeding on tares, 

 which is desired while they are young; I bred a very rich bright yellow whole feather, 

 beautiful in head and beak, I was desirous of rearing it, I decoyed it to feed by giving 

 it hemp, rape, wheat and tares: it took to wheat, would eat nothing else; it was now 

 three months old, I was determined to break it off wheat, that it should feed upon 

 tares — it beat me, by dying; it would not take to tares ; a little of these might not do 

 harm. The best plan I ever found was to sift the tares as small as possible, put some 

 in a small pipkin, pour boiling water over them, put them into the oven by the side of 

 the fire over night, in the morning when the young birds were under the pen, I made 

 them a little heap of these tares (taking care the old pigeons could not reach them ) 

 • about the same warmth as though they had come from the feeders, the young birds 

 would eat them freely while they continued warm. I think you will find your interest 

 in trying this. You will act unwisely if you put the young birds into the places in the 

 evening from where you took them in the morning, provided they are full; if they feed 

 keep them to it for a week; if you can put the young into an aviary, loft, or parted 

 place, to prevent the old birds from worrying them, they wiU improve rapidly. The 

 sooner your young birds feed themselves the better, they are likely to be smaller, the 

 beak less wrenched, the head not less round. 



530. You are not to expect the head of a bird at three months old, to appear as 

 beautifully formed as a bird's head that is three years old ; they fill out, or, more 

 properly speaking, as it is termed by gentlemen of the Fancy, "Make up," therefore 

 it will be clear you require time and experience to know these things. Again, the 

 Almond Tumbler does not arrive at its highest pitch of plumage till it has moulted two 

 or three times ; some will still increase in beauty, others will decline till they become 

 mottled, splashed, or whole-feathered. 



531. There are rich Fanciers who stand at nothing as regards expense; where they 

 breed on the floor, cut away the flooring to let in the nest pan flush or nearly so, 

 similar to the basin in wash-hand stands. It can be done in any of the pens above, by 

 letting the bottom of the pan come through the pen below; or you can have false bot- 

 toms to your pens. The cause of their adopting this plan is, some of the young birds 

 are restless by some means, get out of their pans, after rambling about in their pens, 

 fall again into their nest pans; on the contrary, if this plan is not adopted, the birds 

 could not regain possession of their pan, owing to being young, or badly fledged ; if the 

 night is cold, you would probably find them dead in the morning. Many valuable birds 

 are lost otherwise would have been saved, had the former plan been adopted. I do not 

 approve of pitching boards projecting before the pens, would rather them flush with the 

 pens; for merry cocks would be pitching on these boards, consequently, being higher, 

 would, if they did no further mischief, tantalize or worry the birds to whom the pen 

 belonged. 



