CHAPTER YIII. 



MANAGEMENT OE PHEASANTS IN CONEINEMENT (CONTINUED). 



EEAEING THE YOTJNG BIRDS. 



UOOESS in the rearing of young birds, it cannot be too strongly 

 impressed on tbe inexperienced pheasant rearer, is never the reward 

 ,>s of those who practise perpetual intermeddling with the sitting hens. 

 ■^ ' AH interference at the time the eggs ,are hatching is iniurious ; 

 nevertheless, there are fussy people who cannot imagiae that 

 anything can progress rightly without their assistance; when the 

 eggs are chipping they disturb the fowl to see how many are 

 billed ; this is generally resented by the hen, who sinks down on 

 her eggs, and most probably crushes one or two of them, and 

 thus renders the escape of the young birds almost impossible. It is 

 perfectly true that sometimes an unhatched bird that would otherwise 

 be unable to extricate itself, may be assisted out of the shell and survive, 

 but it is no less certain that for one whose Hfe is preserved in this manner a 

 score are sacrificed to the meddling curiosity- of the interferer. 



The chicks should be left under the hen till they are twenty-four hours old 

 without being disturbed ; by this time the yolk which is absorbed into the intestines 

 at the period of hatching will have been digested, and the young birds become 

 strong enough to run from under the parent hen. If the fowl is set in one of the 

 coops with a wire run, such as I have recommended, she had better be left alone, 

 and will leave the nest herself as soon as the chicks are strong enough to follow 

 her. The ridiculous practice of taking the young birds as soon as hatched, dipping 

 their biUs in water or milk to teach them to drink, and forcing down their delicate 

 throats whole pepper corns or gi'ains of barley, is so opposed to common sense that 

 it does not need to be refuted. When young pheasants and fowls are hatched in 

 a state of nature, they are usually much stronger and more vigorous than those 

 reared under the care of man (unless, indeed, the season be so wet as to be 

 injurious to the wUd birds), although they are not crammed with pepper corns and 

 other nostrums, but have to seek their first food for themselves. Nature is far 



