DOMESTIC TXJBKET 49 



due return home of the flook be insured, but the birds will be 

 kept in good condition, and ready at any time to be put upon 

 - fattening diet Never let them be in poor condition — this is an 

 axiom in the treatment of all poultry — ^it is difficult, and takesa 

 long time, to bring a bird into proper condition, -which has been 

 previously poorly fed or half starved. 



The turkey hen is a steady sitter; nothing will induce her to 

 leave the nest; indeed, she often requires to be removed to her 

 food, so overpowering is her instinctive affection; she must be 

 fireely supplied with water within her reach; should she lay any 

 egg^ after she has commenced incubation, these should be 

 removed — ^it is proper, therefore, to mark those which were 

 given to her to sit upon. The hen should now on no account, be 

 rashly disturbed; no one except the person to whom she is accus- 

 tomed, and from whom she receives her food, should be allowed 

 to go near her, and the eggs, unless cireumstances imperatively 

 require it, should not be meddled with. 



The hen usually sits twice in the year, after laying from a 

 dozen to fifteen or more eggs, on alternate days, or two days ' in 

 Buccession, with the interval of one day afterwards, before each 

 breeding. She commences her first laying in March; and if a 

 second early laying is desired, after she has hatched her brood, 

 it is economical to transfer the chicks immediately after they 

 leave the shell to another torkey-hen which had begun to incu- 

 bate contemporaneously with her, and will noyr take willing 

 charge of the two young families. This, however, cannot be 

 viewed as a benevolent proceeding; and much less so if the 

 mother be deprived of her of&pring, and the consequent pleas- 

 ure of rearing them, for the purpose of putting a fresh set of 

 eggs under her, which she will steadily hatch for three or four 

 weeks more. In this case, however, fowls' eggs are usually 

 given, from merciful consideration to abridge the jwriodof incu-. 

 bation from thirty-one to twenty-one days. 



