PHEASANTS IN COVERT AND AVIARY 



However, the welfare of the chicks is closely linked with that 

 of their foster-mother, as an ailing, hungry or thirsty fowl 

 will be anything but an attentive mother. Should she be 

 fretful and worried, her chicks meet with scant courtesy. 

 The rearer should not too strictly adhere to the system of 

 moving coops to a fresh site once a day only. A look round 

 should always be taken early each evening to ascertain if any 

 hen has fouled her coop since it was shifted, it being most 

 unwise to confine the brood with such filth all through the 

 ensuing night. Watch the fowls closely to see if any are 

 attacked by scour, for if this is not at once stopped there will 

 be losses amongst the brood. A hen inclined to be the least 

 loose should not be removed from the sitting-boxes to the 

 rearing-field, her condition being often the forerunner of an 

 attack of enteric. When coops are being shifted be careful 

 that the hen's legs and feet are not injured, especially at first, 

 when she has not become accustomed to the process. Coops 

 are sometimes dragged along so hastily that the most alert 

 hen cannot avoid her toes being crushed and legs bruised, 

 and how can she afterwards be expected to hover her brood 

 steadily and properly. Probably she is suffering acute pain 

 which forces her to change her position frequently, and then 

 rearers wonder that members of her family are trodden upon 

 and crushed. The writer has often pitied poor old fowls, 

 shuffling awkwardly along in a fast-moving coop, endeavour- 

 ing to save their poor legs from injury, and if such a process 

 is characteristic of the rest of the procedure on a rearing-field, 

 it is cause for wonder that any birds are raised at all. 



" Wet days feed liberally, fine days feed less," are standing 

 rules, but it should not be forgotten that wild broods are com- 

 pelled to search for their food whatever the weather, and it is 

 probably a longer and more arduous task when rain is falling. 

 Do not become possessed with the idea that rain injures young 



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