Varm Poultry. 
71 
WHen two or three tens are set upon the same day and the 
eggs are examined at the end of a week, the clear ones being 
removed, it frequently happens that a sufficient number are 
taken away to enable the eggs of two hens to be given to one, 
or the eggs of three hens to be given to two, when a fresh 
sitting can be given to the hen that has been deprived of her 
batch. The eggs should hatch at the expiration of three weeks, 
viz., on the twenty-first day. The less interference that takes 
place at this time the better. Occasionally the life of a 
weakly chicken unable to get out of the shell may be saved by 
assisting it, but there is no doubt that more chickens are 
destroyed by interfering with the sitting hen on the twenty- 
first day than are saved by any assistance rendered. The hens 
should be left in the nest until the next day, when the young 
chicken wUl be strong, dry and active. The hen should then be 
put under a coop with her brood : if possible in a sunny place, as 
under a south wall. 
The first food for the chicken should be egg and milk 
(the clear eggs removed from the hens answer admirably 
for this purpose). Each egg should be beaten up with a couple 
of tablespoonfuls of milk, and set into a custard-like mass by the 
side of the fire or in the oven. This should not be given to the 
chickens until the hen has been abundantly fed with corn and has 
satisfied her own hunger. For other food I much prefer to use 
a little canary-seed or Egyptian dari to crushed grits, which 
are apt to become rancid from the external covering having 
been removed. Bread and milk can also be given to the 
chicks, and sweet meal and milk ; but much loss in rearing 
chickens occurs by the use of old meal which has been exposed 
to the afr after grinding, and has become pungent and acrid. 
The practice of cooping hens and chickens, though in many 
cases indispensably necessary, cannot but be regarded as an evil. 
The hens have no power to scratch for worms and grubs, which 
form the natural and by far the most advantageous food for the 
young. The chicks again are fed day after day in the same 
place, and constantly pick up food contaminated by their own 
dung, a practice which is certaia to induce disease. 
It is often alleged that hens allowed at large with young 
broods wander so much as to " drag them to death." This how- 
ever is only the case when the hen is not well fed and she has 
to seek for food for herself as well as worms for her chickens. 
In health and vigour no chicken can compete with those that 
are produced by a hen who steals a nest under a hedge, and 
brings out a clutch of strong robust chickens, with which she 
returns to the homestead when they are two or thi-ee days old. 
