Cramming with Solid Food. 
79 
is poured into a hole made in the heap of flour, and mixed up little by little with a wooden 
spoon so long as it is taken up; the dough is then kneaded by the hands till it no longei 
adheres to them. 
“ Some say that barley or even oatmeal is a good substitute for buckwheat meal, but Mdlle 
Robinet is not of that opinion. Indian corn, the white variety, may do, but it is dear, and makes 
“short” paste, unless mixed with buckwheat, when it answers well if cheap enough; but buckwheat 
is a hardy plant, which may be grown anywhere at small cost. 
“The food is thus .administered : — The attendant puts on an apron which will stand being 
soiled or torn, and takes the pellets on a board, with a bowl of clear water. She takes the first 
fowl from its cage gently and carefully, not by the wings or the legs, but with both hands under 
the breast. She then seats herself with the fowl upon her knees, putting its rump under her left 
arm, by which she supports it ; the left hand then opens its mouth (a little practice makes this 
very easy), and the right hand takes up a pellet, soaks it well in the water ( this is essential ), shakes 
it on its way to the open mouth, puts it straight down, and carefully crams it with the forefinger 
well into the gullet. When it is so far settled down that the fowl cannot eject it, she presses it 
down gently with thumb and forefinger into the crop, taking care not to fracture the pellet ; for i i 
some scraps of it remained in the gullet they might cause inflammation. 
“ Other pellets follow the first, till the feeding is finished in less time than one would imagine. 
It sometimes happens, particularly in the early stage of fatting, that the tracheal artery is com- 
pressed together with the gullet ; this makes the creature cough, but is not of any serious 
consequence, and with a little experience this mishap is easily avoided. The fowl when fed is 
again held with both hands under its breast, and replaced in its cage without fluttering it ; and 
so on with each fowl. 
“ The chicken should have two meals in twenty-four hours, twelve hours apart, provided with 
the utmost punctuality ; if it has to wait it becomes uneasy, if fed too soon it has an indigestion, 
and in either case loses weight. On the first day of cramming only two or three pellets are given 
at each meal ; the allowance is daily increased by one at a time till it reaches twelve to fifteen 
pellets. The stomach may be filled , but at each meal you must make sure that the last is duly 
digested, which is easily ascertained by gently handling the crop. If there be any dough in it, 
digestion has not gone on properly ; the fowl must miss a meal, and have rather a smaller 
allowance next time — if too much food be forced upon the animal at first it will get out of 
health and have to be set at liberty. 
“ The fatting process ought to be complete in two or three weeks, but for extra fat poultry 
twenty-five or twenty-six days are required ; with good management you may go on for thirty 
days, after which the creature becomes choked with accumulated fat, wastes away, and di-es. 
“ When a fowl is to be killed, it should first be fasted for twelve to fifteen hours, and then held 
carefully (not hung up by the heels, which would suffocate it), the mouth opened, and either the 
under side of the tongue cut with sharp scissors, or the pointed blade of a knife thrust into the 
palate till it pierces the brain ; or, thirdly, a few feathers may be plucked from the left side of the 
head just below the ear, and a good incision made at the spot. In any case it must be fastened 
up by the heels immediately afterwards, that it may bleed freely, for on this the whiteness of the 
flesh depends ; but during the death-struggle let it be held by the head. The chicken is then 
bandaged till cold to mould its form ; and if the weather is warm it is plunged for a moment into 
very cold water. The fat of fowls so managed is of a delicate white colour ; their flesh is as it 
were seen transparent beneath a delicate skin. An average fowl takes about one and one-tenth 
of a peck of buckwheat to fatten it. 
