8o 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
So fai Mdllc. Robinet as rendered by Mr. Trere. But during many years a preference has 
been growing in the best poultry-districts of France for feeding the caged birds with food mixed 
thinly. One of the most strenuous advocates of this system is M. Jacque, whose work called 
Le Poulailler ’ has always since its publication been considered the standard authority on the 
poultry of France. After describing the natural feeding, and the cramming with pellets (as we 
have quoted from Mdlle. Robinet), M. Jacque enters upon what he terms the third method of 
fattening, as follows. We give as literal a translation as possible 
This third method we may call funnelling, or the cramming by means of a funnel, with 
farinaceous food in a liquid form. This last method will in the end be universally adopted, it is 
so simple, easy, and rapid. This is how it is done. 
Those who wish to fatten fowls provide themselves with barley-flour and not with broken 
barley ; for it is not desirable that the bran should be mixed with it, on the contrary, it ought to be 
properly sifted. They take some meal and mix it smoothly with milk and water in equal parts. 
This mixture ought to be of the thickness of clear soup when it begins to boil ; and I repeat that 
the milk and water must be in equal proportions, for experience has shown that if there be more 
milk the fattening process stops at the end of a few days, and the bird falls off and dies. 
“ It is also necessary to get a funnel of tinned iron, large enough to hold as much as is proper 
to give at a meal to every sort of fowl (see Fig. 44). The upper opening is 0.10m. (4 in.) broad, 
and 0.06m. ( 2 \ in.) deep measuring down the middle. The pipe or neck is 0.09m. (34 in.) long. The 
upper part of the pipe has an outside width of 0.025 m. (1 in.), and the lower end 0.015m. (f in.). This 
end, intended to be placed in the bird’s throat, is cut off slantwise, and turned up so as to make a 
rounded edge. This edge is further softened by a small tin rim carefully soldered on. At the 
upper edge of the funnel is fixed a small ring intended for the first finger of the right hand ; the 
place of this ring is very important, for we must be able while holding the fowl’s head with one 
hand to introduce the funnel in the proper position, which can only be easily done when the ring 
is in the right place. 
“ The opening of the lower end of the tube (which as we have already stated is slanting) ought 
to be turned from the side of the operator ; this is why the ring in question is soldered on the upper 
edge of the funnel 0.05m. (2 in.) to the right of the direction of the lower opening of the tube. 
“ Persons who are quite accustomed to it use the funnel without any danger, but with those 
1 
