88 
THE POULTRY BOOK. 
as tlie first meal in the morning, having had it boiled over night, and mashed in a 
pail with meal. By covering the pail with a sack, it keeps warm, and is a nice 
food for the fowls on a cold winter morning. They should have a small feed of 
harley-meal mixed into a crumbly paste with water, or a light feed of boiled Indian 
corn, at mid-day; some days soaked barley or wheat, or bruised oats, for a 
change ; but they should always have a feed of dry corn for the evening meal — 
either wheat, oats, or barley. Soft food soon passes out of the crop, and during a 
long winter’s night the fowls get cold and hungry, and are exceedingly liable to take 
cold, which is a sure forerunner of roup. But with care in housing and feeding, 
no one need fear roup. I have not had roup or gapes amongst my Dorkings for 
many years. By attending to these matters Dorkings may be kept in health on 
any soil. 
‘‘Early hatched Dorking pullets will lay all the winter, although not quite so 
freely as some other breeds. Dorkings make good mothers in general, and lay 
from 35 to 50 eggs before wanting to sit. As mothers, they are very docile ; 
you may handle them as you please, and give them the chickens from other hens, 
which they will, take to at once. As Dorking chickens are extremely rapid 
in their growth, it is desirable to coop the mother for the first seven or eight 
weeks. During the first week I always coop the hen under a dry dusty shed ; by 
the end of that time the chickens get strong, and if dry weather sets in, they are 
fit to he cooped on the grass under the shelter of a hedge, or by the side of a 
plantation, where there are plenty of nice dry, dusty banks, and where they can 
get enough of morning sun ; but they should not be exposed to the mid-day sun in 
places where they can get no shelter. When I have had many chickens at one 
time, I have always been in the habit of making shelters for them by propping up 
some old hurdles on pegs about nine inches high, and then covering them with spruce 
or any other branches. On a sunny morning you may see these shelters covered with 
the chickens sunning themselves, but if a dog or hawk approaches they dart under 
the hen in a moment. A number of these hurdles placed about where chickens are 
being reared will afford them great protection from the cold winds as well as from the 
power of the sun. The coop with the hen should be moved daily about mid-day, and 
the chickens fed most liberally, if you wish to rear any fowls that are very good, and 
out of the common — such fowls as will sometimes sell at nine months old for the 
price of a cow — a fact I have often proved. My readers may ask how I raise 
them so as to become as valuable as I state. When young, I give my chickens 
good eggs and new milk made into a custard, which is given with every meal. 
The best oatmeal is used for their stock food ; sheep’s head and pluck, boiled 
chopped up, are given three times a week until the chicks are three weeks 
Bruised oats are thrown down just in the rough for them to peck at, and 
fed every hour from 5 o’clock in the morning to 7 o’clock at night. A nice 
dust}^ place is selected for the coops, and in the morning, before feeding, 
given them with a little sulphate of iron in it. It is wonderful what 
make when fed in this way. When seven weeks old, I begin to give 
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