THE POULTRY BOOK. 
213 
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 with thumb and forefinger 
into the crop, taking care not to fracture the pellet. 
Other pellets follow the first, till the feeding is finished, in less time than one 
would imagine. It sometimes happens in cramming, that the trachea is pressed 
together with the gullet ; this causes the fowl to cough, but it is not of any 
serious consequence, and with a little care is easily avoided. The fowl when fed 
is again held with both hands under its breast, and replaced in its cage without 
fluttering ; 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 a few pellets are given at each meal ; the allowance being gradually 
increased till it reaches twelve to fifteen pellets. The crop may be filled, but at 
each meal you must make sure that the last is duly digested, which is easily 
ascertained by gentle handling. If there be any food 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 this the creature becomes choked with accumulated 
fat, wastes away, and dies. 
When a fowl is to be killed, it should first be fasted for twelve to fifteen hours, 
and then held carefully, the mouth opened, and the pointed blade of a knife thrust 
into the palate till it pierces the brain ; or a few feathers may be plucked from 
the side of the head, just below the ear, and a deep 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 its 
struggles it should be held by the head. 
After drawing and trussing, the chicken is bandaged, until cold, to mould its 
form ; and if the weather is warm it is plunged for a short time into very cold 
water. A fowl takes usually rather more than a peck of buckwheat to fatten it. 
The fat of fowls so managed is of a dull white colour ; their flesh is as it were 
seen through a transparent, delicate skin. 
At the Paris fat poultry show, the four young La Fleche cocks, to which the 
prize was given, averaged eleven pounds (English) each, and sold at from 20s. 
to 24s. each. 
W 0 have nov^ to enter upon the consideration of the fowls reared in the district 
of La Bresse, in the north-eastern portion of France. The fowls from this tract of 
country are Avell known in the Paris markets, and at the exhibition of fat poultry 
took the greatest number of prizes. It is rather difficult to account for this fact, 
for they are certainly smaller birds than either of the three varieties first named. 
