ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 
451 
young, and so poor a provider, we have always raised them under care- 
ful hens, giving a large hen seven eggs and aiming to have two broods 
come off at once, giving both broods to one nurse. 
The eggs require from thirty to thir- 
ty-two days to hatch, and for th® 
first four weeks the young chicks 
should be carefully watched. They 
will neither stand the hot sun, heavy 
rains, nor much dew, and they must 
be kept warm. Hard boiled eggs 
rubbed up with oatmeal or cornmeal 
is a good food for the first two weeks. 
After which, light wheat and cracked 
com may form the staple. About 
the time they acquire the red head, 
which is at about six weeks of age, 
which’ next to the third day is the 
most critical period of their life, they 
^ should have nutritious food, and, if a 
little bruised hemp seed is added, so 
much the better. In feeding give but 
a little at a time and often, and that 
out of the reach of the hen or other 
fowls. Young onion tops, chopped very fine and well mixed with the 
food is excellent. Curds of sour milk are eagerly eaten, but should not 
be given as a constant food. Pure cold water must always be at hand 
as a drink, but occasionally, say once a day, skim milk may be given. 
Where cornmeal is the basis of the food, it should always be cooked into 
a hard mush before being fed. 
WILD TURKEV. 
Varieties of the Domestic Turkey. 
These are the bronze, the English (so-called) turkey, the white, the 
buff, and the crested turkey. The latter is extremely rare, having been 
supposed to have originated in Europe, in the early part of the last cen- 
tury, then entirely lost, and again said to have been recovered, curiously 
enough, from Africa. , 
Temmiuck, in a work relating to pigeons and fowls, printed in Amster- 
dam in 1813, mentions them as follows : The crested turkey i3 only a 
variety or sport of nature in this species, differing only in the possession 
of a feathered crest, which is sometimes white, sometimes black. These 
crested turkeys are very rare. Mademoiselle Backer, in her magnificent 
menagerie near the Hague, had a breed of crested turkeys of a beautiful 
Isabelle yellow, inclining to chestnut ; all had full crests of pure white. 
16 M 
