Y. Malisoux—Questions Answered



15



It may become necessary to heat animals in winter, but it is dangerous.

Naturally, one must guard against too great cold in wintry weather,

but the temperature should nevertheless remain wintry. If not, one

risks mixing the seasons altogether, and they are always too little

divided in our variable climate. First-class apparatus and careful

control are required, for the too pronounced alternations of heat and

cold in winter disturb the natural impulses of animal life and cause

them to manifest themselves at the wrong times.


No. Firebacks should not be heated in winter, but must be kept

sheltered from frost and snow ; no more. Treat them like poultry

which are not allowed to sleep out in winter. Copy Mr. Paul Schmidt,

who keeps his birds through the terrible winters of Yugoslavia. He

shuts up his Firebacks in pens where the ground is covered with a thick

litter of straw to keep their feet from freezing by coming in contact

with the icy ground. In our climate there is no need to do as much.

Our Firebacks are kept in ordinary aviaries with no further protection

against the weather than a simple cubic box about 2J feet long. The

box is very dry because it is lined with asbestos cardboard, double-

bottomed and furnished with a thick well-pressed layer of straw.

Throughout the winter (and even in spring if it is cold) the birds are

shut into these boxes every evening and released in the morning.

The boxes cost practically nothing, take up little room, and keep

the birds in perfect health without heat and without trouble. Try

it and you will see. Your birds will not suffer in the least from the

winter and you need no longer wait until the middle of summer for

possible breeding results. By the 10th May even if there is still frost

you will have eggs.


I am at the service of fanciers who wish to know the cheap and

simple sort of box used here.



