6G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Apkil 27 . 
they one after the other moped into corners, and stood 
see-sawing, reeling, and pitching on to their heads like a 
! drunken man,; and by the third week I had not one of 
them left. Could this be cramp ? I noticed some of their 
toes appeared cramped; I kept them upon grits, barley- 
meal, bread-crumbs, a little hemp-seed, potatoes left from 
the dinner, and greens, with now and then a little meat.— 
G. W.” 
[Your first hen was a bad sitter, and does not afford any 
evidence as to when and for how long incubating eggs may 
be chilled with impunity. Your chickens that died as you 
describe were Dorkings, we suppose, and are difficult to rear 
so early; but a boarded floor is bad. Wo prefer a dry 
earthen bottom to the bouse or shed in which they are 
kept, and that bottom well covered with dry sand.] 
“ On Tuesday, March the 14th, I placed a sitting of twelve 
eggs, Shanghaes, below a common hen; she sat closely 
; until Monday, the 3rd instant, twenty-one days, when she 
' came off to feed, and appeared indifferent about returning; 
she did so, but only stood on tlie eggs; two hours subse¬ 
quently she again left them, and continued during the 
{ whole of that day to walk about the poultry-house, occa¬ 
sionally taking to the eggs, but only standing in the nest; 
next morning—Tuesday, twenty-two days—I found her still 
wallring about the poultry-house, but desirous of making 
; her escape : the eggs were cold. I returned at 10 a.h., and 
t found that she had not taken to the nest, and the eggs were 
I quite cold. I then gave up all hopes of any of them being 
hatched, and broke two; there was a dead bird in each, 
feathered to the toes. I placed the remaining ten eggs 
below a common ben that laid an egg the same morning, 
and appeared desirous to sit. I did so, solely with the 
view of ascertaining if she was steady before giving her 
fresh eggs; she continued on them up to Friday evening, 
twenty-five days in all, for the two hens, when a chirping 
was heard to proceed from the eggs, and one, on examina¬ 
tion, was found to be chipped. On the following day— 
Saturday, twenty-six days—five birds were hatched; and 
yesterday—twenty-seven days—three more appeared. I 
broke the remaining two eggs ; one was addled, and the 
other contained a dead bird. The remaining family of 
j eight are doing well.—J. A. T.” 
“ On the 14th of last month (March), I placed thirteen 
j eggs under my most valuable Shanghae lien ; on the morn- 
i ing of the 25th, or eleven days after, to my great regret, I 
found the hen dead, stiff", and cold, on her hack, about two 
feet from her next. I concluded that the eggs were quite 
useless, but for the sake of the experiment, I put another 
hen upon them, not, however, until more than an hour after 
I had found the hen dead, so that I think the eggs must 
have been left for six or eight hours, and may have been 
j left many more. The result of my trial was this, that one 
chicken broke the shell on the 21st day, and came out on 
the 22nd day, that is April 5th. This chick I gave to 
another hen who was hatching at the same time. The next 
day, April 0th, as no more eggs were cracked, although I 
could hear faint chirpings, I determined to break the rest 
of the eggs as gently as possible, and I found four more 
chickens perfectly formed, but all dead or apparently dying. 
One of them I put under the hen who bad hatched the day 
before, but a short time afterwards, I found it turned out of 
the nest and dead. The other I wrapped in flannel, and 
placed near the fire, but failed to save it. Thus, out of 
thirteen eggs, eight were addled, five contained perfect 
chickens, one of which only came out in proper course, and 
still survives.— James Wilkins, Bedford Cottage, Waimer." 
“ On the 0th of March last, I placed twelve Dorking eggs 
under a hen I borrowed of a neighbour, as none of my own 
were broody at the time. She sat on them three days 
very steadily, but on the fourth day, from some cause, she 
left the eggs, and could not be induced to return to them. 
I was anxious save the eggs, if possible, and then bor¬ 
rowed a Cochin pullet that was broody for the first time, 
and placed them under her, though they had been left at 
least six hours. Unfortunately her maternal instinct did 
not seem to be sufficiently developed, as instead of gather¬ 
ing the eggs close under her body, she sat with her legs flat I 
qpqn the top of the eggs, and thus the warmth was but | 
feebly communicated, and when examined, which was done 
repeatedly, they never exceeded a sort of luke-warmness. 
“ Having no other hen broody at the time, I allowed them 
to remain till the night of the 12 tb, when I had a game- j 
hen of my own ready for sitting, and I at once removed the | 
eggs, and placed them under her. She sat on them very 
closely the remainder of the time, and on March the 31st, 
three days beyond the ordinary' period, I had five chicken 
from the twelve eggs. Of the seven unhatched, six proved, | 
on examination, to be unfertile, and in one was an embryo 
chicken, which appeared to have died in an early stage of its 
development. 
“It is a curious feature in this instance that the half¬ 
warmth the Cochin pullet gave these eggs should be suffi¬ 
cient to keep alive the vitality of the embryo chickens without 
conducing to their progress in the least, as is shown by their 
| hatching the three days later than they otherwise would 
[ have done. 
J “ The five chickens are now a fortnight old, and strong and 
| healthy; the fine weather we have had-being much in their 
favour.—H. E., Huddersfield." 
RESULTS OF OVER-FEEDING FOWLS. 
“ I have two lots in two separate yards ; first, a cock and 
three hens of the Cochin breed, in a yard of sixteen feet by 
! six feet, which has the sun upon it the whole day; the other 
: is about the same size, or rather larger, in which I have a 
i Spanish cock, and five hens, and lias the sun upon it from 
, about ten o’clock. They are all fed upon barley, oats, and 
scraps from the house, mixed with meal; they have about 
ten pounds of grain per week, and about a quart of the 
scraps a day. Now, they do not lay well, we got only twelve 
I eggs last week; they are always very ravenous, swallow 
1 their meat with the greatest haste, and run about anxiously 
| looking for more, but yet they look all very healthy (except 
| the Spanish cock), and are very heavy. About a fortnight 
since one of my hens (a Cochin) was ill, she parted with 
! her dung in a very liquid state, seeming more like matter, 
and her rump was very much inflamed, and rather swelled, 
and she sat moping, but eat well. I washed her with warm 
water, and gave her a pill of common soap, but she died in 
f the night. When I opened her next day she appeared quite 
healthy in her intestines, no bad smell, and inflamed only 
j just at the rump ; she had a great quantity of solid fat upon 
i her, in flakes, near an inch thick, just the colour of beef 
fat, and as solid, and was in excellent condition, but she 
looked yellow about the head ; her eyes were quite clear and 
brilliant. Now, my Spanish cock looks very black about the 
head and face, comb and wattles, and is fearfully ravenous, 
and very thin, a mere handful of feathers, but the hens are 
healthy and fat. My last cock of the same breed went just 
the same, although both were in very good condition when I 
got them ; my last I parted with. They have plenty of green 
food, and have had the run of the fields until this last three 
weeks. He was loose in the bowels, but I put him by himself 
for a few days, and gave him a little chalk, and now both he 
and all the rest seem very regular that way. Also, the hens 
peck his comb; he was fighting some time since, and ever 
since then they have done so.—S. C. Bennett.” 
[There is no doubt about this case. If you cannot let 
your fowls have the run of the field or fields again, sell all 
your fowls immediately, for to imprison them in a space of 
sixteen feet by six feet is unmitigated cruelty to them, and 
never can be productive of either pleasure or profit to 
yourself. No fowl requires more, daily, than a quarter-of-a- I 
pint of corn, in the grain, and a quarter-of-a-pint in meal; 
but they must have more room, and a supply of green food. 
Discontinue the “ scraps,” except of potato, cabbages, and 
bread; and give tliem less of corn and meal, in proportion 
to the amount of scraps. Every symptom you mention is 
an evidence of the over-fed and depraved appetites con¬ 
sequent upon their unnatural treatment. The hen died of 
apoplexy; the hens picking the cock's comb, and the 
wasting away of the Spanish cocks, are all the usual con¬ 
sequences of close confinement, and the general derange¬ 
ment of health that is the result.] 
