FOWLS.
There are few occupations more attractive than the care and charge of domestic poultry. It is most interesting to behold a hen with her family, and to mark her care and tenderness for them; while to see the little chicks themselves, picking and scratching about, basking in the sun, or running hither and thither after the hen, or nestling under her wings, is a very pleasant sight.
Like the pigeons, fowls are all descended from a single species of wild bird, the common wild jungle fowl of India. This has been domesticated from a very early period, and carried to all habitable parts of the globe. A large number of different varieties exist in a domestic state, none of which are known in the wild condition. The chief breeds known in England at the present time are the Dorkings, Game, Spanish, Hamburghs, Polish, Cochins, Brahmas, Malays, Bantams, Silky fowls, and the common barn-door fowl, which is a very mongrel breed. The best known French varieties are very valuable for economical purposes: they are Houdans, Creve Curs, and the La Fleche breeds.
Fowls require both animal and vegetable food. When allowed to range at large their great search is for worms and insects, which they obtain for themselves. They must be supplied with grain, such as barley, oats, tail wheat, &c.; and they should also be well furnished with raw vegetables, gra.s.s, cabbage or lettuce leaves, unless they have a free range over the fields. Boiled potatoes and other vegetables are also very serviceable to them. The staple food should, however, be grain, and this may be mixed with boiled potatoes. The quant.i.ty of barley for each fowl is about a quart a week, if they are entirely fed by hand; but in barn or stable yards they require much less. They should also always have a plentiful supply of pure and clean water.
All fowls dependent upon man for food should be fed regularly twice or thrice a day in the same place. The food should be given to them at nearly the same hour--eight o"clock in the morning and four in the afternoon, as in the spring and autumn birds retire early to roost, and it is very bad management to call them from their perches for feeding.
Young chickens should be fed much more frequently if it is wished that they should grow into fine, handsome birds.
FATTENING.
When fowls are to be fattened for the table, they must be fed oftener, and with different descriptions of food, than when they are simply kept for rearing stock or laying eggs. They then require ground barley or oatmeal, which fattens them much quicker if mixed with milk. Indian corn is also a capital fattener, and, as it is now cheap, may be used. Gross food, made up of impure fat, grease, and flesh-food is very bad for fowls. When fattening for the table, they should have their food three times a day, at morning, noon, and evening; and they should be kept warm and comfortable during the night.
Fowl houses should be warm and dry, and have compact earthen floors, well raised, and littered down with gravel, from which the large stones have been taken and the small ones left.
LAYING.
Nests (baskets or boxes) must be made for the hen, in which a chalk egg or two should be put. The nests may be made of short straw. Some hens will lay one egg every day, and others one every other day.
The eggs ought to be taken from the nest every afternoon, when no more may be expected to be laid; for if left in the nest the heat of the hens, when laying the next day, will render them less fit for domestic use.
HATCHING.
When the hen has laid her number of eggs, nature has provided for their being hatched by giving the bird an instinct to sit or incubate. This instinct is made known by a particular sort of cluck, and by the hen sitting steadily on the nest in which she has been in the habit of laying.
In selecting the eggs to be sat upon by the hen, choose such as have been recently laid, and not those of angular shape or extra size: the latter are often double yolked, and rarely produce chickens.
The number of eggs to be hatched by the hen must in some degree depend upon her size. A moderate-sized hen will very nicely cover eight or nine eggs in the cold spring months, and twelve or thirteen in April or May.
An odd number is often chosen; but there is no advantage in so doing.
The hen having received her eggs may be then left to herself; she should have water placed at a convenient distance, and her food may be given to her near the place of sitting.
The hen sits on her eggs twenty-one days, during which period she seems in a dozy state, and seems to require but little food or exercise. Some hens will feed every day; but others will go for several days without leaving the nest, or taking nourishment: these should be lifted off the nest, and fed daily.
When chickens are hatching, which usually takes place twenty-one days after the eggs are placed under the hen, it is best to leave them entirely to themselves.
As soon as the hen becomes a mother, a great change is seen in her character--all her former habits give way to maternal solicitude. A good hen attends to her brood with the most persevering fondness; she will attack the fiercest animal who dares to molest her progeny.
REARING OF CHICKENS.
When the chickens are hatched, they require no food till the following day, when they may be fed with crumbs of bread slightly moistened with milk, and egg beaten up with an equal quant.i.ty of milk, and then heated so as to form a soft custard: this is the best food that can be given them. They should also have a few grits, and after a few days some small wheat.
If the weather is dry and warm, it is best not to coop the hens, as by scratching they obtain a supply of insect food and worms for the chicks, which is better than anything else that can be given them; but they should not be let out in damp weather in long gra.s.s before the dew has dried up. If cooped, the coop and hen should be placed in some nice dry and sunny spot in the lawn or garden, within sight of the dwelling-house, and where no cats are likely to prowl about. There should be a little pan of water set within reach of the hen, near the bars of the coop, and stones should be placed in it to prevent the young brood from drowning themselves, and this water should be frequently changed.
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The changes of weather should be watched, and when it sets in wet or cold the young brood should be carefully protected by the removal of the coop into some warm sheltered place, such as a stable, coach-house, or outhouse; and so with care continue to be nursed, guarded, watched, and attended to, till they are about seven weeks old, when they will of themselves separate from their parent hen, take to the roost, and act independently.
There is a great choice of breeds in the different varieties, and we will state the advantages of each.
Dorkings are large heavy fowls, first-rate for the table, good sitters and mothers: but rather delicate, require a good gra.s.s range, and do not do well on damp soils.
Spanish are handsome fowls, lay numerous large eggs, do not sit; are not so good for the table as the Dorkings, being longer in the limbs, and not so fleshy.
Cochins and Brahmas are large domesticated fowls, very hardy; can be kept in by a low fence; they are good layers, good sitters, good mothers, and useful family fowls on the table.
Hamburghs are pretty, light, active, roaming fowls; they are called everlasting layers, as they never wish to sit, but lay on incessantly, except at moulting-time. They do not bear close confinement well, and are difficult to keep in enclosed places, as they fly like pheasants, and know not bounds.
The crested Polish, black, white, and spangled, are also non-sitters and good layers; but they are not so hardy as the spangled Hamburghs.
Game are hardy, very fair layers, good sitters, the best of mothers; plump on the table, though not very large; well able to take care both of themselves and their chickens.
Bantams are pretty little pets, that may be suffered to roam about a garden without doing any injury.
The French breeds--Houdans, Creve Curs, and La Fleche--are remarkable for their good qualities as table fowls.
The White Silky fowls are a very singular breed, with divided feathers, like wool or silk, black skins, and black bones. They have their good points, however: they are admirable sitters and nurses, and bring up young partridges and pheasants better than any other fowls. They are also very good to eat, though their black skin renders them rather unsightly on the table.
These varieties offer sufficient choice even to the most particular amateur, who should make his selection in accordance with his wants and his locality--according as he requires egg-producers or chickens for the table, and whether he can afford his fowls the advantages of a free range over green fields, or has to keep them in a confined s.p.a.ce, near a suburban residence.
THE PINTADO, OR GUINEA FOWL.
Guinea fowls a.s.sociate readily with the common fowls in a poultry-yard; but they have this peculiarity, that the c.o.c.ks and hens are so nearly alike that it is difficult to distinguish them, except by the voice, the hens only uttering the constantly-reiterated cry of "Go back! Go back!"
The head is covered with a kind of casque, with wattles under the bill, and the whole plumage is either black or dark grey sprinkled with regular and uniform white spots. The pintado is a native of Africa.
These birds lay plenty of eggs, rather smaller than those of the common hen, and speckled. They may be reared by placing the eggs under a hen; but the chicks are extremely tender, and very often a sudden change of the wind in March will sweep off a whole brood in a few hours. The young should be fed with custard, &c., as ordered for fowls.
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DUCKS.
The common wild duck, or mallard, is the original stock of the domesticated duck, and appears to have been reclaimed at a very early period. The mallards come from the north of Europe, at the end of autumn, and, migrating southward, arrive at the beginning of winter, in large flocks, and spread themselves over all the loughs and marshy waters in the British Isles.
The tame duck is a larger bird, and varies greatly in colour. Tame ducks are easily reared: the best way to get them is to place duck"s eggs under a hen, for the tame duck is often a careless mother; the hen, on the contrary, generally hatches a duckling from every egg with which she is entrusted. She does not conduct her young to the water, and generally exhibits much anxiety when the young brood take to it; but she watches over them, and is ever ready to defend them from danger. "The village schoolboy," as old Bewick says, "witnesses with delight the antic movements of the little brood under the charge of a foster-mother, who with anxious fears paddles upon the brink and utters her unavailing cries or calls, while the ducklings, regardless of her warnings, and rejoicing in the element so well adapted to their nature, are splashing over each other beneath the pendant foliage, and diving their heads beneath the water."
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There are many varieties of the tame duck. One of those most in request is the dark-coloured Rouen, which is very prolific in eggs. The Aylesbury, or white variety, is large and profitable. The Muscovy duck is a distinct species, and not a mere variety, much larger than the common duck, and distinguished by a membrane of a red colour, covering the cheeks and extending behind the eyes. There are also several other foreign species, as the Mandarin and Carolina ducks, which are kept rather for ornament than use.
Ducks sit for thirty days. They begin to lay in February, and when not watched will lay abroad and conceal their eggs. They generally lay at night, or very early in the morning. While sitting, the duck requires a secluded and soft place. On hatching, she should be taken, with her brood, and put under a coop; a shallow pan of water should be placed near her for her drink and for that of the young ones, but it should be very shallow. In a few days she may be let loose, when, with her brood, she will immediately take to the water.