Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note.
Hyphenation has been standardised.
==================================
[Illustration: White Dorking Cock. Coloured Dorkings. Duck-winged and
Black-breasted Red Game.]
POULTRY
A
Practical Guide
TO THE
CHOICE, BREEDING, REARING, AND MANAGEMENT
OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS OF
FOWLS, TURKEYS, GUINEA-FOWLS,
DUCKS, AND GEESE,
FOR
PROFIT AND EXHIBITION.
BY
HUGH PIPER,
AUTHOR OF "PIGEONS: THEIR VARIETIES, MANAGEMENT, BREEDING,
AND DISEASES."
ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT COLOURED PLATES.
Fourth Edition.
LONDON:
GROOMBRIDGE & SONS.
MDCCCLXXVII.
LONDON:
BARRETT, SONS AND CO., PRINTERS,
SEETHING LANE.
PREFACE.
This work is intended as a practical guide to those about to commence
Poultry keeping, and to provide those who already have experience on the
subject with the most trustworthy information compiled from the best
authorities of all ages, and the most recent improvements in Poultry
Breeding and Management. The Author believes that he has presented his
readers with a greater amount of valuable information and practical
directions on the various points treated than will be found in most
similar works. The book is not the result of the Author's own experience
solely, and he acknowledges the assistance he has received from other
authorities. Among those whom he has consulted he desires specially to
acknowledge his obligations to Mr. Tegetmeier, whose "Poultry Book"
(published by Messrs. Routledge & Sons, London) contains his especial
knowledge of the Diseases of Poultry; and to Mr. L. Wright, whose
excellent and practical Treatise, entitled "The Practical Poultry
Keeper" (published by Messrs. Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London), cannot
be too highly commended.
CONTENTS.
GENERAL MANAGEMENT.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTION 1
Neglect of Poultry-breeding--Profit of Poultry-keeping--Value to the
Farmer--Poultry Shows--Cottage Poultry.
CHAPTER II.--THE FOWL-HOUSE 6
Size of the House--Brick and Wood--Cheap Houses--The
Roof--Ventilation--Light--Warmth--The Flooring--Perches--Movable
Frame--Roosts for Cochin-Chinas and Brahma-Pootras--Nests for
laying--Cleanliness--Fowls' Dung--Doors and
Entrance-holes--Lime-washing--Fumigating--Raising Chickens under
Glass.
CHAPTER III.--THE FOWL-YARD 18
Soil--Situation--Covered Run--Pulverised Earth for deodorising--Diet
for confined Fowls--Height of Wall, &c.--Preventing Fowls from
flying--The Dust-heap--Material for Shells--Gravel--The Gizzard--The
Grass Run.
CHAPTER IV.--FOOD 27
Table of relative constituents and qualities of
Food--Barley--Wheat--Oats--Meal--Refuse Corn--Boiling Grain--Indian
Corn, or Maize--Buckwheat--Peas, Beans and
Tares--Rice--Hempseed--Linseed--Potatoes--Roots--Soft Food--Variety
of Food--Quantity--Mode of Feeding--Number of Meals--Grass and
Vegetables--Insects--Worms--Snails and Slugs--Animal
Food--Water--Fountains.
CHAPTER V.--EGGS 40
Eggs all the Year round--Warmth essential to laying--Forcing
Eggs--Soft Shells--Shape and Colour of Eggs--The Air-bag--Preserving
Eggs--Keeping and Choosing Eggs for setting--Sex of Eggs--Packing
Setting-eggs for travelling.
CHAPTER VI.--THE SITTING HEN 48
Evil of restraining a Hen from sitting--Checking the Desire--A
separate House and Run--Nests for sitting in--Damping Eggs--Filling
for Nests--Choosing their own Nests--Choosing a Hen for
sitting--Number and Age of Eggs--Food and Exercise--Absence from the
Nest--Examining the Eggs--Setting two Hens on the same day--Time of
Incubation--The "tapping" sound--Breaking the Shell--Emerging from
the Shell--Assisting the Chicken--Artificial Mothers--Artificial
Incubation.
CHAPTER VII.--REARING AND FATTENING FOWLS 63
The Chicken's first Food--Cooping the Brood--Basket and
Wooden Coops--Feeding Chickens--Age for Fattening--Barn-door
Fattening--Fattening-Houses--Fattening-Coops--Food--"Cramming"--
Capons and Poulardes--Killing Poultry--Plucking and packing
Fowls--Preserving Feathers.
CHAPTER VIII.--STOCK, BREEDING, AND CROSSING 75
Well-bred Fowls--Choice of Breed--Signs of Age--Breeding
in-and-in--Number of Hens to one Cock--Choice of a Cock--To prevent
Cocks from fighting--Choice of a Hen--Improved Breeds--Origin of
Breeds--Crossing--Choice of Breeding Stock--Keeping a Breed pure.
CHAPTER IX.--POULTRY SHOWS 83
The first Show--The first Birmingham Show--Influence of
Shows--Exhibition Rules--Hatching for Summer and Winter
Shows--Weight--Exhibition Fowls sitting--Matching Fowls--Imparting
lustre to the Plumage--Washing Fowls--Hampers--Travelling--Treatment
on Return--Washing the Hampers and Linings--Exhibition
Points--Technical Terms.
BREEDS.
CHAPTER X.--COCHIN-CHINAS, OR SHANGHAES 93
CHAPTER XI.--BRAHMA-POOTRAS 101
CHAPTER XII.--MALAYS 105
CHAPTER XIII.--GAME 108
CHAPTER XIV.--DORKINGS 112
CHAPTER XV.--SPANISH 115
CHAPTER XVI.--HAMBURGS 118
CHAPTER XVII.--POLANDS 121
CHAPTER XVIII.--BANTAMS 124
CHAPTER XIX.--FRENCH AND VARIOUS 128
CHAPTER XX.--TURKEYS 132
CHAPTER XXI.--GUINEA-FOWLS 139
CHAPTER XXII.--DUCKS 142
CHAPTER XXIII.--GEESE 147
CHAPTER XXIV.--DISEASES 150
LIST OF PLATES.
PAGE
PLATE I.--Facing the Title-page.
White Dorking Cock--Coloured Dorkings--Duck-winged and
Black-breasted Red Game.
PLATE II. 93
White and Buff Cochin-China--Malay Cock--Light and Dark
Brahma-Pootras.
PLATE III. 115
Golden-pencilled and Silver-spangled Hamburgs--Black
Spanish.
PLATE IV. 121
White-crested Black Polish--Golden and Silver-spangled
Polish.
PLATE V. 124
White and Black Bantams--Gold and Silver-laced or Sebright
Bantams--Game Bantams.
PLATE VI. 128
French: Houdans--La Fleche Cock--Creve-Coeur Hen.
PLATE VII. 132
Turkey--Guinea-Fowls.
PLATE VIII. 142
Toulouse Goose--Rouen Ducks--Aylesbury Ducks.
PROFITABLE AND ORNAMENTAL POULTRY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Until of late years the breeding of poultry has been almost generally
neglected in Great Britain. Any kind of mongrel fowl would do for a
farmer's stock, although he fully appreciated the importance of breeding
in respect of his cattle and pigs, and the value of improved seeds. Had
he thought at all upon the subject, it must have occurred to him that
poultry might be improved by breeding from select specimens as much as
any other kind of live stock. The French produce a very much greater
number of fowls and far finer ones for market than we do. In France,
Bonington Mowbray observes, "poultry forms an important part of the live
stock of the farmer, and the poultry-yards supply more animal food to
the great mass of the community than the butchers' shops"; while in
Egypt, and some other countries of the East, from time immemorial, vast
numbers of chickens have been hatched in ovens by artificial heat to
supply the demand for poultry; but in Great Britain poultry-keeping has
been generally neglected, eggs are dear, and all kinds of poultry so
great a luxury that the lower classes and a large number of the middle
seldom, if ever, taste it, except perhaps once a year in the form of a
Christmas goose, while hundreds of thousands cannot afford even this. It
is computed that a million of eggs are eaten daily in London and its
suburbs alone; yet this vast number only gives one egg to every three
mouths. "It is a national waste," says Mr. Edwards, "importing eggs by
the hundreds of millions, and poultry by tens of thousands, when we are
feeding our cattle upon corn, and grudging it to our poultry; although
the return made from the former, it is generally admitted, is not five
per cent. beyond the value of the corn consumed, whereas an immense
percentage can be realised by feeding poultry." A writer in the _Times_,
of February 1, 1853, states that, while it will take five years to
fatten an ox to the weight of sixty stone, which will produce a profit
of L30, the same sum may be realised in five months by feeding an equal
weight of poultry for the table.
Although fowls are so commonly kept, the proportion to the population is
still very small, and the number of those who rear and manage them
profitably still smaller, chiefly because most people keep them without
system or order, and have not given the slightest attention to the
subject. Nevertheless, it costs no more trouble and much less expense to
keep fowls successfully and profitably, for neglected fowls are always
falling sick, or getting into mischief and causing annoyance, and often
expense and loss. "A man," says Mr. Edwards, "who expects a good return
of flesh and eggs from fowls insufficiently fed and cared for, is like a
miller expecting to get meal from a neglected mill, to which he does not
supply grain."
The antiquated idea that fowls on a farm did mischief to the crops has
been proved to be false; for if the grain is sown as deeply as it should
be, they cannot reach it by scratching; and, besides, they greatly
prefer worms and insects. Mr. Mechi says, "commend me to poultry as the
farmer's best friend," and considers the value of fowls, in destroying
the vast number of worms, grubs, flies, beetles, insects, larvae, &c.,
which they devour, as incalculable; and the same may be said as to their
destruction of the seeds of weeds. They also consume large quantities of
kitchen and table refuse, which is generally otherwise wasted, and often
allowed to decay and become a source of disease, or at least of
impurity.
The enormous prices paid at the poultry shows of 1852 and 1853 for fancy
fowls gave a new impulse to poultry-keeping; and many persons who
formerly thought the management of poultry beneath their attention, now
superintend their yards. Mrs. Ferguson Blair, now the Hon. Mrs.
Arbuthnot, the authoress of the "Henwife," whose experience may be
judged by the fact that she gained in four years upwards of 460 prizes
in England and Scotland, and personally superintended the management of
forty separate yards, in which above 1,000 chickens were hatched
annually, says:--
"I began to breed poultry for amusement only, then for exhibition, and
lastly, was glad to take the trouble to make it pay, and do not like my
poultry-yard less because it is not a loss. It is impossible to imagine
any occupation more suited to a lady, living in the country, than that
of poultry rearing. If she has any superfluous affection to bestow, let
it be on her chicken-kind and it will be returned cent. per cent. Are
you a lover of nature? come with me and view, with delighted gaze, her
chosen dyes. Are you a utilitarian? rejoice in such an increase of the
people's food. Are you a philanthropist? be grateful that yours has been
the privilege to afford a _possible_ pleasure to the poor man, to whom
so many are _impossible_. Such we often find fond of poultry--no mean
judges of it, and frequently successful in exhibition. A poor man's
pleasure in victory is, at least, as great as that of his richer
brother. Let him, then, have the field whereon to fight for it.
Encourage village poultry-shows, not only by your patronage, but also by
your presence. A taste for such may save many from dissipation and much
evil; no man can win poultry honours and haunt the taproom too."
For those who desire to encourage a taste for poultry keeping in young
people, and their humbler neighbours, we would recommend our smaller
work on the subject as a suitable present.[1]
"It becomes," says Miss Harriet Martineau, "an interesting wonder every
year why the rural cottagers of the United Kingdom do not rear fowls
almost universally, seeing how little the cost would be and how great
the demand. We import many millions of eggs annually. Why should we
import any? Wherever there is a cottage family living on potatoes or
better fare, and grass growing anywhere near them, it would be worth
while to nail up a little penthouse, and make nests of clean straw, and
go in for a speculation in eggs and chickens. Seeds, worms, and insects
go a great way in feeding poultry in such places; and then there are the
small and refuse potatoes from the heap, and the outside cabbage leaves,
and the scraps of all sorts. Very small purchases of broken rice (which
is extremely cheap), inferior grain, and mixed meal, would do all else
that is necessary. There would be probably larger losses from vermin
than in better guarded places; but these could be well afforded as a
mere deduction from considerable gains. It is understood that the
keeping of poultry is largely on the increase in the country generally,
and even among cottagers; but the prevailing idea is of competition as
to races and specimens for the poultry-yard, rather than of meeting the
demand for eggs and fowls for the table."
With the exception of prizes for Dorkings, which are chiefly bred for
market, our poultry-shows have always looked upon fowls as if they were
merely ornamental birds, and have framed their standards of excellence
accordingly, and not with any regard to the production of profitable
poultry, which is much to be regretted.
Martin Doyle, the cottage economist of Ireland, in his "Hints to Small
Holders," observes that "a few cocks and hens, if they be prevented from
scratching in the garden, are a useful and appropriate stock about a
cottage, the warmth of which causes them to lay eggs in winter--no
trifling advantage to the children when milk is scarce. The French, who
are extremely fond of eggs, and contrive to have them in great
abundance, feed the fowls so well on curds and buckwheat, and keep them
so warm, that they have plenty of eggs even in winter. Now, in our
country (Ireland), especially in a gentleman's fowl yard, there is not
an egg to be had in cold weather; but the warmth of the poor man's cabin
insures him an egg even in the most ungenial season."
Such fowls obtain fresh air, fresh grass, and fresh ground to scratch
in, and prosper in spite of the most miserable, puny, mongrel stock,
deteriorating year after year from breeding in and in, without the
introduction of fresh blood even of the same indifferent description.
Many an honest cottager might keep himself and family from the parish by
the aid of a small stock of poultry, if some kind poultry-keeper would
present him with two or three good fowls to begin with, for the cottager
has seldom capital even for so small a purchase.
Considerable profit may be made by the sale of eggs for hatching and
surplus stock, if the breeds kept are good, and the stock known to be
pure and vigorous. The "Henwife" says: "You may reduce your expenses by
selling eggs for setting, at a remunerative price. No one should be
ashamed to own what he is not ashamed to do; therefore, boldly announce
your superfluous eggs for sale, at such a price as you think the public
will pay for them." This is now done extensively by breeders of rank and
eminence, especially through the London _Field_ and agricultural papers.
But, "beware of sending such eggs to market. Every one would be set, and
you might find yourself beaten by your own stock, very likely in your
own local show, and at small cost to the exhibitor."
The great secret of success in keeping fowls profitably is to hatch
chiefly in March and April; encourage the pullets by proper feeding to
lay at the age of six months; and fatten and dispose of them when about
nineteen months old, just before their first adult moult; and never to
allow a cockerel to exceed the age of fourteen weeks before it is
fattened and disposed of.