REARING AND FATTENING FOWLS.
The first want which the chick will feel will be that of warmth, and
there is no warmth so suited for them as that of the hen's body. Some
persons remove the chicks from under the mother as soon as they are
hatched, one by one, placing them in a basket covered up with flannel,
and keep them there in a warm place, until the last chick is out, when
they are put back under the hen. But this is very seldom necessary
unless the weather is very cold and the hen restless, and is generally
more likely to annoy than benefit her. Nor should the hen be induced to
leave the nest, but be left undisturbed until she leaves of her own
accord, when the last hatched chickens will be in a better condition to
follow her than if she had been tempted to leave earlier. In a few hours
they are able to run about and follow their parent; they do not require
to be fed in the nest like most birds, but pick up the food which their
mother shows them; and repose at night huddled up beneath her wings. The
chicken during its development in the egg is nourished by the yolk, and
the remaining portion of the yolk passes into its body previous to its
leaving the shell, being designed for its first nourishment; and the
chicken, therefore, does not require any food whatever during the first
day. The old-fashioned plan, so popular with "practical" farmers' wives,
of cramming a peppercorn down the throat of the newly-hatched chick is
absurd and injurious.
The first food must be very light and delicate, such as crumbs of bread
soaked in milk, the yolk of an egg boiled hard, and curds; but very
little of anything at first except water, for thirst will come before
hunger. The thirsty hen will herself soon teach the little ones how to
drink. If your chicks be very weakly, you may cram them with crumbs of
good white bread, steeped in milk or wine, but at the same time
recollect that their little craws are not capable of holding more than
the bulk of a pea; so rather under than over feed them.
As soon as the hen leaves the nest, she should have as much grain as she
can eat, and a good supply of pure, clean water. In winter, or settled
wet weather, she should, if possible, be kept on her nest for a day,
and, when removed, be cooped in a warm, dry shed or outhouse; but in
summer, if the weather be fine, and the chickens well upon their legs,
they may be at once cooped out in the sun, on dry gravel, or if possible
on a nice grass-plot, with food and water within her reach. The hen is
cooped to prevent her from wearying the brood by leading them about
until they are over-tired, besides being exposed to danger from cats,
hawks, and vermin, tumbling into ditches, or getting wet in the high
grass. They can pass in and out between the bars of the coop, and will
come when she calls, or they wish to shelter under her wings. It is a
good plan to place the coop for the first day out upon some dry sand, so
that the hen can cleanse herself comfortably. The common basket coop
should only be used in fine weather, and some straw, kept down by a
stone, matting, or other covering, should be placed on the top, to
shelter them from the mid-day sun; otherwise a wooden coop should be
used, open in front only, about two and a half or three feet square;
well-made of stout, sound boards, with a gabled roof covered with felt;
and at night a thick canvas or matting should be hung over the front,
sufficient space being left for proper ventilation, but not to admit
cold draught, or to allow the chicks to get out. Mr. Wright describes an
excellent coop which is "very common in some parts of France, and
consists of two compartments, separated by a partition of bars, one
compartment being closed in front, the other fronted with bars like the
partition. Each set of bars should have a sliding one to serve as a
door, and the whole coop should be tight and sound. It is best to have
no bottom, but to put it on loose dry earth or ashes, an inch or two
deep. Each half of the coop is about two feet six inches square, and may
or may not be lighted from the top by a small pane of glass. The
advantage of such a coop is that, except in very severe weather, no
further shelter is required, even at night [if placed under a shed].
During the day the hen is kept in the outer compartment, the chickens
having liberty, and the food and water being placed outside; whilst at
night she is put in the inner portion of the coop, and a piece of canvas
or sacking hung over the bars of the outer half. If the top be glazed, a
little food and the water-vessel may be placed in the outer compartment
at night, and the chicks will be able to run out and feed early in the
morning, being prevented by the canvas from going out into the cold air.
It will be only needful to remove the coop every two days for a few
minutes, to take away the tainted earth and replace it with fresh. There
should, if possible, be a grass-plot in front of the shed, the floor of
which should be covered with dry, loose dust or earth." The hen should
be kept under a coop until the brood has grown strong. Some breeders
object to cooping, on account of its preventing the hen from scratching
for worms and insects for her brood, and which are far superior to the
substitutes with which they must be supplied, unless, indeed, a good
supply of worms, ants' eggs, insects, or gentles can be had. The hen too
has not sufficient exercise after her long sitting. Cooping thus has its
advantages and disadvantages, and its adoption or not should depend upon
circumstances. If it is preferred not to coop the hen, and she should be
inclined to roam too far, a small run may be made with network, or with
the moveable wire-work described on page 21.
Winter-hatched chickens must be reared and fed in a warm place, which
must be kept at an equal temperature. They return a large profit for the
great care they require in hatching and rearing.
Chickens should be fed very often; every two hours is not too
frequently. The number of these meals must be reduced by degrees to
four or five, which may be continued until they are full grown. Grain
should not be given to newly-hatched chickens. The very best food for
them, after their first meal of bread-crumbs and egg, is made of two
parts of coarse oatmeal and one part of barley-meal, mixed into a thick
crumbly paste with milk or water. If milk is used, it must be fresh
mixed for each meal, or it will become sour. Cold oatmeal porridge is an
excellent food, and much liked by them. After the first week they may
have cheaper food, such as bran, oatmeal, and Indian meal mixed, or
potatoes mashed with bran. In a few days they may also have some whole
grain, which their little gizzards will then be fully able to grind.
Grits, crushed wheat, or bruised oats, should form the last meal at
night. Bread sopped in water is the worst food they can have, and even
with milk is still inferior to meal. For the first three or four days
they may also have daily the yolk of an egg boiled hard and chopped up
small, which will be sufficient for a dozen chicks; and afterwards, a
piece of cooked meat, rather underdone, the size of a good walnut,
minced fine, should be daily given to the brood until they are three
weeks old. In winter and very early spring this stimulating diet may be
given regularly, and once a day they should also have some stale bread
soaked in ale; and whenever chickens suffer from bad feathering, caused
either by the coldness of the season or delicacy of constitution, they
must be fed highly, and have a daily supply of bread soaked in ale.
Ants' eggs, which are well known as the very best animal diet for young
pheasants, are also excellent for young chickens; and when a nest can be
obtained it should be thrown with its surrounding mould into the run for
them to peck at. Where there is no grass-plot they should have some
grass cut into small pieces, or other vegetable food minced small, until
they are able to peck pieces from the large leaves. Onion tops and leeks
chopped small, cress, lettuce, and cabbage, are much relished by all
young poultry. The French breeders give a few dried nettle seeds
occasionally. Young growing fowls can scarcely have too much food, so
long as they eat it with a good appetite, and do not tread any about, or
otherwise leave it to waste.
Young poultry cannot thrive if overcrowded. They should not be allowed
to roost on the branches of trees or shrubs, or otherwise out of doors,
even in the warmest weather, or they will acquire the habit of sleeping
out, which cannot be easily overcome; not that they would suffer much
from even severe weather, when once accustomed to roosting out of doors,
but from want of warmth the supply of eggs would decrease, and it would,
in many places, be unsafe and, in most, inconvenient.
The sooner chickens can be fattened, of course the greater must be the
profit. They should be put up for fattening as soon as they have quitted
the hen, for they are then generally in good condition, but begin to
lose flesh as their bones develop and become stronger, particularly
those fowls which stand high on the leg.
Fowls are in perfection for eating just before they are fully developed.
By keeping young fowls, especially the cockerels, too long before
fattening them for market or home consumption, they eat up all the
profit that would be made by disposing of them when the pullets have
ceased laying just before their first adult moult, and the cockerels
before their appetites have become large. Fowls intended to be fattened
should be well and abundantly fed from their birth; for if they are
badly fed during their growth they become stunted, the bones do not
attain their full size, and no amount of feeding will afterwards supply
these defects and transform them into fine, large birds. Poultry that
have been constantly fed well from their birth will not only be always
ready for the table, with very little extra attention and feeding, but
their flesh will be superior in juiciness and rich flavour to those
which are fattened up from a poor state. In choosing full-grown fowls
for fattening, the short-legged and early-hatched should be preferred.
In fattening poultry, "the well-known common methods," Mowbray observes,
"are, first, to give fowls the run of the farmyard, where they thrive
upon the offals of the stables and other refuse, with perhaps some
small regular feeds; but at threshing time they become fat, and are
thence styled barn-door fowls, probably the most delicate and
high-flavoured of all others, both from their full allowance of the
finest corn and from the constant health in which they are kept, by
living in the natural state, and having the full enjoyment of air and
exercise; or secondly, they are confined during a certain number of
weeks in coops; those fowls which are soonest ready being drawn as
wanted." "The former method," says Mr. Dickson, "is immeasurably the
best as regards the flavour and even wholesomeness of the fowls as food,
and though the latter mode may, in some cases, make the fowls fatter, it
is only when they have been always accustomed to confinement; for when
barn-door fowls are cooped up for a week or two under the notion of
improving them for the table, and increasing their fat, it rarely
succeeds, since the fowls generally pine for their liberty, and,
slighting their food, lose instead of gaining additional flesh."
To fatten fowls that have not the advantage of a barn-door, Mowbray
recommends fattening-houses large enough to contain twenty or thirty
fowls, warm and airy, with well-raised earth floors, slightly littered
down with straw, which should be often changed, and the whole place kept
perfectly clean. "Sandy gravel," he says, "should be placed in several
different layers, and often changed. A sufficient number of troughs for
both water and food should be placed around, that the stock may feed
with as little interruption as possible from each other, and perches in
the same proportion should be furnished for those birds which are
inclined to perch, which few of them will desire after they have begun
to fatten, but it helps to keep them easy and contented until that
period. In this manner fowls may be fattened to the highest pitch, and
yet preserved in a healthy state, their flesh being nearly equal in
quality to the barn-door fowl. To suffer fattening fowls to perch is
contrary to the general practice, since it is supposed to bend and
deform the backbone; but as soon as they become heavy and indolent from
feeding, they will rather incline to roost in the straw, and the
liberty of perching has a tendency to accelerate the period when they
wish for rest."
The practice of fattening fowls in coops, if carried to a moderate
extent, is not objectionable, and may be necessary in many cases. The
coop may be three feet high, two feet wide, and four feet long, which
will accommodate six or eight birds, according to their size; or it may
be constructed in compartments, each being about nine inches by
eighteen, and about eighteen inches high. The floor should not consist
of board, but be formed of bars two inches wide, and placed two inches
apart. The bars should be laid from side to side, and not from the back
to the front of the coop. They should be two inches wide at the upper
part, with slanting or rounded sides, so as to prevent the dung from
sticking to them instead of falling straight between. The front should
be made of rails three inches apart. The house in which the coops are
placed should be properly ventilated, but free from cold draughts, and
kept of an even temperature, which should be moderately warm. The fronts
of the coops should be covered with matting or other kind of protection
in cold weather. The coop should be placed about two inches from the
ground, and a shallow tray filled with fresh dry earth should be placed
underneath to catch the droppings, and renewed every day.
When fowls are put up to fat they should not have any food given to them
for some hours, and they will take it then more eagerly than if pressed
upon them when first put into the coop. But little grain should be given
to fowls during the time they are fattening in coops; indeed the chief
secret of success consists in supplying them with the most fattening
food without stint, in such a form that their digestive mills shall find
no difficulty in grinding it. Buckwheat-meal is the best food for
fattening; and to its use the French, in a great measure, owe the
splendid condition of the fowls they send to market. If it cannot be
had, the best substitute is an equal mixture of maize-meal and
barley-meal. The meal may be mixed with skim milk if available. Oatmeal
and barley-meal alternately, mixed with milk, and occasionally with a
little dripping, is good fattening food. Milk is most excellent for all
young poultry. A little chopped green food should be given daily, to
keep their bowels in a proper state.
The feeding-troughs, which must be kept clean by frequent scouring,
should be placed before the fowls at regular times, and when they have
eaten sufficient it is best to remove them, and place a little gravel
within reach to assist digestion. Each fowl should have as much food as
it will eat at one time, but none should be left to become sour. A
little barley may, however, be scattered within their reach. A good
supply of clean water must be always within their reach. If a bird
appears to be troubled with vermin, some powdered sulphur, well rubbed
into the roots of the feathers, will give immediate relief. The coops
should be thoroughly lime-washed after the fowls are removed, and well
dried before fresh birds are put up in them.
It is a common practice to fatten poultry in coops by a process called
"cramming," by which they are loaded with greasy fat in a very short
time. But it is evident that such overtaxing of the fowls' digestive
powers, want of exercise and fresh air, confinement in a small space,
and partial deprivation of light, without which nothing living, either
animal or vegetable, can flourish, cannot produce healthy or wholesome
flesh. "Indeed," as Mowbray observes, "it seems contrary to reason, that
fowls fed upon such greasy, impure mixtures can possibly produce flesh
or fat so firm, delicate, high-flavoured, or nourishing, as those
fattened upon more simple and substantial food; as for example, meal and
milk, and perhaps either treacle or sugar. With respect to grease of any
kind, its chief effect must be to render the flesh loose and of a coarse
flavour. Neither can any advantage be gained, except perhaps a
commercial one, by very quick feeding; for real excellence cannot be
obtained but by waiting nature's time, and using the best food. Besides
all this, I have been very unsuccessful in my few attempts to fatten
fowls by cramming; they seem to loathe the crams, to pine, and to lose
the flesh they were put up with, instead of acquiring flesh; and when
crammed fowls do succeed, they must necessarily, in the height of their
fat, be in a state of disease." Mr. Muirhead, poulterer to Her Majesty
in Scotland, says: "With regard to _cramming_, I may say that it is
_wholly_ unnecessary, provided the fowls have abundance of the best food
at regular intervals, fresh air, and a free run; in confinement fowls
may gain fat, but they lose flesh. None but those who have had
experience can form any idea how both qualities can be obtained in a
natural way. I have seen fowls reared at Inchmartine (which had never
been shut up, or had food forced upon them), equal, if not superior, to
the finest Surrey fowl, or those fattened by myself for the Royal
table."
If "cramming" is practised it should be done in the following manner:
The feeder, usually a female, should take the fowl carefully out of the
fatting-coop by placing both her hands gently under its breast, then sit
down with the bird upon her lap, its rump under her left arm, open its
mouth with the finger and thumb of the left hand, take the pellet with
the right, dip it well into water, milk, or pot liquor, shake the
superfluous moisture from it, put it into the mouth, "cram" it gently
into the gullet with her forefinger, then close the beak and gently
assist it down into the crop with the forefinger and thumb, without
breaking the pellet, and taking great care not to pinch the throat. When
the fowl has been "crammed" it should be carefully carried back to its
coop, both hands being placed under its breast as before. Chickens
should be "crammed" regularly every twelve hours. The "cramming" should
commence with a few pellets, and the number be gradually increased at
each meal until it amounts to about fifteen. But always before you begin
to feed gently feel the fowl's crop to ascertain that the preceding meal
has been digested, and if you find it to contain food, let the bird wait
until it is all digested, and give it fewer pellets at the next meal. If
the "crams" should become hardened in the crop, some lukewarm water must
be given to the bird, or poured down its throat if disinclined to
drink, and the crop be gently pressed with the fingers until the
hardened mass has become loosened so that the gizzard can grind it.
The food chiefly used in France for "cramming" fowls is buckwheat-meal
bolted very fine and mixed with milk. It should be prepared in the
following manner: Pour the milk, which should be lukewarm in winter,
into a hole made in the heap of meal, mixing it up with a wooden spoon a
little at a time as long as the meal will take up the milk, and make it
into the consistency of dough, keep kneading it until it will not stick
to the hands, then divide it into pieces twice as large as an egg, which
form into rolls generally about as thick as a small finger, but more or
less thick according to the size of the fowls to be fed, and divide the
rolls into pellets about two and a half inches in length by a slanting
cut, which leaves pointed ends, that are easier to "cram" the fowls with
than if they were square. The pellets should be rolled up as dry as
possible.
The operation of caponising as performed in England is barbarous,
extremely painful, and dangerous. In France it is performed in a much
more scientific and skilful manner. But the small advantage gained by
this unnatural operation is more than counterbalanced by the unnecessary
pain inflicted on the bird, and the great risk of losing it. Capons
never moult, and lose their previously strong, shrill voice. In warm,
dry countries they grow to a large size, and soon fatten, but do not
succeed well in our moist, cold climate. They are not common in this
country, and most of the fowls sold in the London markets as capons are
merely young cockerels well crammed. If capons are kept they should have
a separate house, for the other fowls will not allow those even of their
own family to occupy the same roosting-perch with them. The hens not
only show them indifference, but decided aversion. Hen chickens,
deprived of their reproductive organs in order to fatten them sooner,
are common in France, where they are styled poulardes.
Fattening ought to be completed in from ten to twenty days. When fowls
are once fattened up they should be killed, for they cannot be kept fat,
but begin to lose flesh and become feverish, which renders their flesh
red and unsaleable, and frequently causes their death.
Great cruelty is often ignorantly inflicted by poulterers, higglers, and
others, in "twisting the necks" of poultry. An easy mode of killing a
fowl is to give the bird a very sharp blow with a small but heavy blunt
stick, such as a child's bat or wooden sword, at the back of the neck,
about the second or third joint from the head, which will, if properly
done, sever the spine and cause death very speedily. But the knife is
the most merciful means; the bird being first hung up by the legs, the
mouth must be opened wide, and a long, narrow, sharp-pointed knife, like
a long penknife, which instrument is made for the purpose, should be
thrust firmly through the back part of the roof of the mouth up into the
brain, which will cause almost instant death. Another mode of killing is
to pluck a few feathers from the side of the head, just below the ear,
and make a deep incision there. Some say that fowls should not be bled
to death like turkeys and geese, as, from the loss of blood, the flesh
becomes dry and insipid. But when great whiteness of flesh is desired,
the fowl should be hung up by its legs immediately after being killed,
and if it has been killed without the flow of blood, an incision should
be made in the neck so that it may bleed freely.
Fowls that have been kept without food and water for twelve hours before
being killed will keep much better than if they had been recently fed,
as the food is apt to ferment in the crop and bowels, which often causes
the fowl to turn green in a few hours in warm weather. If empty they
should not be drawn, and they will keep much better. Fowls are easiest
plucked at once, while warm; they should afterwards be scalded by
dipping them for a moment in boiling water, which will give a plump
appearance to any good fowl. Fowls should not be packed for market
before they are quite cold. Old fowls should not be roasted, but boiled,
and they will then prove tolerably good eating.
The feathers are valuable and should be preserved, which is very easily
managed. "Strip the plumage," says Mr. Wright, "from the quills of the
larger feathers, and mix with the small ones, putting the whole loosely
in paper bags, which should be hung up in the kitchen, or some other
warm place, for a few days to dry. Then let the bags be baked three or
four times for half an hour each time, in a cool oven, drying for two
days between each baking, and the process will be completed. Less
trouble than this will do, and is often made to suffice; but the
feathers are inferior in crispness to those so treated, and may
occasionally become offensive."