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.