Fig. 15. Sitting-box.
On the other side of the central room should be the compartment devoted to laying and sitting hens (d) and this should be fitted up with boxes (fig. 15.) which are made moveable, and placed not quite close to each other, as it disturbs sitting hens to hear other hens close to them. The front part of each box should be made to slide up and down, so that it may be taken out, and the box thoroughly cleansed with a brush and soap and water, when not in use. This sliding front, when closed, has an arched opening in front for the hens to go in and out; and this opening is made so as not to reach quite to the ground, in order not only to keep the nest warm and in its proper place, but to prevent any danger of the eggs being sucked by rats, or other similar depredators. The hen-room should be frequently whitewashed, say twice a year, care being taken to do it with as little disturbance to the fowls as practicable; and the floor, which should be either of stone, or laid with bricks, should be swept out every day, and washed occasionally when the weather is warm and dry. It is a very good plan to have the boxes raised with two pieces of wood below each, so as to leave a hollow space in the middle below the box, as this plan allows the house to be cleaned with greater facility.
Fig. 16. Hen-roost.
The other room (e in fig. 14.) should be supplied with rails and perches to serve as roosting-places (fig. 16.), and these rails are best of rough wood, as they afford a more secure resting-place for the fowls than if they were round and smooth. Fowls are very apt to crowd together in their roosting-places; and, when the rails are smooth so that the claws of the fowls cannot take a firm hold of them, the youngest and weakest of the fowls are very often pushed off. The roosting-places should be furnished with a sloping board with sticks nailed across, to enable the fowls to ascend to them. All the rooms of the hen-house should have windows filled in with wire lattice; and they should have shutters to close in cold weather. In some cases they have ceilings like those of a house, and in others they are left open to the beams of the roof. The principal thing to attend to is to keep them scrupulously clean, and the walls frequently whitewashed. The roosting-place should have the dung removed every morning, and in warm weather it should be washed out every day; even in winter, unless the weather is frosty, the floor should be washed once a week. Sometimes, instead of fixed rails for the fowls to rest upon, hanging bars are suspended from the roof; and sometimes the nests for laying in and for sitting are fixed, and in two rows one above the other. Where danger is apprehended from thieves, the door of the roosting-house is kept locked, it being provided with an opening for the fowls to pass through.
Poultry should never be fed where they roost, if it can possibly be avoided, and their food should generally be given to them in the open shed act apart for that purpose. In wet weather, however, they may be fed in the feeding-house (a in fig. 14.), which has that name because it is the place where those fowls which are to be fattened are kept under coops (fig. 17.). For my own part I am no friend to fattening fowls artificially, as I think they are never half so good to eat as when they are indulged with moderate exercise, and kept in good condition by feeding them with barley, oats, or other grain, two or three times a day. When the poultry-yard adjoins a farm-yard, so that the fowls can be let out occasionally to pick up the grains that are scattered by the thresher, they become so plump and so well fitted for the table, that it is considered the highest praise that can be bestowed on poultry, to say that it eats as well as a barn-door fowl. When it is not practicable to admit poultry to the farm-yard, the fowls that are to be fattened should be kept in the feeding-house, and plenty of unthreshed straw should be given to them to peck at, so as to let them have constantly quite as much as they can eat, and yet be obliged to take exercise to get it; or, if more rapid feeding be required, they may be put under coops and fed with various kinds of food, either raw or cooked.
Fig. 17. Coop.
A fowl, when supplied with abundance of food, eats rapidly till it has filled its crop, in which the food is merely stored as grass or hay is in the paunch of a cow, and from which it passes through the second stomach into the gizzard, which digests it, by grinding it into a mass, partly by its own muscular action, and partly by the help of numerous little bits of gravel and small stones which the fowl swallows. This is necessarily a slow process, when the food consists of hard dry barley; but of course it is performed much quicker when the food is softened by boiling, and equally, of course, the time in which the fowl gets fat is shortened by the facility with which it can digest its food. This is the reason why cooked grain is now preferred for feeding poultry, and boiled rice, barley, oats, and wheat are given in preference to the old mixture of barley meal and milk and water. Boiled or steamed potatoes are also recommended, and they should always be given warm. All the fowls may be fed with advantage on this prepared food, as it makes the hens lay better and the chickens grow faster, care being taken that the earthen pans or wooden troughs in which it is contained are always kept perfectly clean, and that they are daily scoured with boiling water to prevent them from acquiring a sour taste. The boiled food is always given in the feeding-house, but after eating it the fowls are turned into the yard to cater for themselves if they feel inclined, and many persons advise a piece of bullock's liver or something of the kind to be thrown in the yard, as far from the hen-house as possible, to breed maggots, as they are particularly nourishing to young chickens, who will devour them greedily. You will observe that I have not given any directions for cramming fowls, as I am quite sure you would not suffer any creatures under your control to be subjected to such treatment.