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.