(b) The Breed of the Fowls.—Small birds offer a much greater amount of surface to the action of the cold in proportion to their bulk than such as are larger. These latter especially, when thickly clothed with fluffy feathers, as are the Cochins and Brahmas, are hardly amenable to frost; hence, all other circumstances being equal, they will be found the best layers in winter.
(c) The age of the hens is a matter of great importance. Early hatched pullets that have passed completely through the moult and acquired their adult feathers some weeks since, can be readily induced to lay by good feeding; whereas old hens that moult later and later each succeeding season only produce eggs at this season very sparsely, if at all.
(d) Much depends on the locality and lodging. To produce eggs in winter, the fowls must be in comfortable circumstances; they must have dry and well sheltered runs; they should not be confined to a small place, as they are apt to lose that high condition necessary to robust health, and then the production of eggs immediately ceases. Their roosting place should be well sheltered, and free from draughts of cold air or the access of moisture. Some suggest the use of a stove; but such an appliance is rather injurious than useful. The fowls are exposed to the cold during the day, and this alternating with the stuffy, close atmosphere produced by heating a fowl-house must be injurious. (W. B. Tegetmeier.)
Setting Eggs.—The favourite egg for setting appears to be as nearly oval as possible. The best breeders reject every pointed or irregular egg or a very large one. It is customary to pick out the eggs very carefully in breeding fine stock. Generally 80 per cent. are rejected as liable to produce inferior chickens. In the ordinary practice little attention is paid to the shape of the egg; 13 eggs are picked out “just as they come,” and put under the hen. Farmers generally have as an argument that the hen that “steals her nest” always brings out good chickens, even though the eggs are of all shapes and sizes. But few farmers can tell how really good these “stolen” chickens are. They appear to be vigorous when young, but running about as they do with other hens, any comparison as to egg production is mere guesswork. The ordinary farm poultry could be greatly improved by a more careful selection of eggs for setting. Eggs with soft shells, with a ring or crust on the shells, or with an uneven or rough surface, should be rejected. Very large eggs containing a double yolk are frequently set in hope of producing a very large chicken, two chickens, or a curious monstrosity. Such eggs very rarely hatch.
Testing Eggs.—All eggs should be tested on the tenth day of incubation. The best and easiest way is to cut a hole in a stiff piece of cardboard, a little smaller than the egg, hold the egg on its side close into the hole and put a strong light behind the cardboard, when the state of the eggs will be quite distinct. If the egg is fertile by the seventh day the body of the egg will be quite dark and a sharply cut air space will be quite distinct at the large end. If it is a sterile egg, the whole of the egg will have much the appearance of melted wax and the air space will not be very distinct. If the egg is sterile it is much better to take it away, as it is still fresh enough to be used for cooking, some people even using them for eating; they would at any rate be good for feeding young chickens, whilst if they were left in the nest they would decay, probably be broken, and dirty the whole nest. If the nests are dirtied by a broken egg, the straw should all be taken away, and fresh put in its place, and the eggs washed in warm water, care being taken to prevent the eggs being shaken more than possible. If an addled egg is left in the nest, the germ, having been killed either by inherent weakness or by chilling, would decay, and sulphuretted gas would be generated, which would burst the shell, if it were moved about, and taint the atmosphere, and in that way hurt the chances of the others hatching.
Sitting.—The best method, if practicable, is to let the hen choose her own nest, leaving the eggs that she lays in the nest, and when she has laid her clutch of eggs she will sit and probably bring out a chick from each egg. A hen in a state of nature would only sit at a seasonable time of year; she would scoop out a shallow hole under the shade of a bush so that the moisture rising from the ground should not all evaporate. If a hen cannot sit in the place she has laid her eggs in, the best method is to put her into a coop with the earth as a floor, scooping it out slightly, then putting in a thin layer of straw or leaves, and sitting the hen at night on a few dummy eggs for the first 24-36 hours. When she has fed and returned quietly to the nest by herself, she may be given the good eggs, and, unless disturbed by animals or vermin, which latter can be kept away by allowing the hen a heap of ashes about the nest to dust herself in, she will bring out her brood at the proper time. A very good nest for a sitting hen can be made from a flour barrel turned on its side with ½ barrow load of mould put in, or a half sieve basket nearly filled with earth. Care must be taken that the hen has not to jump from any height on to her eggs, or she is likely to break them. Reynolds’s terra coop is a good one, as the wire flooring having mould put into it allows the moisture to rise from the earth to the under side of the egg. The sitting hen should not be disturbed by other fowls coming to lay in the same nest.
Incubators.—Taking into consideration the number of conditions absolutely necessary, a home-made, roughly constructed incubator is not likely to be successful. A machine which automatically regulates the temperature of the eggs, irrespective of that of the external atmosphere, is essential. Regulators are attached to all incubators in use at the present time. Tomlinson’s works by the expansion of air; Christy’s by the flexing of a compound metallic bar; and Hearson’s by the volatilisation of fluid in a metallic capsule, which, by its sudden expansion at any desired temperature, cuts off the source of heat, and prevents the degree to which the machine is regulated being ever exceeded. In addition to the exact regulation of the temperature, an incubator, to be successful, must be so arranged that the eggs are heated from above, and that there must be a constant supply of fresh, moist air (not saturated with watery vapour). The advantages of incubators from a practical point of view as regards market and table poultry are due to their supplying hens with full clutches of chickens. In France, chickens are hatched in large numbers for sale to small proprietors, and reared by them under ordinary fowls, or in larger numbers under turkey hens. In our own country numbers of fancy poultry for the early shows are reared under artificial foster-mothers heated by paraffin lamps; but the results of endeavouring to rear chickens, except upon fresh runs where they can obtain natural food, are not sufficiently encouraging to render it likely that foster-mothers will supersede the employment of hens in rearing fowls for the purposes of utility.
Chickens.—Chickens require no food for 24 hours, as just before they are hatched the yolk is absorbed, and they live upon this till it is finished. When the chickens are all out and dry, the hen would naturally come off and take them to where she could find them suitable food, such as eggs of ants, gentles, and small germinating seeds. The best food that can be given young chickens for the first week is custard, made of equal proportions of egg and milk, beaten up together, and just set by the fire. They should always be allowed from the very first plenty of green food, lettuces running to seed, dandelions, or onion tops chopped very fine. Rice boiled in milk, and with a little freshly-ground meal, is very good. Dari, millet, and canary seed are all good; grits and coarse oatmeal should only be given quite freshly ground, as they soon become pungent and rancid, and put the digestive organs out of order. Gentles, or flesh maggots, can easily be got in the summer for the young chickens by hanging a piece of meat or a dead fowl on a branch of a tree, or suspending it in some way out of doors, cutting a few slashes in the skin, and leaving it for a few days, when it will become thoroughly fly-blown; then bury it a few inches under the earth in a place that the fowls can get at; in a very short while the ova of the fly will hatch, and the maggots come to the surface of the earth; the hens will soon find them, and bring their chickens to them, and they will eat the maggots greedily. Milk is very good for the young chickens, but great care must be taken to prevent its turning sour. The chickens should also have fine-crushed quartz or gravel, such as is swept down the roadsides by heavy rain, to help their digestion. It is much better to let the hen free with her chickens, but if she must be cooped, the best method is to put a coop with an open front to it, and the back against the wall of some building, and then tether the hen. A good tether is made with a strip of leather, one end being turned down about 1½ in., and a small slit being made through the 2 thicknesses of the leather, put the leg of the hen between these, and then pull the other end through the 2 holes, through the turned-down end first; in this way it cannot be tightened or hurt the leg of the fowl; then fasten a long piece of string to the end of the leather so that the hen can have a good run, as in a state of nature the hen would move to fresh ground day after day.
Fatting for Table.—However young a cockerel may be, if he has been running with hens, and if on killing he appears blue, there is considerable risk of its eating hard, though only 7 months old. A pullet which has only laid one or two of her first eggs is anything but first-class, and after laying out, and getting once broody, is no better than a hen 5 years old. A first-class table bird is a young, “straight,” thick-breasted cockerel which has had nothing to do with hens, or a pullet a month before laying her first eggs.
In France, fowls to be fattened do not exceed 6-7 mouths old; pullets, put up before they have laid, are in good condition and well fed, from their birth up to the day on which they are cooped. Cramming is regarded as the most economical and effectual mode of proceeding. The fowls to be fattened are placed in coops in which each has its own compartment. The coop is a long narrow wooden box, standing on short legs; the outer walls and partitions are close boarded, and the bottom is made with rounded spars 1½ in. in diameter, running lengthways of the coop; on these spars the fowls perch. The top consists of a sliding door, by which the chickens are taken out and replaced. The partitions are 8 in. apart, so that the fowls cannot turn round. The length of each box is regulated by the number of divisions required, the cocks and pullets, and the lean and fat lots, not being mixed up indiscriminately, because their rations differ, and the new-comers would disturb the old settlers by their noise. The floor below the boxes is covered with ashes or dry earth, which is removed every 2 days with a scraper. The food is chiefly buckwheat meal, bolted quite fine. This is kneaded up with sweet milk till it acquires the consistency of baker’s dough; it is then cut up into rations each about the size of 2 eggs, which are made up into rolls about the thickness of a woman’s finger, but varying with the sizes of the fowls; these are subdivided by a sloping cut into pellets about 2½ in. long. A board is used for mixing the flour with the milk, which in winter should be lukewarm. This is poured into a hole made in the heap of flour, and mixed up little by little with a wooden spoon as long as it is taken up; the dough is then needed by the hands till it no longer adheres to them. Oatmeal, or after that barley-meal, is the best substitute for buckwheat-meal. Indian corn-meal makes a short crumbly paste, and produces yellow oily fat.