In rearing geese for the market, every endeavour should be made to attain early maturity. Young birds should never cease growing from the time they are hatched until they are ready to kill. If they are so fed as to be kept without growing, not only is all the food they eat during the time wasted, but they are deteriorating in quality and in tenderness of flesh.
Turkeys
Turkeys.—Turkeys dislike all that is necessary for their well-doing. They like to roam far and wide like peafowl, and will roost, if allowed to, in the open air, whereas they should sleep under cover, have an elevated roost, and a well-ventilated sleeping room. A turkey hen sits on her eggs for 32 days; she is a very gentle constant sitter, but a very careless mother, for she will, unless carefully watched or cooped, lead her chicks out in the damp grass or into a bed of stinging nettles, both of which proceedings are fatal to the brood, for wet kills them, and so does nettles; but boiled nettles are good for their health, and should be given chopped small mixed with barley meal.
The young birds should be left to effect their exit, if possible, unassisted, and allowed to remain for 12 hours afterwards under the mother’s wings. After that time they must be continually attended to and fed on curds, hard-boiled eggs, and crumbs, having a good boarded coop. Meal and grits must be given after the lapse of about 10 days; and when they are 5 weeks old, boiled potatoes, turnips, nettles, and lettuces may be chopped and mixed with their food.
Norfolk turkeys are considered the best breed to keep. When turkeys are put up to fatten, barley meal, bran, and potatoes well mashed and mixed, are the best food for them. Half-a-crown’s worth of meal and potatoes, with other garden produce, is about the cost of feeding each bird for one month, when it is considered fat enough for the table; but the birds will generally be in pretty good case when put up, if they have been allowed the run of the fields and the woods, for turkey chicks are only delicate in their first stages of growth. Some poultry-keepers cram their birds, but such turkeys are never so delicately flavoured as those fed in the natural way. (Helen Watney.)
Turkey hens are such admirable mothers, that they are largely employed in France to hatch and rear ordinary chickens. When young turkeys are hatched, they should be left undisturbed until they come out from under the mother, about 20-30 hours, and fed at first with equal parts of egg and milk beaten up together and set by heat. Fresh-ground oatmeal and milk should be given, and lettuces running to seed, full of bitter milky juice; this old and young will eat in large quantity and thrive exceedingly on it. Turkeys are much larger green vegetable eaters than fowls. In dry situations and seasons they are not delicate if properly fed and cared for. (W. B. Tegetmeier.)
Pigeons
Pigeons.—First and foremost comes the selection of the birds. The old-fashioned English so-called carrier is perfectly useless as a messenger or homing pigeon. The only breeds of any real value are Belgians. Of these, several somewhat distinct types exist, which are known as Liege, Antwerp birds, &c. In these birds the homing faculty has been developed by training for many generations, until at last an acquired instinct of indomitable perseverance in seeking their distant home has been developed, and this has become hereditary. Hence the necessity of breeding from good birds, and those which have been accustomed to fly long distances. To breed from birds without pedigrees is useless. So high a value is placed on the performance of the parents, that amateurs will spare no pains or expense in getting good, well-trained birds. Good birds, however, can be bought for moderate sums, when amateurs in Belgium are selling off the superfluous birds after the racing season is over; 1l. 10s. to 2l. a pair will often procure birds that have done good work.
A flight of birds may be established in two modes. First, by obtaining pairs of old birds, shutting them up as prisoners, breeding from them, and turning out the young as soon as they can feed themselves and fly. The second is by buying young birds as they leave the nest, and letting them fly after they have been confined a few days in their new home.