Saucers of clean water are placed about. Water in a dirty state is very injurious. It is not of any depth, lest the chicks should wet their feathers when standing in it. Occasionally iron saucers are used, ingeniously designed on the ridge and furrow plan. The ridges are so little apart, that the chicks can insert no more than their heads into the furrows. As cleanliness must in all things be preserved, the coops are shifted a few feet aside twice a day.
The chicks soon quit the hens to roost in the shrubs, which afford welcome shade during the mid-day heat; but the imprisoned matrons are still useful, as their plaintive call prevents the chicks from becoming irreclaimable truants. As they have always the opportunity of running in the grass and copse, where they find seeds and insects, they quickly become independent, and learn to forage for themselves,—yet when fully grown up they are not so likely to stray away as birds who have been more naturally reared, and who have been made wanderers even in their infancy. This is a great advantage.
That the chicks may come upon fresh ground for seeds and insects, the situation of the coops may be occasionally changed. If liable to be attacked by vermin at night, a board can be fixed in front of each coop.
Partridges may be reared by the same means. But instances are rare of their laying while in a state of captivity.
That the young birds may be able to rid their bodies of vermin, they should be provided with small heaps of sand protected from rain, and dry earth, in which they will gladly rub themselves.
If you design rearing pheasants annually, always keep a few of the tame hens and a cock at home. By judicious management these will supply a large quantity of eggs for hatching,—eggs that you can ensure, when in their freshest state, being placed under barn-door hens. Keep the eggs in a cool place. I cannot believe that you will ever be guilty—for it is guilt, great guilt—of the sin of purchasing eggs. “Buyers make thieves,”—and one sneaking, watching, unwinged pilferer on two legs would do more mischief in the month of May than dozens of magpies or hooded crows.
Pheasants so soon hunt for their own subsistence, that they are brought to maturity at less expense than common fowls.
Since the publication of the second edition, I have had an opportunity of talking to Mr. Cantelo, the clever inventor of the novel hatching machine, whereby (following nature’s principle) heat is imparted only to the upper surface of eggs. He annually rears a large quantity of all kinds of poultry, besides partridges and pheasants, and I believe no one in England is so experienced in these matters.
He found it best not to give food to any kind of chicks for the two first days after they were hatched. As they would not all break the shell together, it is probable that in a state of nature many of them would be for, at least, this period under the hen before she led them forth to feed. To young turkeys and pheasants he gave no food for three days. They would then eat almost anything voraciously, whereas, when fed sooner, they become dainty and fastidious.
He recommends that the lean of raw beef, or any meat (minced fine, as if for sausages) be given to partridge or pheasant chicks, along with their other food,[122] or rather before their other food, and only in certain quantities; for if they are fed too abundantly on what they most relish, they are apt to gorge themselves, and they will seldom refuse meat, however much grain they may have previously eaten. He said that they should be liberally dieted, but not to repletion,—that once a day they should be sensible of the feeling of hunger.