Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/670

Rh 646 POULTRY wards away from the body. They are common in India, but are not adapted to the climate of Britain, as the plum age offers an imperfect protection against wet. jRwnpless fowls are those in which the coccygeal vertebrae are absent ; there is consequently no tail. By crossing, rumpless breeds of any variety may be produced. They are not desirable to cultivate, as, from the structural peculi arities, the eggs are very apt to escape being fertilized. Dumpies or Creepers are birds in which the bones of the legs are so short that their progression is consider ably interfered with. The best known are the Scotch dumpies. Long-tailed fowls, under the various names of Yokohama or Phoenix fowls, or Shinotawaro fowls, are singular varieties recently introduced from Japan, in which the sickle-feathers of the tail are 6 or 7 feet long. In Japan they are said to assume a much greater length. One bird in the museum at Tokio is stated to have sickle-feathers 17 feet long ; but examination is not permitted. In other respects the fowls are not peculiar, resembling the birds of the Game type. Bantam. This term is applied to fowls of a diminutive size without any reference to the particular breed. By careful selection and crossing with small specimens any variety can be reduced to the desired size. The Chinese had in the summer palace at Peking small Cochins weigh ing not more than 1 lb each. Game bantams of less size have been established during the past twenty-five years. The Malays have been reduced to bantam size within a very few years, as have the crested breeds. The Japanese have long possessed a dwarf breed with enormous tail and comb, and with very short legs. One of the most artificial breeds is the Sebright bantam, named after its originator. This bird has the laced or marginal feather of the Polish combined with the absence of male plumage in the cocks, so that it may be described as a hen-feathered breed with laced plumage. When perfect in marking it is of singular beauty, but_is not remarkable for fertility. In breeding the domestic fowl for useful purposes it is desirable to follow to a greater extent than is usual the natural habits and instincts of the bird. The wild fowl is a resident in forests, coming out to feed in the open ; in addition to green vegetables and fruit it lives on grain, seeds, worms, grubs, and insects, which it obtains by scratching in the soil ; it roosts in the higher branches of trees, and the hen deposits her eggs on the ground, usually in a concealed situation, laying one egg every other day until the number is com pleted, when she sits for twenty-one days. On the chickens being hatched they do not leave the nest for twenty-four or thirty hours, being nourished by the absorption of the yolk into the intestinal canal. When they are sufficiently strong to run after the hen she takes them in search of food, which she obtains by scratching in the ground or amongst decaying vegetable matter. A domesticated hen allowed to make her own nest in a hedge or coppice always brings out a much larger, stronger, and healthier brood than one that sits in the dry close atmosphere of a hen-house. Wherever the nest is placed it should always be made of damp earth so as to supply the requisite moisture and cool the under surface of the eggs as compared with the upper. When hatched the chicken should not be removed for twenty-four hours, feeding not being required. The first food should be egg and milk equal parts beaten together and heated until it sets into a soft mass ; this may be given with a little canary seed for the first day or two, or millet or wheat ; newly -ground sweet oatmeal is good, but pungent rancid meal veiy injurious. The chickens do much better if the hen is allowed to scratch for them than when she is shut up in a coop. If a coop mast be used it should be so constructed as to include a plot of grass and be moved daily. The perches in a hen-house should be on one level, or the fowls fight for the highest. All should be low, so that in flying down the breast-bone and feet may not be injured by coming violently in contact with the ground. Keeping poultry without an extended range in which they can obtain a large portion of their own food is not desirable, nor has the establishment of poultry-farms, in which large numbers of birds are kept in one locality, ever under any conditions been attended with success. In all cases in which a large number of fowls are congre gated together the ground becomes contaminated by the excrement of the birds ; the food is eaten off the soiled surface ; disease breaks out amongst the adults ; and rearing chickens successfully is out of the question. There are no poultry-farms in France, the eggs and chickens being produced by the peasant-proprietors. In England many poultry-farms have been started, but none have ever proved successful. Poultry -rearing is an industry adapted to the small holder, to the rearer for home consumption, or as an adjunct to the work of a large farm, but as an industry of its own it is never likely to be worked to advantage. There is no difficulty whatever in hatching any number of chickens, but when the young birds are crowded together and are living on tainted soil they invariably be come diseased and die with extreme rapidity. The conditions of a crowded poultry-run necessarily resemble those of an army encamped without due sanitary precautions, which cannot be adopted in the case of the birds. The inevitable result is that they perish of diseases of a typhoid character which are quite beyond the power of the owners to control or alleviate. Turkeys. The origin of the domesticated turkey is probably of a composite character ; by Mr Gould and other naturalists this bird is generally regarded as having been derived from the Mexican species Meleagris mexicana ; but this has recently been crossed with the North-American M. gallo-pavo, with great advantage as to size and hardi hood. The varieties of the turkey differ chiefly as to colour. The principal English breeds are the bronze or Cambridgeshire, the black or Norfolk, the fawn, and the white. Of these the first, especially when crossed with the American, is the largest and most desirable. Turkeys are not so extensively raised in Great Britain as in France, from a prevalent opinion that they are very delicate and difficult to rear ; this idea arises in great part from errors in their management and feeding. The chicks, when hatched after twenty-eight days incubation, should be left undisturbed for twenty-four or thirty hours, during which time they are digesting the yolk that is absorbed into the intestinal canal at birth. No attempt should be made to cram them ; their first food should consist of sweet fresh meal, soft custard made with equal parts of egg and milk set by a gentle heat, and, above all, abun dance of some bitter milky herb, as dandelion, or, much better, lettuce running to seed, on Avhich they can lie reared successfully with very little food of any other de scription. The young turkeys progress much better if the hen has the range of a small enclosure from the first than if she is confined to a coop ; thus reared they are much hardier than when cooped and corn-fed, and not so susceptible to injury from slight showers ; but a damp locality should be avoided. Turkey-hens are most per severing sitters, and are employed in France to hatch successions of sittings of hens eggs. Turkeys can often be most advantageously reared by cottagers, as one or two hens only can be kept, one visit to the male being sufficient to fertilize the entire batch of eggs. The young turkeys find a larger proportion of their own food than fowls, and with a good free range cost but little until they are ready for fattening for the table. In places where the opportunity serves they may be allowed to roost in the trees with great advantage. Some wild flocks treated like pheasants are to be found in several of the large parks in Scotland as well as in England. Guinea-fowls. The Common Guinea-fowl (Numida meleagris) is a native of eastern Africa, from whence it has been carried to many parts of the world, in some of which, as the West Indian Islands, it has become wild. It has also been reared in a half-wild state in many English preserves ; under these conditions it flourishes exceedingly, but has the disadvantage of driving away the pheasants. In any dry locality guinea-fowls may be successfully reared, provided they have a good range and trees in which they can roost. The hen lays an abundance of eggs, which are generally hidden. The birds are useful as furnishing a supply of poultry for the table in the interval that ensues between the time when game are out of season and that before chickens arrive at maturity. On a dry, sandy,