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Classic
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page 271
small (or rather cracked) grits soaked in milk. As soon as they have gained a
little strength, feed them with curd, cheese-parings cut small, or any soft
food, but nothing sour; and give them clean water twice a day. Keep the hen
under a pen till the young have strength to follow her about, which will be in
two or three weeks; and be sure to feed her well.
The food of fowls goes first into their crop, which softens it; and then passes
into the gizzard, which by constant friction macerates it and this is
facilitated by small stones, which are generally found there, and which help to
digest the food.
If a sitting hen is troubled with vermin, let her be well washed with a
decoction of wild lupins. The pip in fowls is occasioned by drinking dirty
water, or taking filthy food. A white thin scale on the tongue, is the symptom.
Pull the scale off with your nail, and rub the tongue with some salt; and the
complaint will be removed.
It answers well to pay some boy employed in the farm or stable, so much a score
for the eggs he brings in. It will be his interest then to save them from being
purloined, which nobody but one in his situation can prevent; and sixpence or
eightpence a score will be buying eggs cheap.
To make Hens lay.
Dissolve an ounce of Glauber's salts in a quart of water; mix the meal of
potatoes with a little of the liquor, and feed the hens two days, giving them
plenty of clean water to drink. The above quantity is sufficient for six or
eight hens. They should have plenty of clean water in reach. In a few days they
will produce eggs.
To fatten Fowls or Chickens in four or five Days.
Set rice over the fire with skimmed milk, only as much as will serve one day.
Let it boil till the rice is quite swelled out: you may add a tea-spoonful or
two of sugar, but it will do well without. Feed them three times a day, in
common pans, giving them only as much as will quite fill them at once. When you
put fresh, let
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