The practical poultry keeper : a complete and standard guide to the management of poultry / [Lewis Wright].

  • Lewis Wright
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practical poultry keeper : a complete and standard guide to the management of poultry / [Lewis Wright]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of this section are not intended simply to be read and ap- proved, but the directions given are such as are proper for the circumstances therein referred to, and are the price to be paid for health and eggs. For instance: when it is said that the roosting-house should be cleansed daily, it is meant that it should he done. When it is said that fowls in confinement should have daily fresh vegetable food, it is intended to convey that such food must be regularly given; and so on. Let the reader deal fairly by us and by his poultry; so will the latter deal fairly by him. The first essential requisite to success is a thoroughly good house for the birds to roost and lay in. This does not neces- sarily imply a large one or a costly : we once knew a young man who kept fowls most profitably, with only a house of his own construction not more than three feet square, and a run of the same width, under twelve feet long. It means simply that the fowl-house must combine two absolute essentials—be both perfectly weatherproof and well ventilated. With regard to the first point, it is not only necessary to keep out the rain but also the wind—a matter very seldom attended to as it ought to be, but which has great influence on the health and laying of the inmates. The cheapest material is wood, of which an inch thick will answer very well in any ordinary English climate ; but, if so built, the boards must either be tongued together, or all the cracks between them carefully caulked by driving in string with a blunt chisel. Care should also be taken that the door fits well, admitting no air except under the bottom ; and, in short, every precaution be taken to prevent draught. The hole by which the fowls entei, even when its loose trap-door is closed, should admit i nougli air to supply the inmates; and the object is to have but this one source of supply, and to keep the fowls out of all direct draught from it. For the roof, tiles alone are not sufficient, and, if tliey
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