Our Domestic Birds Part 13

After they begin to roost, young turkeys need no shelter in the spring and summer. When chilly nights come in the fall, late-hatched turkeys may do better housed than in the open. Turkeys that are well grown and fully feathered do not need to be under cover in the winter except in protracted or very severe storms. Turkey growers who wish to have the birds partially under control, and want to be able to catch any one when they need it, often have the birds roost in a shed or other outbuilding available for the purpose. Such places should be very well ventilated, or the turkeys will become soft and take colds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 159. House and yards for stock turkeys on a California ranch. (Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

Yards are made for turkeys only to enable the person in charge of them to keep them under control when necessary. The princ.i.p.al uses of the yards are to confine the hens at the laying season and to separate birds from the general flock when there is any occasion for this. A great deal of trouble is sometimes saved by having a small yard for such purposes.

The height of fence required depends on the size and weight of the turkeys and also upon whether they are in the habit of flying. A turkey that is not accustomed to fly may not attempt to go over a fence four or five feet high that has no top upon which it could alight. The same bird, when confined in a strange place, might, without hesitation, fly to a roof twice as high, because, although not in the habit of flying, it has the power to fly such a distance and can see that the roof offers a suitable place for alighting. A turkey in the habit of flying over obstacles will often go over a fence six or seven feet high without touching. A turkey hen that is laying will not fly as freely as one that is not, because the weight and bulk of the eggs in her body enc.u.mber her movements. For this reason a five-foot fence is usually high enough for a yard for breeding stock, if they are to be confined to it only as much as is necessary in order to make sure that the hens will lay at home.

=Feeding.= The natural diet of the turkey, like that of all birds of the order of _Scratchers_, consists of a variety of vegetable and animal foods. Turkeys eat the same things that fowls eat, and apparently in about the same proportions, but their foraging habits are quite different. The disposition of the fowl is to dig for its food wherever it appears that anything is to be had by scratching. The turkey will scratch a little, but it prefers to wander over the land, picking up the food that is in sight. Fowls will forage from their house to the limits of their usual range and return many times in the course of a day. A flock of turkeys, if allowed to do so, leaves its roosting place in the morning and makes a wide circuit, often returning home in the afternoon from a direction nearly opposite to the direction they took in the morning. On their circuit, which is likely to follow the same course day after day, turkeys have their favorite feeding and resting places.

Persons familiar with the route of a flock can tell where they are likely to be found at any hour of the day. If food becomes scarce on their circuit, the turkeys extend it, or go on an exploring expedition which takes them a long way from home. If night overtakes them at a distance from home, they look for a convenient roosting place and remain there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 160. Turkey roost in shelter of barn on a Rhode Island farm]

The feeding habits of the turkey make it especially valuable for destroying gra.s.shoppers and other insects that damage field crops. To get an adequate idea of the great quant.i.ties of insects destroyed by a flock of turkeys, and of the waste food that they save and turn to profit by eating it, one should take careful note of the amount of food consumed when the turkeys are fed all that they can eat at one time (as when they are being fattened), and from this compute the amount that a flock must pick in order to live, as many flocks do, from spring until fall almost wholly upon what they get by foraging. Turkeys are much more systematic foragers than fowls, working more in concert. A flock advances in an irregular yet orderly formation, taking all the choice food in its way, but not often tempted to side excursions which would disperse the flock.

Many people who keep turkeys make a practice of feeding a little grain, usually corn, in the evening as an inducement to them to come home. When they require more food, they may be given whatever is fed to the fowls.

Indeed, unless some arrangement is made by which the fowls and turkeys are fed separately, the turkeys may get the habit of being on hand when the fowls are fed, and drive them from the food. This, however, is most likely to happen when the range for the turkeys is so restricted that it does not afford good picking.

=Breeding season and laying habits.= Experienced growers of turkeys like to get their young turkeys hatched about the time when settled weather may be expected in the spring. Little turkeys are less rugged than little chickens, and are very sensitive to cold, damp weather. Although the hens may have been very domestic all winter, when they begin to lay they develop more of a roving disposition than is at all satisfactory to their keeper. They are very likely to want to hide their nests. When this is the case, and there is no yard in which they may be confined, they make a great deal of trouble. They often go a long way from home to find places for their nests, and make such wide circuits, and double on their tracks so often in going and returning, that the nests are very hard to find. There is nothing to do in such cases but to confine the turkey or to follow her day after day until the nest is found. If she is to be confined, it should be done as soon as she indicates that she does not intend to take one of the nests provided or to make one at home.

When, in spite of efforts to prevent it, a turkey hen makes a nest at a distance and has laid some eggs in it before the nest is discovered, it is best to allow her to continue to lay there, but the eggs should be removed as soon as laid. The egg of a turkey is about twice as large as a hen's egg. The usual color is a light, slightly bluish, brown, with small spots of a darker shade.

=Hatching and rearing.= Turkey eggs are often incubated by fowls. A fowl will hatch the eggs just as well as a turkey hen, and may make as good a mother for a few turkeys grown on a small place. For young turkeys grown on the farm, turkey hens make the best mothers, because they take them to better foraging ground and remain with them all the season. It is a good plan, especially when there are more turkey eggs than the turkey hens can cover, to set some fowls on the surplus eggs at the same time that the turkey hens are set. Then, as there will rarely be a full hatch from all nests, the young turkeys hatched by the fowls will fill up the broods of the turkey mothers. A fowl will cover from seven to nine turkey eggs. As a rule it is better to give the smaller number. A turkey hen will cover from twelve to fifteen of her own eggs, or even a larger number, but the young turkeys will be stronger if the nest is not too full. The period of incubation is four weeks. Even when normally strong and healthy, little turkeys appear weak in comparison with lively young chickens and ducks or the more bulky goslings. They may be fed the same as young chickens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 161. Sheltered turkey nest. (Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

It is the common practice to confine the mother to a coop from which the little turkeys can go to a small pen placed in front of it. The pen may be made of wide boards placed on edge, or of light frames covered with one-inch-mesh wire netting. The coop and pen should be moved before the gra.s.s becomes much trampled and soiled. The little turkeys can be kept in such an inclosure for only about a week or ten days. As they increase in size, and as their wings grow, they fly over low obstacles as easily and naturally as little chickens scratch or as little ducks swim. Having once flown out of the pen, they cannot be kept in it or in any inclosure that has not a high fence or a cover. When only two weeks old, little Bronze Turkeys have been seen flying to the top of a five-foot fence and, after a few efforts, reaching it with seeming ease.

No matter how contented old turkeys that produced them may have been in confinement, young turkeys become restless as soon as their wings and legs are strong, and, unless prevented from doing so, will begin to roam long distances. They do not wait for the mother, whether fowl or turkey, to take the initiative and lead them. If she is not disposed to rove, they start and let her follow. A turkey hen quickly catches their spirit and goes with them and keeps them together; a fowl is likely to follow them reluctantly, allow them to scatter, and lose a part of the brood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 162. Turkey brood coop. (Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

When the little turkeys have reached this stage, the best plan of managing them depends upon circ.u.mstances. If there is little danger of enemies disturbing them, they may be given a light feed in the morning and then allowed to forage where they please, the person in charge looking occasionally to see that they do not go too far and, if necessary, bringing them back or starting them off in another direction.

In case of a sudden, hard shower the turkeys must be looked up, and if any have been caught out in the rain and have been chilled and wet, they should be warmed and dried at once. The usual way to do this is to wrap the bird in a piece of old flannel and place it in an oven at a temperature of about 100 degrees, or near a stove. If this is done promptly, a bird that seemed to be nearly dead from wet and cold may be running about as well as ever in an hour. A large part of the losses of little turkeys is due to lack of attention in matters of this kind, or to delaying it until the injury cannot be fully repaired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 163. Turkey hen with brood. (Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

After the young turkeys are five or six weeks old, they do not need such close watching. They are now so well feathered that their plumage sheds rain, and if they are thrifty, a little wetting will not hurt them. It is at this age that the symptoms of the disease called _blackhead_ begin to appear, if it is present, and the turkeys pine away and die one by one. Blackhead is a contagious liver disease which affects fowls as well as turkeys, but is most fatal to young turkeys, because it is a filth disease; as has been said, turkeys are especially sensitive to foul conditions, and the young of all kinds of poultry are more sensitive to such conditions than the adults. The germs of the disease pa.s.s into the soil with the excrement of affected birds and may remain there for several years. Young birds feeding on land containing these germs may take up some with their food. If the birds are vigorous and thrifty and the land is not badly infected, no harm may be done, but if the birds are weakly and the land is so badly infected that they are constantly taking up more germs, the disease soon develops in acute form.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 164. Driving turkeys to market in Tennessee.

(Photograph from the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

Many people suppose that if once they have serious trouble with this disease, it is useless for them to try to grow turkeys, but this is an error. The germs of the disease are destroyed by cultivating the land and exposing them to the sun and air. Three or four years of cultivation will rid a piece of land of disease germs, no matter how badly it is affected. The infection is not usually distributed in dangerous quant.i.ties all over a farm or all over the land on which the turkeys and fowls have ranged. It is princ.i.p.ally on the land near the farm buildings. There would be very little danger from diseases of this kind on farms if those who feed the poultry would make it a practice to scatter food on clean gra.s.s or cultivated ground at a little distance from the buildings, instead of giving it (as too many do) on ground that is bare year after year and never cultivated.

On a large farm the turkeys should not require close attention after they are two months old. A little food may be given to them in the morning and again in the evening, to keep them familiar with the person in charge, and if they are inclined to stray too far, they should be rounded up soon after noon and started toward home. Having started in that direction, they may be left to come at their leisure. They should pick the most of their living until the time comes to begin to fatten them. Beginning about three weeks before they are to be killed, they should be fed two or three times a day all the whole corn they will eat.

CHAPTER XII

GUINEAS

=Description.= The guinea, or guinea fowl, is about the size of a small fowl. It is very much like the fowl in some respects but not at all like it in some others. Naturalists cla.s.sify it in the pheasant family, but its present place in domestication is so different from that of the pheasant that a poultry keeper hardly ever a.s.sociates them in his thought. In appearance the guinea is a unique bird. The shape of the body and shape of the head are both peculiar. The body is quite plump, the back nearly horizontal, and the tail short and much depressed. The neck and legs are rather short. The feathers of the neck are short, and the head is bare. The skin of the head and face is a bluish-white. The bird has a small, k.n.o.blike red comb and short, stiff, red wattles projecting from the cheeks. The plumage of the body is quite long, loose, and soft, and lies so smoothly that it appears much shorter and closer than it is.

The male and female are of nearly the same size, and so like in appearance that the s.e.x cannot be distinguished with certainty by any external character. The comb and wattles of the male are sometimes conspicuously larger than those Of the female, but this difference is not regular. Although the voices of the male and female are different, the difference is not easily described, nor is it readily detected except by people who are familiar with the birds, and whose ears are trained to distinguish the different notes. Both s.e.xes make a rapid, sharp, clattering sound, and also a shrill cry of two notes. The cry of the male is harsher and has a more aggressive tone; that of the female has a somewhat plaintive sound, which some people describe as like the words "come back, come back."

The name "guinea" comes from the country of Guinea in Africa, from which the birds were introduced into America and Western Europe. The male guinea fowl is called a guinea c.o.c.k; the female, a guinea hen; the young, guinea chickens.

=Origin.= The guinea fowl is a native of Africa. It is said that there are about a dozen similar species on that continent. This species is abundant there in both the wild and the domesticated state, and also in a half-wild state. It was probably brought into partial domestication at a very early date, for it was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as to the early civilized nations of Northern Africa. It may have been distributed through Western Europe by the Romans. According to one account, some English monks had guineas in the thirteenth century. It is likely that they were rare in Europe at that time and soon disappeared, for the modern Europeans had never seen them until they were taken to Europe from the West Indies, where, it is said, they had been brought by slave ships from Africa. There is a tradition that the first guineas in America were brought direct from Africa with the first cargo of slaves from that continent. In the West Indies and in South America the guinea, after its introduction, ran wild. The natural color of the species is a bluish-gray with many small, round white spots on each feather. On the flight feathers of the wings these spots are so placed that they form irregular bars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 165. White guinea fowls]

=Varieties.= The only change that has taken place in the guinea in domestication is the production of color varieties. White sports from the original variety, which is called the Pearl Guinea, were developed as a distinct variety. Crosses of White and Pearl Guineas produced birds with white on the neck, the breast, and the under part of the body.

These are called Pied Guineas, but are not regarded as a distinct variety. Birds with the original white markings but with the color very much lighter and sometimes of a decidedly reddish tinge have also been produced by crossing. These are not considered a distinct variety, but are sometimes exhibited as such under the name of "Lavender Guineas."

Some of the older works on poultry describe the Self-Colored Guinea, a gray bird without white spots, and the Netted Guinea, in which the original colors are reversed. The author has never seen these varieties, nor has he found any mention of them in the works of later writers.

=Place in domestication.= The guinea is as eccentric in nature and habits as it is unique in appearance. It is an ill-tempered bird, very pugnacious, and persistently annoys any other birds with which it comes in contact. While inclined to be shy of man and to resent his control, it likes to establish itself between wild and domestic conditions, where it is independent yet enjoys the safety from its enemies that proximity to the habitations of man affords. The hens are very prolific layers.

This characteristic is said to be as well developed in the wild as in the domestic stock. Although they lay so well, they are not usually considered desirable for egg production, because the eggs are small and it is hard to keep the birds under such control that the eggs are easily secured. The flesh and skin of the guinea are quite dark in color. The dressed carca.s.s is not at all attractive in appearance, but the meat is very good. Many people prefer it to the flesh of the fowl.

The guinea is not really a domestic bird. It is possible to keep a few in confinement and to rear the young with other poultry, but the adult birds are so noisy and vicious that very few people want them near the house or with other poultry. They would not be tolerated as much as they are but for the traditional notion that their noisy clamor keeps hawks away. Many farmers keep a few guineas, supposing that they are of service in this way. Those who have tried to find out whether the noise of the guinea really has any effect on hawks say that the hawks are just as bad where there are guineas as where there are none.

The only way that guineas can be made profitable is by treating them as half-wild birds--letting them establish themselves in the woods where they can maintain themselves--and then shooting or trapping a part of the flock each season. The number of guineas now produced in this way is steadily increasing in many parts of the United States where the winters are not severe and where wild animals which prey upon game birds are kept in subjection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 166. White guinea hen with brood]

=Management of domestic guineas.= As has been stated, guineas are so hard to control that few persons try to keep them in close quarters or where they must have particular attention. When a few birds are kept on a farm, they are usually allowed to wander at will; the owner secures as many of their eggs as he can find before they spoil, and perhaps hatches a few of them under hens, for the guinea hens often lay a long time without going broody. As they are p.r.o.ne to hide their nests and are very clever in eluding observation, it not infrequently happens that, when a nest is found, it contains a great many eggs, a large part of which have been spoiled by long exposure to the weather.

The first care of the breeder of these birds is to see that he has suitable proportions of males and females. Guineas are disposed to mate in pairs. Some poultry keepers who have observed them closely say that while one or more extra females may a.s.sociate with a pair, the eggs of the extra females do not usually hatch well. Occasionally it happens that a small flock are all males or all females, and the owner does not find it out until too late in the season to get a bird of the missing s.e.x. When a supposed guinea hen does not lay in the breeding season, the owner often thinks that she lays but manages to completely baffle his search for the nest.

The period of incubation for guinea eggs is four weeks. The young birds may be managed the same as young turkeys while small, but do not need as close watching to keep them from wandering away. Those that are hatched and reared by fowls are tamer than those reared by guinea hens, but are not so hardy.

CHAPTER XIII

PEAFOWLS

The peac.o.c.k, or male peafowl, when matured and in full plumage, is the most gorgeous of birds. Many smaller birds are more brilliant in color.

Many birds of various sizes and types have beautiful or interesting characters as attractive as those which distinguish the peac.o.c.k. But this bird surpa.s.ses them all in attractiveness, because in it are combined in the highest degree size, beauty of form, beauty of color, and the power of displaying its beauties to the greatest advantage.

=Description.= The adult peac.o.c.k is so much more striking in appearance than the females and the young males, and old males are so often exhibited alone, that many persons suppose that the peafowl are distinctly unlike other domestic birds. The size, shape, and carriage of the peac.o.c.k sometimes suggest to them a resemblance to the turkey gobbler, but the peac.o.c.k's most striking characters seem so peculiar to it that the attention of the observer is usually fixed upon them, to the exclusion of direct comparisons with other creatures. When, however, one sees a flock containing several females, or males in which the characteristic plumage is not yet developed, the general resemblance between peafowl and turkeys is immediately noticed. The peafowl is smaller, slenderer, and more graceful than the turkey, and is a little more agile in motion. But if there were no old males present to identify the species, to which they belong, a person who was not familiar with peafowls, seeing a flock for the first time, would be almost certain to think that they were turkeys of a rare breed. Notwithstanding this striking general likeness, a close observer will soon note that in nearly every conspicuous character the differences between the two indicate that they belong to entirely different species. The voice of the peafowl is a harsh, piercing scream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 167. Indian Peac.o.c.k. (Photograph from the New York Zoological Society)]

The development of the plumage in the male at full maturity is like that of the fowl and of some pheasants. In all of these species in which the tail of the male a.s.sumes a highly decorative form, it is not the tail proper that is so developed, but the tail coverts and other feathers of the back, which in the male are long and flowing. In the peac.o.c.k these feathers are very remarkably developed, both in form and in color. The largest are sometimes a yard long. The stem, or shaft, is a marvelous combination of lightness and strength. For the greater part of the length of the shaft the barbs are so far apart that they do not form a web, but make a fringe on each side. Toward the tip of the feather the barbs are closer together, and at the extremity they form a broad web.

The feathers of this structure growing next to the main tail feathers are the longest. The next are a little shorter, and thus the length diminishes until the shortest coverts are only a little longer than the ordinary feathers of the back. This feather formation is called the train. The train of the peac.o.c.k is the most prominent peculiarity of the species, but there is also in both s.e.xes another uncommon feather character--the curious little tuft, or crest (called the aigret), which grows on the head.

The surface color of the peac.o.c.k is a marvelous blending of purples, greens, golds, and bronzes of various hues. On the head and neck purple tints predominate. The train is mostly green with large, eyelike spots, or spangles, at the tip of each feather. The plumage of the female is a soft brown on the body, darkest on the back and shading to nearly white on the abdomen. The brown often shows slight tints of purple and green.

The neck and throat are a purple-green; much less intense than the coloring on the male. The young males are colored like the females until they molt in their second year. Then they become much darker, but it is not until the next molt, in their third year, that they grow the characteristic train and take on the brilliant coloration which is their greatest attraction.