Sheep, Swine, and Poultry Part 28

Reckoning, then, from the sh.e.l.l inward, there are _six_ different envelopes, of which one only could be detected before the descent of the egg into the oviduct: the sh.e.l.l; the external layer of the membrane lining the sh.e.l.l; the internal layer of same lining; the white, composed of a thinner liquid on the outside, and a thicker and more yellowish liquid on the inside; the bulgings, or chalaziferous membrane; and the proper membrane.

One important part of the egg is the _air-bag_, placed at the larger end, between the sh.e.l.l and its lining membrane. This is about the size of the eye of a small bird in new-laid eggs, but is increased as much as ten times in the process of hatching. The air bag is of such great importance to the development of the chicken--probably by supplying it with a limited atmosphere of oxygen--that, if the blunt end of an egg be pierced with the point of the smallest needle, the egg cannot be hatched.

Instead of one rudimental egg falling from the ovarium, two may be detected, and will, of course, be inclosed in the same sh.e.l.l, when the egg will be double-yolked. The eggs of a goose have, in some instances, contained even three yolks. If the double-yolked eggs be hatched, they will rarely produce two separate chickens, but, more commonly, monstrosities--chickens with two heads, and the like.

The _sh.e.l.l_ of an egg, chemically speaking, consists chiefly of carbonate of lime, similar to chalk, with a small quant.i.ty of phosphate of lime, and animal mucus. When burnt, the animal matter and the carbonic acid gas of the carbonate of lime are separated; the first being reduced to ashes, or animal charcoal, while the second is dissipated, leaving the decarbonized lime mixed with a little phosphate of lime.

The _white_ of the egg is without taste or smell, of a viscid, glairy consistence, readily dissolving in water, coagulable by acids, by spirits of wine, and by a temperature of one hundred and sixty-five degrees, Fahrenheit. If it has once been coagulated, it is no longer soluble in either cold or hot water, and acquires a slight insipid taste. It is composed of eighty parts of water, fifteen and a half parts of alb.u.men, and four and a half parts of mucus; besides giving traces of soda, benzoic acid, and sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The latter, on an egg being eaten on a silver spoon, stains the spoon of a blackish purple, by combining with the silver, and forming sulphuret of silver.

The white of the egg is a very feeble conductor of heat, r.e.t.a.r.ding its escape; and preventing its entrance to the yolk; a providential contrivance, not merely to prevent speedy fermentation and corruption, but to arrest the fatal chills, which might occur in hatching, when the mother hen leaves her eggs, from time to time, in search of food. Eels and other fish which can live long out of water, secrete a similar viscid substance on the surface of their bodies, furnished to them, doubtless, for a similar purpose.

The _yolk_ has an insipid, bland, oily taste; and, when agitated with water, forms a milky emulsion. If it is long boiled it becomes a granular, friable solid, yielding upon expression, a yellow, insipid, fixed oil. It consists, chemically, of water, oil, alb.u.men, and gelatine. In proportion to the quant.i.ty of alb.u.men, the egg boils hard.

The weight of the eggs of the domestic fowl varies materially; in some breeds, averaging thirty-three ounces per dozen, in others, but fourteen and a half ounces. A fair average weight for a dozen is twenty-two and a half ounces. Yellow, mahogany, and salmon-colored eggs are generally richer than white ones, containing, as they do, a larger quant.i.ty of yolk. These are generally preferred for culinary purposes; while the latter, containing an excess of alb.u.men, are preferred for boiling, etc., for the table.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT

BREEDING. Good fowls are very profitable in the keeping of intelligent breeders. It is stated, by those most competent to express the opinion, that four acres of land, devoted to the rearing of the best varieties of poultry, will, at ordinary prices, be quite as productive as a farm of one hundred and fifty acres cultivated in the usual way. The eggs of the common and cheaper kinds which might be used for incubators and nurses, would pay--or could be made to pay, if properly preserved, and sold at the right time--all expenses of feed, etc.; while good capons of the larger breeds will bring, in any of our larger markets, from three to five dollars per pair, and early spring chickens from twenty to twenty-five cents per pound.

To make poultry profitable, then, it is only necessary that the better kinds be bred from, that suitable places be provided for them, that they be properly fed, and carefully and intelligently managed. These requirements are too rarely complied with, in every respect, to enable a correct opinion to be formed as to what may be made out of poultry under the most favorable circ.u.mstances.

A few general principles, well-understood and faithfully applied, will prove of great value. By "in-and-in breeding" is meant commerce between individuals of the same brood, or brother and sister, so to speak; by "close breeding," commerce between the parent and his offspring, in whatever degree.

_Crossing the breed._ To insure successful and beneficial crossing of distinct breeds, in order to produce a new and valuable variety, the breeder must have an accurate knowledge of the laws of procreation, and the varied influences of parents upon their offspring. All the breeds in this country are crosses, produced either by accident or design.

Crossing does not necessarily produce a breed; but it always produces a variety, and that variety becomes a breed only where there is a sufficiency of stamina to make a distinctive race, and continue a progeny with the uniform or leading characteristics of its progenitors.

_High breeding._ When uniformity of plumage can be effected in mixed breeds or varieties without a resort to in-and-in, or close breeding, and without sacrificing the health and vigor of the race, it is desirable; and, in many instances, it can be accomplished in a satisfactory manner. What are called highly-bred fowls are, however, too often the deteriorated offspring of progenitors far below the original stock. Genuine high breeding consists in the selection of parent stock of the same race, perfect in all the general characteristics, and _of remote consanguinity_. This should be resorted to periodically, in order to secure the best results.

If a race is _pure_--that is, if the species or variety is absolutely distinct and unsophisticated--the progeny resembles the progenitors in almost every respect. The mixture of races, where the consanguinity is remote, is productive of decided benefits.

To ill.u.s.trate, in the case of fowls: when the blood is _unmixed_--as with the Guelderlands, and some others--the offspring, _in all respects_, resemble their parents; in plumage, general habits, form, outline, etc. In this case, they look almost identically the same. But when the blood is _mixed_--as with the Cochin Chinas, and many others--the plumage will vary widely, or slightly, according to circ.u.mstances, though many or most of the general characteristics may remain the same. The close breeding, to which many resort for the purpose of procuring uniformity, generally results in an absolute deterioration of the race in important respects.

In some cases, close breeding--and, occasionally, in-and-in--seems to be in accordance with the laws of Nature; as with the wild turkey, which, in its natural state, resorts to these modes of breeding; and yet the race does not change in appearance or degenerate. The reason is that the breed is pure. In comparing any number of these birds, not the least dissimilarity is discoverable; they all look alike, as they always have, and always will. They are changed, or deteriorated, only by crossing or confinement.

Most breeds of the hen kind degenerate rapidly from close, or in-and-in breeding, because they are not perfect of their kind; that is, the breed is not pure, but of mixed blood; and in such objectionable breeding, the race degenerates just in proportion as the breed is imperfect, or impure. The perfect Guelderland will admit of these modes of breeding, for a great length of time, without deterioration; but the impure or mixed will rapidly degenerate. This is also true of all breeds, wherein the characteristic marks are uniform and confirmed, showing perfection in the race.

As a general rule, however, close and in-and-in breeding should be carefully avoided where the race is not absolutely perfect, if it is desired to improve the breed; and as all the breeds of this kind of fowls are of mixed blood, the danger of such breeding is greater or less, in exact proportion as the distinctive characteristics are variant or fixed; and the danger still increases if the breed is composed of strains of blood greatly dissimilar, or of races widely differing in the conformation or general habits.

_Preserving the distinctive breeds._ As to the time when the different breeds of hens should be separated in the spring, in order to preserve the breed pure, the most ample experience indicates that if the eggs be preserved and set after a separation of _two days_, the breed will be perfect, the offspring having all the characteristics or distinctive marks.

When a valuable breed is produced, either by accident or design, it should be preserved, and the subsequent breeding should continue from that stock; otherwise, there is no certainty of the purity of the blood of the new breed, for it does not follow that a different parentage, though of the same name or original breed precisely, will produce the same new breed, or any thing resembling it. The Dorking fowl, for instance, was originally produced by crossing the Great Malay with the English Game, as an accident; but it by no means follows that Dorkings are the uniform, or even the common result of such a cross, for hundreds of similar experiments have proved unsuccessful. The breeding, therefore, to be pure-blooded, must continue from the stock originally produced by accident; and as such breeding produces the leading characteristics of the race with great uniformity, the genuineness of the breed cannot be doubted.

In order to produce a good cross, the parentage should be healthy, and from healthy races, not materially dissimilar in their general habits.

The _size of the leg_ should always be looked to, in order to judge accurately as to purity of blood. If the leg is large for the breed--that is, if larger than the generality of the same breed--the purity of the blood, the fineness of the flesh, and most of the other valuable qualities, can be relied on; but, if the legs are smaller than most others of the same breed, the fowl is spurious, and of deteriorated blood. The fifth toe and feathered legs of some breeds were originally the result of accident; but by long and careful breeding, they have become incorporated into the nature of certain races of general, though not universal or essential, requisites. When a fowl exhibits any special marks indicative of all the races or breeds from which the cross originated, it is a sure evidence of extraordinary purity of blood, and of the superior excellence of the race. The best fowls of the race should always be selected for crossing or general breeding; otherwise the breeds will degenerate.

The _quality_--that is, the fineness, juiciness, and richness of flavor--of the flesh of domestic fowls is of much more importance than their size. All coa.r.s.e-meated fowls should, therefore, be rejected, no matter how large they may be. There is no difficulty in discriminating between coa.r.s.e and fine fowls at any time. In the case of chickens, if the down is straight and stands out, and the body and limbs are loosely joined, the meat is coa.r.s.e; but if the down is glossy, and lies close to the body, and the body and limbs are compactly formed, the meat is fine; and when grown, if the fowl is light in weight, in proportion to its size, the flesh is coa.r.s.e; but if heavy, the flesh is fine.

There is also a _fitness_ in the quality of the flesh; for, if the meat is fine, the bones are fine, and the feathers are fine; and the converse holds true. If the flesh is fine, it is juicy and richly flavored; if coa.r.s.e, it is dry, fibrous, and insipid.

The _color of the legs_, too, is quite material in judging of the quality of fowls. All other things being equal, dark-legged fowls have the finest flesh, and are most hardy. Turkeys, which have the finest flesh of any fowl of their size, have black legs; the game-c.o.c.k, likewise, which is universally acknowledged to be the finest-fleshed of any of the domestic fowls, except the Wild Indian fowl of Calcutta, has dark legs. It does not, however, of necessity follow that all dark-legged fowls are fine, or that all yellow or white-legged ones are coa.r.s.e, since much depends upon the breed; but it is true that the darkest leg which pertains to the breed indicates the finest fowl.

The _color of the feathers_, also, has more or less to do with the quality of the fowl. Some breeds have a much more brilliant plumage than others; but when brilliancy of plumage is here spoken of, it is to be understood in comparison with others of the same breed. If, therefore, a fowl is selected of rich and glossy plumage, when compared with others of the same breed, the legs will be dark of the kind, and the quality of the bird will excel.

The _best_ breeding is to cross or mix the races; this process improves the breeds, in all respects. When the object in view is to perpetuate distinct varieties of uncontaminated blood, the first requisite is to procure fowls known to be of pure blood, and possessing all the necessary characteristics of their kind. Labor is lost, unless the fowl selected is a perfect specimen of the variety; for whatever imperfection exists is likely to be perpetuated in the progeny. Regard should be had to plumage, size, and form, in making a selection either of a c.o.c.k or a pullet; and those are preferable which are hatched earliest in the year.

The _age_ of the fowls is a matter of considerable importance; and, though it is true that a pullet will lay the greatest number of eggs in her first year, yet it is believed that the chickens which are hatched from the second year's eggs are more vigorous and hardy. Old hens are generally preferred to pullets as sitters, on account of their more sedate and matronly character. A young c.o.c.k, though more active in his earliest days, and likely to bestow his attention on the hens with less reserve, is not, however, best for use in keeping up a breed. The eggs impregnated by him after his first season are likely to produce the strongest chickens. It is an error to suppose--as is often represented--that his procreative power is decayed or vitiated after three or four years. On the contrary, a healthy, vigorous c.o.c.k, if not allowed to walk with too many hens, may be valuable and useful in the poultry-yard for a longer time.

An error is often committed by a.s.signing too many hens to one c.o.c.k; and the result is a weakly and otherwise deteriorated progeny. Not more than _five_ hens should be allowed to a.s.sociate with a single c.o.c.k, when the quality of the breed is a matter of interest. _Three_, indeed, would be the better number for restriction; but five is the farthest limit which can be safely a.s.signed.

Most persons, in obtaining a single vigorous c.o.c.k and hen of a desirable variety, find their antic.i.p.ations more than realized in the production of a fine progeny. The plumage is brilliant, and the chickens are of increased size, and remarkably strong and healthy. This desirable state of things continues so long as the c.o.c.k is restricted to a small number of hens; but as soon as his harem is enlarged, different effects are manifested, and a deterioration in the stock is clearly observable--attributable, not to close-breeding, but to the increased disproportion of the females to the male, and the consequent overtasking of his powers.

In breeding-time, great cleanliness should be preserved in the lodgings of the fowls, and the quant.i.ty and quality of food should be attended to. They should not be suffered to feed to repletion, and such kinds of food as are most nutritious should be carefully provided. Variety of food is essential; and a proper proportion of animal and green food should be given with their usual fare. Suitable arrangements should, of course, be made to prevent any intermixture of breeds. A constant vigilance in this respect is the price of success; and when all proper precautions are taken, the breeder may be perfectly secure that his antic.i.p.ations will be realized.

SELECTION OF STOCK.

The habits of the domestic fowl, in a wild state, are too little known to ascertain whether the c.o.c.ks always a.s.sociate with the hens, or only occasionally. Though hens will lay some eggs without pairing, as this is not natural, the number will, for the most part, be less, and the laying uncertain; it is, therefore, indispensable to attend to the laws of Nature in this respect.

The number of hens to be allowed to one c.o.c.k should vary with the object in view. The limit for valuable breeding purposes has already been indicated. If profit is sought for, in the production of eggs alone, one c.o.c.k--if a stout, young, and lively bird--may have as many as twenty-four hens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGHTING c.o.c.kS.]

_The choice of a c.o.c.k_ is a very important thing. He is considered to have every requisite quality when he is of a good middling size; carries his head high; has a quick, animated look; a strong and shrill voice; a fine red comb, shining as if varnished; wattles of a large size, and of the same color as the comb; the breast broad; the wings strong; the plumage black or of an obscure red; the thighs very muscular; the legs thick, and furnished with strong spurs; and the claws rather bent and sharply pointed. He ought, also, to be free in his motions, to crow frequently, and to scratch the ground often in search of worms, not so much for himself as to treat his hens. He ought, withal, to be brisk, spirited, ardent, and ready in caressing the hens; quick in defending them, attentive in soliciting them to eat, in keeping them together, and in a.s.sembling them at night.

In breeding _game c.o.c.ks_, the qualities required are every mark of perfect health, such as a ruddy complexion; the feathers close, short, and not feeling cold or dry; the flesh firm and compact; and a full breast, betokening good lungs; a tapering and thinness behind. He should be full in the girth, well coupled, lofty and aspiring, with a good thigh, the beam of his leg very strong, the eye large and vivid, and the beak strong, crooked, and thick at the base.

A c.o.c.k is in his prime at two years old; though c.o.c.ks are sometimes so precocious as to show every mark of full vigor at four months, while others of the same brood do not appear in that state for several months afterward. When marks of declining vigor are perceived, the c.o.c.k must be displaced, to make way for a successor, which should be chosen from among the finest and bravest of the supernumerary young c.o.c.ks, that ought to be reared for this special purpose.

The change of c.o.c.ks is of much importance, and is frequently very troublesome to manage; for peace does not long subsist between them when they hold a divided dominion in the poultry-yard, since they are all actuated by a restless, jealous, hasty, fiery, ardent disposition; and hence their quarrels become no less frequent than sanguinary. A battle soon succeeds to provocation or affront. The two opponents face each other, their feathers bristling up, their necks stretched out, their heads low, and their beaks ready for the onslaught. They observe each other in silence, with fixed and sparkling eyes. On the least motion of either, they stand stiffly up, and rush furiously forward, dashing at each other with beak and spur in repeated sallies, till the more powerful or the more adroit has grievously torn the comb and wattles of his adversary, has thrown him down by the heavy stroke of his wings, or has stabbed him with his spurs.

In _the choice of a hen_ for sitting, a large bird should be selected, with large, wide-spreading wings. Though large, she must not, however, be heavy nor leggy. No one of judgment would sit a Malay; as, in such case, not only would many eggs remain uncovered, but many, also, would be trampled upon and broken. Elderly hens will be more willing to sit than young and giddy pullets.

After the common hen, which, on account of her fecundity, is deservedly esteemed, the tufted hens may be justly ranked; particularly from being more delicate eating, because she fattens more readily, on account of laying less. The large breed, though less prolific, is preferable in rearing chickens for the market, or for making capons. With regard to these three kinds, the general opinion of breeders is, that the first is more prolific in the number of eggs, while the others produce larger chickens, which bring good prices.

The Spanish fowl are not generally good sitters, but are excellent layers; the Dorkings reverse the order, being better sitters than layers. These qualities will be found to extend pretty generally to hens partaking of the prevailing colors of these two varieties; the black being usually the best layers, and but careless or indifferent sitters, while gray or checkered hens are the best that can be produced.

FEEDING.

Experiments have demonstrated that what may be called the gastric juice in fowls has not sufficient power to dissolve their food, without the aid of the grinding action of the gizzard. Before the food is prepared for digestion, therefore, the grains must be subjected to a triturating process; and such as are not sufficiently bruised in this manner, before pa.s.sing into the gizzard, are there reduced to the proper state, by its natural action. The action of the gizzard is, in this respect, mechanical; this organ serving as a mill to grind the food to pieces, and then, by means of its powerful muscles, pressing it gradually into the intestines, in the form of pulp. The power of this organ is said to be sufficient to pulverize hollow globules of gla.s.s in a very short time, and solid ma.s.ses of the same substance in a few weeks. The rapidity of this process seems to be proportionate, generally, to the size of the bird. A chicken, for example, breaks up such substances as are received into its stomach less readily than the capon; while a goose performs the same operation sooner than either. Needles, and even lancets, given to turkeys, have been broken in pieces and voided, without any apparent injury to the stomach. The reason, undoubtedly, is, that the larger species of birds have thicker and more powerful organs of digestion.

It has long been the general opinion that, from some deficiency in the digestive apparatus, fowls are obliged to resort to the use of stones and gravel, in order to enable them to dispose of the food which they consume. Some have supposed that the use of these stones is to sheath the gizzard, in order to fit it to break into smaller fragments the hard, angular substances which might be swallowed; they have also been considered to have a medicinal effect; others have imagined that they acted as absorbents for undue quant.i.ties of acids in the stomach, or as stimulants to digestion; while it has even been gravely a.s.serted that they contribute directly to nutrition.