175. As to _fatting_ turkeys, the best way is, never to let them be poor. _Cramming_ is a nasty thing, and quite unnecessary. Barley-meal, mixed with skim-milk, given to them, fresh and fresh, will make them fat in a short time, either in a coop, in a house, or running about. Boiled carrots and Swedish turnips will help, and it is a change of sweet food. In France they sometimes _pick turkeys alive_, to make them _tender_; of which I shall only say, that the man that can do this, or order it to be done, ought to be skinned alive himself.
176. These are kept for two objects; their _flesh_ and their _eggs_. As to _rearing them_, every thing said about rearing turkeys is applicable here. They are best _fatted_, too, in the same manner. But, as to _laying-hens_, there are some means to be used to secure the use of them in _winter_. They ought not to be _old hens_. Pullets, that is, birds hatched in the foregoing spring, are, perhaps, the best. At any rate, let them not be more than _two years old_. They should be kept in a _warm_ place, and not let out, even in the day-time, in _wet_ weather; for one good sound wetting will keep them back for a fortnight. The dry cold, even in the severest cold, if _dry_, is less injurious than even a little _wet_ in winter-time. If the feathers get wet, in our climate, in winter, or in short days, they do not get dry for a long time; and this it is that spoils and kills many of our fowls.
177. The French, who are great egg-eaters, take singular pains as to the _food_ of laying-hens in winter. They let them out very little, even in their fine climate, and give them very stimulating food; barley boiled, and given them warm; curds, _buck-wheat_, (which, I believe, is the best thing of all except curds;) parsley and other herbs chopped fine; leeks chopped in the same way; also apples and pears chopped very fine; oats and wheat cribbled; and sometimes they give them hemp-seed, and the seed of nettles; or dried nettles, harvested in summer, and boiled in the winter. Some give them ordinary food, and, once a day, toasted bread sopped in wine. White cabbages chopped up are very good in winter for all sorts of poultry.
178. This is taking a great deal of pains; but the produce is also great and very valuable in winter; for, as to _preserved_ eggs, they are things to run _from_ and not after. All this supposes, however, a proper _hen-house_, about which we, in England, take very little pains. The _vermin_, that is to say, the _lice_, that poultry breed, are the greatest annoyance. And as our wet climate furnishes them, for a great part of the year, with no _dust_ by which to get rid of these vermin, we should be very careful about _cleanliness_ in the hen-houses. Many a hen, when sitting, is compelled to quit her nest to get rid of the lice. They torment the young chickens. And, in short, are a great injury. The fowl-house should, therefore, be very often cleaned out; and sand, or fresh earth, should be thrown on the floor. The nest should not be on _shelves_, or on any-thing fixed; but little flat baskets, something like those that the gardeners have in the markets in London, and which they call _sieves_, should be placed against the sides of the house upon pieces of wood nailed up for the purpose. By this means the nests are kept perfectly clean, because the baskets are, when necessary, taken down, the hay thrown out, and the baskets washed; which cannot be done, if the nest be made in any-thing forming a part of the building. Besides this, the roosts ought to be cleaned every week, and the hay changed in the nests of laying-hens. It is good to _fumigate_ the house frequently by burning dry herbs, juniper wood, cedar wood, or with brimstone; for nothing stands so much in need of cleanliness as a fowl-house, in order to have fine fowls and plenty of eggs.