POULTRY

Different kinds of birds reared for the production of eggs, feathers, and for the use of their bodies as animal food. The domestic poultry in common use in Britain are the common domestic fowls, or cock and hen, the turkey, the duck, and the goose; to which may be added, as occasionally reared, the guinea fowl and the peacock. The most generally useful kind of poultry is the common domestic fowl, which, though a native of India, accompanies man through all climates, biu which is only productive of abundance of eggs when well fed and warmly lodged. Hence, all poultry houses, when not built adjoining an apartment in which fire is kept, or over a stable or cowhouse, where they might benefit by the heat generated by the larger animals, ought to be furnished with flues, or some other means of generating heat artificially during winter and spring. Without some mode of effecting this, poultry will seldom produce abundance of eggs in cold weather, particularly in the colder parts of Britain. Hence, in Scotland^ the common hen roosts in the same room that the cottager lives in; and the poultry-house of the small farmer is a loft either over his kitchen, or over his cowhouse. In the management of poultry it is not sufficient to supply abundance of food and warmth, but it is equally nece ary that they have ample space for exercise. This space should always contain living plants of various kinds, and some gravelly or sandy soil; because worms, snails, and insects, as well as occasionally gra and herbage, form a part of the food of poultry; and sand or gravel is swallowed by them for the purpose of promoting digestion. Hence, no healthy poultry can ever be reared in towns, however much the natural food may be imitated by the supply of animal matters, herbage, and sand: the want of exercise in poultry so circumstanced will soon become evident from the appearance of the fowls, and from the soft shell of their eggs, in consequence of the animal functions not being efficiently performed. " [s. 980]