Journeying West Before 1840

Of Poultry and their Eggs.

POULTRY and their eggs come more immediately under the care and management of our country housewife, than any other outward part of the farmer's business; and accordingly many farmers think it their interest to let their wives have all the profit of their eggs and poultry, for raising money to buy what we call common or trivial necessaries in the house, as sugar, plumbs, spices, salt, oatmeal, &c. &c. which piece of encouragement engages our housewife and her maid-servants to take special care of feeding her poultry in due time, setting her hens early, and making capons at a proper age.

The best Feed for Dunghill Fowls, to make them lay early Eggs, and many of them --Is horsebeans and hempseed. Of the first, a particular woman had such an opinion, that she preferred it to all others, and the rather as horsebeans in some wet summers grow in prodigious plenty, and are sold very cheap, sometimes for less than two shillings a bushel; hempseed indeed is dearer. As this last is furnished with much hot oil, as the horsebean is with a very hot quality, they both cause hens to lay in winter, when no other common seed can so well; but if hens were confined always in a room, it hinders very much their laying. The game hen lays most eggs, but they are commonly the least sort.

Sorts of Hens.--The Hertfordshire dunghill fowls and their eggs have been in great esteem a long time, and at this time their eggs have the greater reputation of all others, insomuch that the very cryers of eggs about London streets take particular care to make the word Hertfordshire be well known; for our country is a Chiltern one, abounding with many hills, dry soils, gravelly rivers, plenty of most sorts of grain, and allow'd by professors of physick to be the healthiest air in England, all which undoubtedly contributes to the breeding of the best of eggs and soundest of dunghill fowls; a proof of which is very demonstrable, by the game cocks bred in Hertfordshire, that beat for the most part those bred in other counties. But I can't say our dunghill fowls exceed all others, for there are excellent sorts of the Poland, the Hamburgh, and the Darking dunghill fowls; the character of the last of which is hereafter inserted.

Of Hens sitting, and of Chickens and young Ducks.--The game hen sits oftner than the dunghill hen, and will fight the hawk better in defence of her chickens: But as their legs are commonly as black as their feathers, few farmers keep them, because their blackish chickens will not sell like the white-leg'd dunghill sort. When a hen sits on her own eggs, she commonly hatches in three weeks, but when she sits on duck eggs, a month. If she has sat a week on duck eggs, and by accident the eggs are broke, or the hen too much disturbed, so that if she is set again on other duck eggs, she will not sit out her time; in such a case, if she is set again on the hen eggs, she will, because on these she sits a shorter time than on the duck eggs. A hen that sits beyond her time of three weeks seldom brings all her eggs to perfection, which is chiefly owing to her being set in a cold place, or going too far for her meat when off; but that is the best hen that hatches a day or two before the usual time. It is a fault to set a pullet with too many eggs. One was set with eighteen eggs, which she sat on well till the first chicken chirp'd, and then she was affrighted, ran away, and forsook the rest, so that our housewife could preserve but three, and for bringing them up she was forced to use more than ordinary care.--To have early chickens, an industrious housewife living at Gaddesden had a brood of chickens a fortnight old this 25th of February 1747-8; she set her hen in a chimney corner that had no fire near it, but on the back of the same chimney there was a daily one kept, which struck such a sufficient heat to the corner, as enabled the hen to sit close in this cold season, and hatch twelve chickens, which our housewife kept in this place, giving them offald wheat, that was screened at the mill from good wheat, and now and then some wetted pollard; with these the chickens went on well, and for eating up what the chickens and their hen left, our housewife let in a laying hen now and then, so that here was no waste made.

Dunghill Fowls, their Nature, by Mortimer.--The oldest are best sitters, and the youngest best layers, but good for neither if kept too fat. To breed right chickens is, from two to five years old; the best month is February, and so any time between that and Michaelmas [here Mr. Mortimer is wrong, for when a hen begins to moult, she ought not to be set, because her chickens then seldom live.] A hen sits (says he) twenty days; geese, ducks, and turkeys, thirty; let them have always meat by them while they sit, that they may not straggle from their eggs and chill them. One cock will serve ten hens. If fowls are fed with buck-wheat, they will lay more eggs than ordinary, and the same with hempseed; the buck-wheat whole, or ground and made into paste, which is the best way: It is a grain that will fatten hogs or fowls speedily, but they are commonly fatten'd with barley-meal made into a paste with milk; but wheat-flower is better.--Mortimer, vol. I.

To fatten Hens, Pullets, Chickens, Capons, or Turkeys.--Their coops must be kept very clean, for all ill smells and nastiness is prejudicial to the fattening of fowls, as contributing towards giving their flesh a bad tang, and an unwholsome quality; to this purpose, they should have also two troughs, that one may be scalded and dried, while the other is in use, and both meat and water, or other liquor, should be kept from each other free of any mixture. As to their meat, there may be several sorts made; one by boiling barley till it is tender in water, another parcel of it in skim milk, another in strong ale; when so boiled, a little coarse sugar may be mixed with it. Or make a paste with barley-meal, and water or skim milk. And as to their drink, let them have strong ale or skim milk, or water wherein a little brickdust is mixed; for if they have not something to scower their maws or crops, they will not thrive to expectation, therefore if brickdust is not put into their drink, either a little of that, or fine sand, should be mixed with their meat now and then, to get them an appetite, and make them digest their food the quicker; the ale will intoxicate them, and cause them to sleep much and fatten the sooner, but the milk tends most to the whitening of their flesh. Now it wants no demonstration by argument, to prove that variety of meats forward the expeditious fattening of any animal; in this case, therefore, give any of these fowls these several sorts of foods alternately; so will they be creating them an appetite while they are fattening, to the making of them exceeding fat in a little time.

An ancient Author's Way to fatten Chickens.--Boil (says he) bread in milk, as though they were to eat it, but make it thick of the bread, which slice into it in thin slices, not so thick as if it were to make a pudding; but so that when the bread is eaten out, there may some liquid milk remain for the chickens to drink; or that at first you may take up some liquid milk in a spoon, if you industriously avoid the bread; sweeten very well the pottage with good kitchen sugar of four-pence per pound, so put it into the trough before them; put therein but little at a time (two or three spoonfuls) that you may not clog them, and feed them five times a day, between their awaking in the morning and their roosting at night. Give them no other drink, the milk that remaineth after they have eaten the bread is sufficient, neither give them gravel or aught else; keep their coops very clean, as also their troughs, cleansing them well every morning. To half a dozen very little chickens, little bigger than blackbirds, an ordinary porringer full every day may serve, and in eight days they will be prodigiously fat. One penny loaf, and less than two quarts of milk, and about half a pound of sugar, will serve little ones the whole time; bigger chickens will require more, and two or three days longer time; when any of them are at their height of fat, you must eat them, for if they live longer, they will fall back and grow lean; be sure to make their pottage very sweet.--Or you may pound rice in a mortar till it is very small, and the smaller the better, for then it may be made into a paste with scalded milk and coarse sugar, which if given to chickens by a little at a time, so that they are not gorged, will fatten them in a very little time; let them have ale or good small beer to drink, and give their meat warm.--But there is a receit that directs the fattening of chickens with rice without pounding or grinding it, only to boil rice in milk till it be very tender and pulpy, as when you make milk-pottage; it must be thick, that a spoon may stand an end in it; sweeten this very well with ordinary sugar, and put it into their troughs where they feed, that they may be always eating of it; it must be made fresh every day; their drink must be only milk in another little trough by their meat-trough; let a candle (ftly disposed) stand by them all night for seeing their meat, for they will eat all night long. You put the chickens up as soon as they can feed of themselves, which will be within a day or two after they are hatched, and in twelve days or a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat; but after they are come to their height, they presently fall back, so that they must be eaten. Their pen or coop must be contrived so, that the hen (who must be with them to sit over them) may not go at liberty to eat their meat, but be kept to her own diet in a part of their coop that she cannot get out of; but the chickens must have liberty to go from her to other parts of the coop, where they may eat their own meat, and come in again to the hen to be warm'd by her at their pleasure. You must be careful to keep their coop very clean.--Or you may scald oatmeal in milk, and feed the chickens with it the first week, and rice and sugar the second week; in a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat; a little gravel will now be necessary sometimes to cleanse their maws and give them an appetite.

Sir Kenelm Digby's Receit to make a luscious Food to fatten Chickens in the sweetest and quickest Manner.--Stone (says he) a pound of raisins of the sun, and beat them in a mortar to pulp, pour a quart of milk upon them, and let them soak so all night; next morning put to them as many crums of grated stale bread, which beaten together will bring them to a soft paste; work all well together, and lay it in the trough before the chickens (which must be about six in a pen, and keep it very clean) and let a candle be by them all night. The delight of this meat will make them eat continually, and they will be so fat (when they are but of the bigness of blackbirds) that they will not be able to stand, but sit down upon their bellies to eat.

Gaddesden Farmers Way to feed Chickens.--Notwithstanding we live on a high hill, and on a red clayey soil, yet some of our farmers venture their early bred chickens abroad, and let them take their chance in going with the hen abroad from the first, even in February or March, though the weather is frost or snow; but then we take care to give them a hearty food, for enabling them to withstand the cold; and that is whole oatmeal and barley mixt together, which will so hearten them, that they will not kill themselves with chirping and pain, as those chickens are apt to do, that are fed with sloppy meat, such as wetted pollard, &c. And if the chickens should fall sick, we give each one sow-bug or wood-louse, and it often recovers it; but a hen as well as a chicken is killed by musty corn. The chicken is cured by the bug, or both the hen and chicken are sometimes cured by rue.--Butter and scouring-sand must be given a little in large pills or pellets.--For the same reason, put rue into the water the chickens drink, which will keep them in health, and from the cramp.

The Country Housewife's Family Companion, W. Eliis, London,1750