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Ptenotrophium
Selling Price
Fourteen shillings each
has sometimes been
given wholesale for
goslings.
I do not believe that
fattening poultry is near
so profitable now as it
was four or five years ago,
one of the feeders has failed
another kept ten men
formerly now but two.
The monopoly in this as
in every other article of
food diminishes rapidly.
Very early poultry
there is comparatively
little demand for & that
uncertain: when it comes
to a more moderate price
the consumption is extremely
great. It then becomes
an object with country
farmers at 100 miles
distance or more to send
hither their earliest
broods; carriage is almost
the only expence of these.
Poultry killed & plucked
is brought from Norwich
by the mail coach: I believe
that much has been
brought in the same way from Devonshire
Geese last friday ye 16th of
May were sold wholesale for
8 shillings
A principal objection
to rearing poultry is the
excessive dirt which is
said to be unavoidable
where there are considerable
numbers.
The waggon for bringing
fowls to London is
called a van; several
stages are built above
one another at the hight
of a fowl or little more
the sides are lathed. In
a journey of an hundred
miles the fowls are taken
out three times to be
fed. Farmers in the country
are at the expence
of sending up the poultry
one of them generally
sends his own stock &
collects those of others
untill his van is full.
Four of the poultry feeders
have agreed that one
shall watch the arrival
of vans upon the road
& purchase the fowls to
be afterwards divided
among them: the other
three are not in partnership.
Thornton at Stratford
is the principal feeder,
three others reside at
Stratford, one at Bow
Humphries at Mile End,
the seventh I believe
at Islington.
The best grain is
found most profitable.
---page break---
Hens are fed with cumin
seed to make them lay
early.
Buckwheat excellent food
for poultry.
French wheat said to be
good.
Hempseed fattens poultry
in general very quickly.
Might not a mixture
of oil cakes with potatoes
be cheap & good?
Poultry, particularly
ducks & geese, eat grains in
preference to corn.
Sugar is mixed with the
food of ruffs & reeves when
it is wished to fatten them
speedily. Pen. Br. Zo.
Barley meal or pollard
mixed with hot water or
milk are commonly employed
in fattening.
Would it be of advantage
to use treacle, or refuse of
a sugar house?
A mixture of mutton suet
& flour will fatten chickens
in three days
We used to think that
chalk prevented, & often
cured disease.
Birds of all kinds except
young pigeons are always
diseased when they have not
a sufficiency of proper sized
gravel.
We once had ducks full
grown & fat in six weeks
from hatching; dairy maids
say nine is the usual time,
but they never feed them
fully.
Dairy maids affirm that
turkeys cannot be reared
without a mixture of onion
& parsley in their food.
Ducklings are killed for
market at four weeks old.
Chickens are brought from
Ailesbury at four or five
weeks old; ten or fifteen days
is the shortest time in which
they can be fattened.
Geese are fattened with
bran & oats.
When damaged grain is used
fowls frequently die.
Young pheasants must have
a portion of animal food;
the remainder boiled rice;
bread & milk boiled, then
rubbed into a dry paste with
flour & crumbled, crumbs
of bread &c. but whatever
the substance be it infallibly
kills them unless perfectly
dry. Partridges
require the same food, but
are more hardy.
---page break---
Hatching
Eggs must be turned in the
oven every six hours.
Ovens for hatching might
probably be heated most
equally with boiling water.
Warming
Excess of heat is much
more fatal than an occasional
diminution of it.
The utmost attention is necessary
to a proper evaporation
of the white of the
egg, particularly the last
three or four days, if too
great the yolk becomes so
dry it cannot be absorbed,
when the moisture is considerable
it drowns the chicken
or at least prevents its exertions
in breaking the shell.
Eggs that crack must be
taken out of the oven immediately,
they soon become putrid
& very prejudicial.
Could the hatching oven be
erected within an hot house?
it might form a stage for
plants, the thickness of
one brick would then be
sufficient for the walls as the
heat that escaped would not
be lost; drawers might contain
the eggs made to open at the
back, if hot water were used
to heat the oven it might be
conveyed through copper pipes
or through troughs of brick
lined, or jointed with terrass
Proprietors of hatching ovens
in Egypt engage to deliver
two chickens for every three
eggs they receive, the number
hatched beyond is their pay.
Eggs — whence.
Spain would perhaps be the
best country to procure eggs
from, they are very cheap,
& probably much earlier
than in Holland. Qu. Lisbon
Farmers grease the eggs
for winter use, & have a method
of washing them that prevents
their being distinguished from
new ones; the least remains
of it would close the pores
---page break---
Geese are driven to water twice
a day; plucked five times in
the summer, first at Lady day:
even the tail feathers of goslings
six weeks old.
Turkeys feathers are least
valuable.
Pigeons' feathers I believe
never used. can this be from
prejudice as is said?
Turkeys the moment they are
killed are placed upon a board
the breast downwards, & supported
by a ridge so that the tail
shall be some inches higher than
the head, a brick is placed between
each, then a board over the
whole & a heavy weight; when
they are nearly cold, & pressed
into proper shape they are
laid upon boards in a cool
situation.
Newgate market is supplied
with poultry & eggs by farmers
who bring the produce of their
farms to London ready for the
table; salesmen are employed
to sell the poultry, generally
rather below the rate of other
markets.
I cannot find any book in
english on the subject excepting
"Trembleys abstract of
Reamurs method of rearing
domestic fowls" & one paper
in the Philosophical Transactions
No. Savary barely
mentions the Egyptian ovens.
---page break---
Single persons in the fens of
Lincolnshire keep 1000 geese
each of which rears seven young
in the season. Pen. 483.
The London market is almost
entirely supplied with poultry
by wholesale dealers, there are
now seven, of whom Humphries
at Mile End is one of the
most considerable. He purchases
early ducks, chickens
& goslings at Ailesbury
which are brought to his house
in waggons, to be fattened, as
are all those procured from
farmers in the usual season.
Immediately on their arrival
they are put into a field &
fed for a day with bran & oats;
then into pens where they
are fed with pollard untill
proper for market, never
more than three weeks, seldom
so long.
Humphries is supposed to
have some secret with regard
to the food; the foreman is always
in the poultry yard during
the dinner hour of the tenders
& will never suffer any person
whatever to accompany
him.
The yards, pens &c are
exceedingly dirty, the geese are
littered with straw; a little fresh
strewed over the former layers
when necessary, in order to make
the greatest possible quantity
of manure. I should suppose
to save trouble rather, Humphries
sells but 100 loads a
year at a shilling a load.
The pens are cleaned only once
in the year. I find they are the
stables of an old inn, some of them
containing thousands, at least
many hundreds of ducks & geese
not otherwise separated from
one another than that each species
is kept by itself.
A quantity of chickweed & other
weeds is thrown into the pens,
chalk in lumps is always within
reach of the fowls, particularly of
turkeys.
Turkeys are fattened with
oatmeal & water, as much as
they will eat allowed, but
never crammed.
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Identifier: | JB/107/096/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 107.
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107 |
panopticon |
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096 |
ptenotrophium |
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001 |
selling price / hatching / warming / eggs |
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collectanea |
4 |
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recto |
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35087 |
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