[7.1] Meanwhile Appius’s bailiff comes with a message from the consul that the augurs are summoned, and he leaves the villa. But pigeons fly into the villa, and Merula, pointing to them, remarks to Axius: “If you had ever built a dove-cote you might think these were your doves, wild though they are. For in a dove-cote there are usually two species of these: one the wild, or as some call them, the rock-pigeon, which lives in turrets and gable-ends (columina) of the farmhouse — whence the name columbae — and these, because of their natural shyness, hunt for the highest peak of the roof; hence the wild pigeons chiefly hunt for the turrets, flying into them, from the fields and back again, as the fancy takes them. [2] The other species of pigeon is gentler, and being content with the food from the house usually feeds around the doorstep. This species is generally white, while the other, the wild, has no white, but is variously coloured. From these two stocks is bred for profit a third hybrid species; these are put in a place called by some peristeron and by others peristerotrophion, and often a single one of these will contain as many as 5,000. [3] The peristeron is built in the form of a large building, with a vaulted roof; it has one narrow door and windows of the Punic style, or wider ones with double lattice-work, so that the whole interior is light, but so that no snake or other noxious creature can get in. The whole of the walls and chambers in the interior is covered with the smoothest possible plaster made of marble dust, and the exterior is also plastered around the windows, so that no mouse or lizard can crawl into the pigeon nest; for nothing is more timid than a pigeon. [4] Round nests are constructed for each pair, side by side in a row, and as many rows as possible are run from the floor up to the vaulted roof. Each nest should be so constructed as to have an opening large enough to allow only entrance and exit, and on the interior should be three palms in all directions. Under each row there should be fixed a board two palms wide, to serve as an entrance and walk-way. [5] Provision should be made for water to flow in, so that they may have a place to drink and bathe, for these birds are extremely cleanly. So the pigeon-keeper should sweep them out frequently every month; for the droppings which make the place filthy are so well suited for fertilizing that several writers have stated that it is the best kind. He should see to it that any pigeon which has been hurt be treated, and that any dead one be removed, and should remove the squabs which are fit for market. [6] He should also have a place shut off by a net from the rest, to which the brooding birds may be transferred, and from which the mother-birds may be able to fly away from the pigeon-house. This they do for two reasons: first, if they lose their appetite or grow sickly from confinement, as they are refreshed by the open air when they fly over the fields, or secondly for a decoy; for they will themselves return in any case, because of the young they have, unless they are killed by a crow or cut off by a hawk. [7] These birds the pigeon-keepers make a practice of killing by planting two limed twigs in the ground, leaning toward each other, after placing between them, with its legs tied, some animal which hawks are in the habit of chasing; and they are caught in this way, when they have smeared themselves with the lime. You may see that doves do return to a place, from the fact that many people let them loose from their bosoms in the theatre and they return to their homes; and if they did not come back they would not be turned loose. [8] Food is furnished them in troughs running around the walls, which are filled from the outside through pipes. Their favourite foods are millet, wheat, barley, peas, kidney-beans, and vetch. Those who have wild pigeons in turrets and in the tops of their villas should imitate these methods so far as they can. Those which are placed in the pigeon-house should be of a proper age, neither squabs nor old birds; and there should be an equal number of cocks and hens. [9] Nothing is more prolific than the pigeon; thus, within a period of forty days it conceives, lays, hatches, and brings off its young. And they continue this, too, through practically the entire year, leaving an interval only between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Two chicks are born each time, and as soon as they have grown and have their strength they breed along with their mothers. Those who practise the fattening of squabs to increase their selling price, shut them up as soon as they are covered with down; then they stuff them with white bread which has been chewed, twice a day in winter and three times in summer — morning, noon, and evening; in winter they omit the noon feeding. [10] When they begin to have feathers they are left in the nest, with their legs broken, and are left to their mothers so that they can eat the food more freely; for they feed themselves and their young on it all day long. Birds which are reared in this way fatten more quickly than others, and their parents become white. At Rome, if the birds are handsome, of good colour, sound, and of good breed, single pairs sell usually for 200 sesterces; but unusually fine ones sometimes for 1,000 sesterces. When a trader wanted recently to buy such birds at this price from Lucius Axius, a Roman knight, he said he would not sell for less than 400 denarii.” [11] Axius remarked: “If I could buy a ready-made pigeon-house, as I bought an earthenware dove-cote when I wanted one in my town house, I should already have gone to buy it and have sent it to the farm-house.” “Just as if,” replied Pica, “there weren’t many of them in the city, also. Or doesn’t it seem to you that people who have dove-cotes on their roof-tiles possess pigeon-houses, inasmuch as some of them have equipment worth more than 100,000 sesterces? I suggest that you buy the complete outfit from one of these, and before you build in the country learn here in the city to put in your purse every day the big profit of a penny or two. But go ahead with your subject, Merula.”
[8.1] “For turtle-doves, also,” he resumed, “a place should be built of a size proportioned to the number you wish to raise; and this, too, as was remarked of pigeons, so that it has a door and windows, clear water, walls and cupola covered with plaster. [2] But instead of nests set in the walls it should have brackets or poles in a row, and over these there should be placed small mats of hemp. The bottom row should be not less than three feet from the ground, between the other rows there should be a space of nine inches, with a half-foot interval between the top and the cupola; and the row should be as wide as the bracket can stand out from the wall, as they feed on the brackets day and night. [3] As to food, dry wheat is given them, about a half-modius for 120 turtle-doves, and their quarters are swept out every day so that they may not suffer harm from the dung — and this is also kept for fertilizing the ground. The most suitable time for fattening is about harvest, for at that time their mothers are at their best, when most chicks are being born, these latter being better for fattening; and hence the income from them is greatest at this time.”
[9.1] “I wish, Merula,” said Axius, “you would tell us of the division of fattening in which I am interested — that of chickens; then if there is anything in the other topics that is worth taking into account we may do so.” “Well, under the term poultry are included three kinds of fowl: the barn-yard, the wild, and the African. [2] Barn-yard fowls are the species which are kept continuously in farmsteads. One who wants to set up a poultry-farm of these — that is, wants to gain a large profit by the exercise of knowledge and care, as the Delians generally have done — should observe especially the following five points: purchase, including the breed and number to secure; breeding, including the manner of mating and laying; eggs, including the manner of sitting and hatching; chicks, including the manner of rearing and the birds by which they are reared; and to these is added, as an appendix, the fifth topic — the method of fattening. [3] Of the three species, the proper name for the female of the barn-yard fowl is hen, for the male is cock, while that of the half-males, which have been castrated, is capon. Cocks are castrated, to make them capons, by burning with a red-hot iron at the lowest part of the leg until it bursts; and the sore which results is smeared with potter’s clay. [4] One who intends to have a complete poultry-farm should, of course, procure all three species, but chiefly the barn-yard fowls. In buying these he should choose hens which are prolific, usually of a reddish plumage, with black win
g feathers, toes of uneven length, large heads, upright crest, full-bodied, as these are better fitted for laying. [5] Cocks should be amorous; and this is judged from their being muscular, with comb reddish, beak short, wide, and sharp, eyes yellowish or black, wattles red with a trace of white, neck particoloured or golden, thighs feathered, lower leg short, claws long, tail large, feathers thick; also by their stretching and crowing often, being stubborn in a fight — those which not only do not fear animals which attack the hens but even fight for the hens. [6] In choosing a strain, however, it is not well to go after the Tanagrian, Median, or Chalcidian; these are undoubtedly handsome birds and very well fitted for fighting one another, but they are rather poor for laying. If you wish to raise 200 you should assign them an enclosed place, and on it construct two large connecting hen-houses, facing eastward, each about ten feet in length, one-half smaller in width, and a little less in height. In each of these there should be a window three feet wide and one foot higher; these should be made of withes so spaced as to allow plenty of light to enter, and yet to keep from passing through them any of the things which usually injure fowls. [7] Between the two houses there should be a door through which their keeper, the gallinarius, can enter. In the houses should be run a number of perches sufficient to hold all the hens. Facing the several perches separate nests should be built for them in the wall. In front of it, as I said, should be an enclosed yard, in which they may run during the daytime and dust themselves. In addition there should be a large room for the caretaker to live in, so built that the surrounding walls may be entirely filled with hens’ nests, either built in the wall or firmly attached; for movement isº harmful to a sitting hen. [8] In their nests at laying-time chaff should be spread under them; and when they have laid their eggs, the bedding should be removed and other fresh bedding spread, as in old bedding lice and other vermin generally breed, and these keep the hen from resting quietly, the result being that the eggs either develop unevenly or become stale. If you wish the hen to cover the eggs, it is claimed that a sitting should number not more than 25, even if the hen has been so prolific as to lay more, [9] and that the laying is best from the vernal to the autumnal equinox. So eggs which are laid before or after that period, and even the first laid within the period, should not be set; and the eggs which you set should be put under old hens (and such hens should not have sharp beaks or claws) rather than under pullets, as the latter ought to be busy at laying rather than at sitting. They are best fitted for laying when one or two years old. [10] If you are putting peafowl eggs under a hen, you should put the hen’s eggs under her only at the beginning of the tenth day of sitting, so that she will hatch them together; for chicks require twice ten days, and peafowl chicks thrice nine. The hens should be shut up so that they may sit day and night, except at the times morning and evening, when food and drink are being given them. [11] The caretaker should go around at intervals of several days and turn the eggs so that they will warm evenly. It is said that you can tell whether eggs are full and fertile or not if you drop them into water, as the empty egg floats, while the full one sinks. Those who shake an egg to find this out make a mistake, as they break up the vital veins in them. The same authorities state that when you hold it up to the light, the one that the light shines through is infertile. [12] Those who wish to keep eggs a considerable time rub them down thoroughly with fine salt or brine for three or four hours, and when this is washed off pack them in bran or chaff. In setting eggs, care is taken that the number be uneven. The caretaker can find out four days after the sitting begins whether the incubating eggs contain the embryo of a chick. If he holds one against a light and observes it to be uniformly clear, the belief is that it should be thrown out and another substituted. [13] The chicks, when hatched, should be taken from the several nests and placed under a hen which has few chicks; and if a few eggs are left they should be taken away from this hen and put under others which have not yet hatched and those which have fewer than [30] chicks; for the batch must not exceed this number. During the first fifteen days there should be fed to the chicks in the morning, on a bed of dust, so that the hard earth may not injure their beaks, a mixture of barley-meal and cress-seed which has been worked up some time before with water, so that when it is eaten it may not swell up in their crops; and they must be kept away from water. [14] When they begin to grow feathers from the rump, the lice must be picked from their heads and necks often, for they frequently waste away because of these. Around their houses stag horns should be burned, to keep snakes from coming in; for the smell of these animals is usually fatal to them. They should be driven out into the sunshine and on to the dung-hill so they can flutter about, as in that way they grow healthier — [15] not only the chicks but the whole poultry yard, both in summer and whenever the air is mild and it is sunny, with a net spread above them to keep them from flying outside the enclosure, and to keep hawks and the like from flying into it from outside; avoiding heat and cold, each of which is harmful to them. As soon as they have their wing-feathers they should be trained to follow one or two hens, so that the others may be free for laying rather than busied with the rearing of young. [16] They should begin to sit after the new moon, for the sittings which begin before that time usually do not turn out well. They are hatched in about twenty days. As really too much has been said about these barnyard fowls, I shall make up for it by brevity in speaking of the rest.
“Wild hens are found rarely in town and are hardly seen in Rome, except the tamed ones in cages. In appearance they not like these barn-yard fowls of ours, but rather like the African fowl. [17] Birds whose appearance and shape show that they are of unmixed breed are usually displayed in public ceremonies, along with parrots, white blackbirds, and other unusual things of that sort. Usually they do not produce eggs and chicks in farmsteads, but in the forests. It is from these fowls that the island Gallinaria, in the Tuscan Sea off the coast of Italy opposite the Ligurian mountains, Intimilium, and Album Ingaunum, is said to have got its name; others hold that they are the descendants of those barnyard fowls which were carried there by sailors and became wild. [18] The African hens are large, speckled, with rounded back, and the Greeks call them ‘meleagrides.’ These are the latest fowls to come from the kitchen to the dining-room because of the pampered tastes of people. [19] On account of their scarcity they fetch a high price. Of the three species, it is chiefly the barnyard fowls which are fattened. These are shut into a warm, narrow, darkened place, because movement on their part and light free them from the slavery of fat. For this purpose the largest hens are chosen, but not necessarily those which are mistakenly called “Melic”; for the ancients said “Melic” for “Medic,” just as they said “Thelis” for “Thetis.” Those were called so originally which, because of their size, were imported from Media, and the descendants of these; but later on all large hens got the name on account of their likeness. [20] On these hens the feathers are pulled from wings and tail, and they are fattened on pellets of barley-meal, sometimes mixed with darnel flour, or with flax seed soaked in fresh water. They are fed twice a day, and are watched to see, from certain symptoms, that the last food taken has been digested before more is given. When they have eaten, and their heads have been cleaned to prevent their having lice, they are again shut up. This is continued as long as twenty-five days, and at this time they finally become fat. [21] Some breeders fatten them also on wheat bread softened in water mixed with a sound, fragrant wine, which results in making them fat and tender within twenty days. If, in the course of the fattening, they lose their appetites from too much food, the amount fed should be lessened, diminishing in the last ten days in the same proportion as it increased in the first ten, so that the twentieth day will be equal to the first. The same method is followed in fattening wood-pigeons and making them plump.”
[10.1] “Pass on now,” said Axius, “to that kind of fowl which is not content with any farmstead and land, but wants ponds — the kind you Greek-lovers call amphibious. The place where geese are re
ared you call by the foreign name of chenoboscion. Scipio Metellus and Marcus Seius have several large flocks of geese.” “Seius,” continued Merula, “in making provision for his flocks of geese, observed the five steps which I have described in the case of chickens, and which had to do with strain, mating, eggs, chicks, and fattening. [2] His first injunction to his servant was to see in choosing them that they were full-bodied and white, as usually they have goslings like themselves. For there is another species, mottled, which is called ‘wild,’ and these do not like to flock with the others, and are not tamed so easily. [3] The most suitable time for mating, in the case of geese, is after the winter solstice, for laying and sitting from the first of February or March up to the summer solstice. As they usually mate in the water, they are driven into a stream or a pond. Individuals do not lay more than three times in a year, and when they do, square coops should be built for each, about two and a half feet on each side, and these should be carpeted with straw. Their eggs should be distinguished by some mark, as they do not hatch the eggs of another. Usually nine eggs or eleven form a sitting; if fewer are set, five, if more, fifteen. In cold weather they sit thirty days, in warmer weather twenty-five. [4] When they hatch they are allowed to stay with the mother for the first five days; then they are driven out daily, when the weather is good, into meadows, and also into ponds or swamps. Coops are made for them above ground or under it, and not more than twenty goslings are placed in each; and care is taken that these quarters do not have moisture in the ground, and that they do have a soft cushion of straw or some other material, and that weasels cannot get in, or any other harmful beasts. [5] Geese feed in damp places; so a food is sowed which will bring in a profit, and also there is sowed for them an herb which is called seris, because this, even when it is dry, if touched by water becomes green. The leaves of this are plucked and fed to them, for if they are driven into the place where it is growing they either ruin it by their trampling or die from over-eating; for they are naturally ravenous. For this reason you must restrain them, for, as often happens in their feeding because of their greed, if they catch hold of a root which they want to pull out of the ground, they break their necks; for the neck is exceedingly weak, just as the head is soft. If there is none of this herb, they should be fed on barley or other grain. When the season for mixed forage comes, this should be fed as I said in regard to seris. [6] While the geese are sitting they should be fed on barley soaked in water. The goslings are fed first on barley-meal or barley for two days, and for the next three on green cress cut fine, soaked in water and turned into a vessel. But after they are shut into the coops or the underground nests, twenty to the nest, as I have said, they are fed on ground barley or mixed forage or tender grass cut fine. [7] For fattening, goslings are chosen which are about one and one-half months old; these are enclosed in the fattening pen, and there they are fed on a food consisting of barley-meal and flour dampened with water, being surfeited three times a day. After eating, they are allowed the opportunity of drinking as much as they want. When they are treated in this way they become fat in about two months. After every feeding the place is cleaned out; for they like a clean place, and yet never leave any place clean where they have been.
Delphi Complete Works of Varro Page 14