[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 wing 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 mista
kenly 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.”
X.
Transi, inquit Axius, nunc in illud genus, quod non est ulla villa ac terra contentum, sed requirit piscinas, quod vos philograeci vocatis amphibium. In quibus ubi anseres aluntur, nomine alieno chenoboscion appellatis. Horum greges Scipio Metellus et M. Seius habent magnos aliquot. Merula, Seius, inquit, ita greges comparavit anserum, ut hos quinque gradus obseruaret, quos in gallinis dixi. Hi sunt de genere, de fetura, de ovis, de pullis, de sagina. Primum iubebat servum in legendo observare ut essent ampli et albi, quod plerumque pullos similes sui faciunt. Est enim alterum genus varium, quod ferum vocatur, nec cum iis libenter congregantur, nec aeque fit mansuetum. Anseribus ad admittendum tempus est aptissimum a bruma, ad pariendum et incubandum a Kalendis Februariis vel Martiis usque ad solstitium. Saliunt fere in aqua, iniguntur in flumen aut piscinam. Singulae non plus quam ter in anno pariunt. Singulis, ubi pariant, faciendum haras quadratas circum binos pedes et semipedem; eas substernendum palea. Notandum earum ova aliquo signo, quod aliena non excudunt. Ad incubandum supponunt plerumque novem aut undecim, qui hoc minus, quinque, qui hoc plus, XV. Incubat tempestatibus dies triginta, tepidioribus XXV. Cum excudit, quinque diebus primis patiuntur esse cum matre. Deinde cotidie, serenum cum est, producunt in prata, item piscinas aut paludes, iisque faciunt haras supra terram aut suptus, in quas non inducunt plus vicenos pullos, easque cellas provident ne habeant in solo umorem et ut molle habeant substramen e palea aliave qua re, neve qua eo accedere possint mustelae aliaeve quae bestiae noceant. Anseres pascunt in umidis locis et pabulum serunt, quod aliquem ferat fructum, seruntque his herbam, quae vocatur seris, quod ea aqua tacta, etiam cum est arida, fit viridis. Folia eius decerpentes dant, ne, si eo inegerint, ubi nascitur, aut obterendo perdant aut ipsi cruditate pereant; voraces enim sunt natura. Quo temperandum iis, qui propter cupiditatem saepe in pascendo, si radicem prenderunt, quam educere velint e terra, abrumpunt collum; perimbecillum enim id, ut caput molle. Si haec herba non est, dandum hordeum aut frumentum aliud. Cum est tempus farraginis, dandum, ut in seri dixi. Cum incubant, hordeum iis intritum in aqua apponendum. Pullis primum biduo polenta aut hordeum apponitur, tribus proximis nasturtium viride consectum minutatim ex aqua in vas aliquod. Cum autem sunt inclusi in haras aut speluncas, ut dixi, viceni, obiciunt iis polentam hordeaceam aut farraginem herbamve teneram aliquam concisam. Ad saginandum eligunt pullos circiter sesquimensem qui sunt nati; eos includunt in saginario ibique polentam et pollinem aqua madefacta dant cibum, ita ut ter die saturent. Secundum cibum large ut bibant faciunt potestatem. Sic curati circiter duobus mensibus fiunt pingues. Quotienscumque sumpeserunt, locus solet purgari, quod amant locum purum neque ipsi ullum, ubi fuerunt, relincunt purum.
[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 reared 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.
XI.
Qui autem volunt greges anatium habere ac constituere nessotrophion, primum locum, quoi est facultas, eligere oportet palustrem, quod eo maxime delectantur; si id non, potissimum ibi, ubi sit naturalis aut lacus aut stagnum aut manu facta piscina, quo gradatim descendere possint. Saeptum altum esse oportet, ubi versentur, ad pedes quindecim, ut vidistis ad villam Sei, quod uno ostio claudatur. Circum totum parietem intrinsecus crepido lata, in qua secundum parietem sint tecta cubilia, ante ea vestibulum earum exaequatum tectorio opere testaceo. In eo perpetua canalis, in quam et cibus imponitur iis et immittitur aqua; sic enim cibum capiunt. Omnes parietes tectorio levigantur, ne faeles aliave quae bestia introire ad nocendum possit, idque saeptum totum rete gra
ndibus maculis integitur, ne eo involare aquila possit neve evolare anas. Pabulum iis datur triticum, hordeum, vinacei, non numquam etiam ex aqua cammari et quaedam eius modi aquatilia. Quae in eo saepto erunt piscinae, in eas aquam large influere oportet, ut semper recens sit.
Sunt item non dissimilia alia genera, ut querquedulae, phalarides, sic perdices, quae, ut Archelaus scribit, voce maris audita concipiunt. Quae, ut superiores, neque propter fecunditatem neque propter suavitatem saginantur et sic pascendo fiunt pingues. Quod ad villaticarum pastionum primum actum pertinere sum ratus, dixi.
[11.1] “One who wishes to keep flocks of ducks and build a duck-farm should choose, first, if he has the opportunity, a place which is swampy, for they like this best of all; if this is not available, a place preferably where there is a natural pond or pool or an artificial pond, to which they can go down by steps. [2] There should be an enclosure in which they can move about, some fifteen feet high, as you saw at Seius’s place, closed by one entrance. Around the entire wall on the inside should run a wide ledge, along which, next to the wall, are the covered resting places, and in front of them their vestibule levelled with plastered brickwork. In this is a continuous trough, in which food is placed for them and water is admitted; for in this way they take their food. [3] All the walls are smoothed with plaster, so that no weasel or other beast can get in to harm them; and the entire enclosure is covered with a wide-meshed net, so that an eagle cannot fly in or the ducks fly out. For food they are often given wheat, barley, grape-skins, and sometimes water-crabs and certain aquatic food of that sort. Any ponds in the enclosure should have a large inflow of water, so that it may always be fresh.
Delphi Complete Works of Varro Page 113