A practical guide to the breeding, feeding, rearing & general management, for domestic use and exhibition, of the Houdan fowl by Lee Charles

Author:Lee, Charles
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Houdan chicken
Publisher: London, W. Hawkins
Published: 1874-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV.

POULTRY-FANCYING, AND WHAT IT NECESSITATES.

|0 far it will have been seen that we have directed our attention to the Houdan solely on its economic bearings. We now, however, enter upon the subject exclusively from a fancier's point of view; and, in doing sOj it will scarcely be deemed inconsistent if we make a few general remarks ere we enter into details.

The fanciers of poultry may be divided into two very distinct classes, namely, amateurs, who take up the matter as a pursuit from which they are careless as to the question of gain ; and "professional^' fanciers, who are not without a dash of the amateur in their proceedings, but who keep an eye to the question of profit or loss in their attempts to improve the breed in which they take most interest, and take care that their yearly account of expenses and receipts, shows a balance in their favour. The well-known names in the catalogues corresponding to the pens, which, as the winter approaches, are filled with rare and beautiful birds at Birmingham^ the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere, would, upon analysis, prove the truth of this classification.

The latter class is by far the larger of the two; and as plain figures are more convincing than mere general statements, we have no hesitation in citing the experience of a large breeder of "fancy poultry" in the Eastern counties, " that after the payment of his expenses, journeys to poultry shows, and interest of money expended on his premises, his clear profit from prizes, and sale of eggs and birds, amounted to oue hundred and fift^pounds a year." This gentleman was

engaged in a large business requiring much of his time and thought, and it was in answer to a suggestion of a friend of ours, that his poultry must needs pick up much of the profit arising from his bread-winning business, that he produced his " poultry books,'' and exhibited the above result. Undoubtedly there are many breeders whose returns would show an equally large profit, but the example we quote is a fair specimen of the well-doing of a poultry fancier who has taken up the subject as one from which he derives not only much pleasure, but, as the figures prove, a very fair share of profit also.

It is our intention, in these remarks, to throw together a few practical hints, to assist the efforts of tyros, and spare them, it may be, some cost and trouble upon their entry upon the matter of " poultry fancying,''' which, like " amateur farming," may become a deep, devouring gulf, in which much money may be swallowed up, with but a shadowy prospect of return, and the poultry-yard become only less costly than training stables, out of which there is nothing turned but " platers " and '' outside colts."

Those who are acquainted with such places as Cheltenham or Leamington, will remember the satisfaction with which old Indian officers, who are found in abundance in these localities, will take

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