Poultry (Fr. poule, 'a hen;' Lat. pullus, 'a chicken;' Eng. pullet) is the term by which are known the birds brought by man into domestication, and usually embraces the ordinary fowl, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guinea-fowl. From the time when man began to abandon his nomadic manner of life and settle down into settled habitations, poultry in one form or another have been brought into subjection, taking the place of the wild birds which, when he wandered, he was able to snare or kill, but which fled from him when he chose one abode. Only in Asia is the ordinary fowl found in a wild state, chiefly in India. Here is yet to be found the Gallus ferrugineus, or G. bankiva, which, from its resemblance in every way to the modern fowl and the freedom with which the two breed together, is accepted as the progenitor of nearly all our domesticated varieties. At one time it was thought to be the parent of all, and this was the view of Darwin; but later researches have led to a modification of this opinion; there is no wild breed of fowl to which the Brahma and Cochin type of fowl can be traced. The Jungle-fowl of India, or G. bankiva, has plumage and colour not very dissimilar to the game fowl, and this type prevails largely in the great dependency. From the time of the ancients poultry have been bred and kept. Many records found in the writings of early days refer to the fighting qualities of the cock, and in some countries he was bred largely, if not chiefly, for this propensity. Theognis, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Diodorus, Æschylus, Plutarch, Plato, and Pliny all make reference in their writings to the fowl, which seems to have gradually spread over
Europe, being, it is supposed, brought into Britain by the Romans, since whose time it has been an important member of our domesticated animals. The fighting qualities of game fowls have always been specially studied, and Cock-fighting (q.v.) was once a recognised sport in the United Kingdom, followed by all classes of society.
Poultry are valued for two purposes: (1) for their flesh, and (2) for the eggs produced by them. In those varieties which are specially bred for the table the flesh is abundant, fine in texture, excellent in flavour, and easily digested. It enters very largely into the food-supply of the country in an ever-increasing ratio, and is strongly recommended to invalids or persons of weak digestion. Eggs (q.v.) are consumed to an even greater extent, and more generally than can ever be the case with poultry; for they are within the reach of all persons, and are used for every form of cooking, as also largely for manufacturing purposes. The great and ever-increasing demand in Britain for this class of food is seen in the vast imports, which have grown so enormously. In 1864 the value of eggs imported from the continent of Europe was £835,028; in 1870, £1,102,080; 1875, £2,559,860; 1880, £2,235,451; 1890, £3,428,802; and 1897, £4,356,807, besides poultry to the value of about half a million. And in the same period it is estimated that the eggs and poultry received into Great Britain from Ireland, which has always been a large poultry and egg producing country, amounted to one and three-quarter million pounds sterling, so that Britain's poultry and egg consumption, if we take the value of home production as equal to that of Ireland, is nearly seven and a half million pounds annually. A calculation was made in 1890, for the French minister of Agriculture, that the income derived from the sale of eggs and poultry in that country is £13,496,000—viz. £6,140,000 for poultry, and £7,356,000 for eggs. The number of fowls is computed at 45,000,000, representing a value of £4,500,000. It has been said that the daily consumption of eggs in the United States is 44,000,000, which would represent an annual value of more than $200,000,000.
Although the breeds of poultry are not so numerous as are those of pigeons, the development of breeds since the era of poultry-shows has been very great, and we have now some forty distinct varieties, several of which are again subdivided by different colours. There are about twenty varieties of ducks, seven of geese, and six of Turkeys (q.v.) domesticated. Ducks are most prolific layers, and there is always a good demand for their eggs, especially by cooks and confectioners. The breeds of ducks valued for table purposes and for breeding are almost all good layers—the Aylesbury, Pekin, and Cayuga breeds being famous; the eggs of the Rouen breed are rather smaller than those of Aylesburys. Fowls may be divided into four classes—viz. table breeds; laying or non-sitting breeds; general purpose breeds; and fancy or ornamental breeds.
Table Poultry.—Characterised by rapid growth, fine quality of flesh, and great breast development. Dorkings.—Old English breed, square bodied, white legs and feet, and five toes; four colours. French.—Seven varieties, all marked by large size, rich flesh, chiefly dark-legged. Game.—Have great breast muscles and fine flesh; not so large as the breeds already named; nearly half a score colours of game fowl may be found. Indian Game.—A very large breed, bred chiefly in Cornwall; beautiful in flesh quality, but darker than dorkings or French, and heavier in bone; can be fed up to a great size. In addition to these may be named Aseels and Malays, which are good as table fowls.
Laying or Non-sitting Poultry.—In these the laying powers have been greatly developed (some varieties producing upwards of 200 eggs per annum), and the maternal instinct has been suspended by disuse. They are chiefly of the Mediterranean family, but not exclusively so. These Mediterranean varieties have large single combs, a lightish body, and include Anconas (speckled), Andalusian (blue), Leghorns or Italians (of which are ten colours), Minorcas (black), and Spanish (black with long white faces). Hamburgs.—Under this term are two families, the Yorkshire and Lancashire Pheasant Fowls (spangled and black), as also the Redcaps, and the Dutch (pencilled), all very beautiful, and the most prolific layers we have. Houdans.—Another French breed, with a crest, pale legs, and five toes. Polish or Polled.—Have a very large crest, are good layers, but are delicate; of these there are six colours. Scotch Greys.—A cuckoo-plumaged fowl, with pale legs, good flesh, and suitable for cold climates.
General Purpose Poultry.—Breeds which are not specially good in any one quality, but well balanced and good all round; chiefly of the Chinese type—i.e. heavy in leg and bone, large in size, and with high tails. Brahmas.—A Chinese fowl modified in Europe and America; two colours. Cochins.—The breed which made such a furore in the 'Fifties'; very handsome, but poor as a layer and moderate in flesh; five colours. Langshans.—Like the Cochin, of Chinese origin; an excellent layer of eggs with buff-tinted shells, and a capital table fowl; one variety, black in plumage. Plymouth Rocks.—A variety of American making, cuckoo in plumage, and excellent in economic qualities. Wyandottes.—Also of American origin; equal as a layer and for the table; four colours. All these make excellent mothers, as do most of those in the table-poultry section, and are very hardy.
Fancy or Ornamental Poultry.—These include the breeds which are either bred alone for their beauty or peculiarity of plumage, or by reason of diminutive size are of no service for economic purposes. They embrace the Game Bantams (six varieties), Bantams (thirteen varieties, but constantly being added to, many from China and Japan), Japanese Long-tailed Sillies, Sultans, Frizzled, Naked Necks, Rumpless, &c.
That poultry can be made profitable is undoubted, but hitherto all attempts to establish poultry-farms as such have ended in failure. Considerable profit is often made by those who breed and exhibit pure-bred poultry, whilst the advantage of having fresh eggs and home-fed poultry is sufficient inducement to many who have the opportunities of keeping a few fowls, apart from the pleasure derived from them. Poultry can be kept under many conditions, and have been found to thrive in the most unlikely places, but all their wants must be artificially supplied. To maintain them in health they should have a house dry above and below, with 16 square feet of floor space for every half-dozen fowls of the medium-sized varieties, an outside shelter in which is placed a dust bath, this being the way in which their skin and feathers are cleansed, and an open run without. If they can be given full liberty it is all the better, for which reason movable houses placed out in fields or parks are the best; but often it is impossible to do this, and then not less than 6 square feet of ground should be allowed to each fowl if the run is laid in gravel or sand, or 100 square feet per bird if in grass, or it will all be eaten off and the ground left bare. Absolute cleanliness is essential for them in houses, nests, and runs, and the ground should be changed every two or three years, or it is liable to become foul from the richness of their manure. Fowls naturally eat grain, slugs, worms, &c., and, if the latter are not obtainable in the ground by them, some substitute must be provided. For laying birds it is found that soft food is very beneficial, and it should be given in the morning, with hard corn in the later part of the day. Sitting hens should be provided for apart from other stock, as they require to be in a quiet place. The time of incubation is twenty-one days. When the brood has made its appearance the hen and chickens should be placed out in a coop, and the latter fed every two hours for the first fortnight, every three hours for the next two weeks, and after that four times a day until they reach maturity. Artificial incubation and brooding are very largely adopted by poultry-breeders, and have been brought to a remarkable state of perfection, the machines now sold working with great regularity and precision (see INCUBATION). The advantage of incubators is that they can be used at any period of the year, and are not dependent upon the weather, as is the case with hens. The Hearson and Westmeria incubators are the best, and the Westmeria brooder has proved remarkably successful for all kinds of poultry. This plan of working is largely employed in France and America. Poultry are polygamous, and from four to ten hens should be placed with each cock bird, according to breed and the season of the year.
Poultry-farming.—Many attempts have been made to establish poultry-farms, but they have always ended in failure, and it has come to be regarded as an axiom that poultry will not pay. The reasons for this failure have been twofold: first, that the amount of space necessary to keep the fowls in health when in large numbers, and the consequent increase in labour, were too heavy charges against the enterprise; and second, the placing of a large number of birds together, under conditions which were unhealthy, induced disease, and so ruined the scheme. The great mistake has been made in attempting poultry-farming as a separate industry, rather than as part of a larger enterprise. Where it can be grafted upon other work, an addition to the business of farming or fruit-growing, it can be, and has been, made successful in several notable instances. In these there is no separate charge for land; the labour is not on account of it alone; a large portion of the food needed by the fowls is obtained by themselves from the ground, and such as is given is at the first cost; the produce can generally be sold with what other is going to market, and especially if dairying or fruit-growing be also entered into, those who purchase milk or butter or fruit being generally willing to buy the eggs and chickens; and, finally, the land is enriched by the manure of the fowls, whilst its employment for other purposes will prevent its becoming foul, the great danger when only poultry are kept on the land, for disease is speedily induced by foul ground. The force of events during recent years has compelled many British farmers to take up what were at one time regarded as minor pursuits, and branches of farming which in themselves are not sufficient to give a living—for which reason they were neglected for larger things—have received attention. Or, as it has been expressed, 'commercial poultry will only pay as an accessory to something else, whether it be a farm or a household—to eat scraps which would otherwise be wasted . . . and to give to the land, in the shape of manure, properties which cannot otherwise be obtained except by a heavy outlay.' When we look to France, where poultry are bred to such an enormous extent, we find that poultry-farms as such have no existence, but that fowls are kept by every farmer and cottager. The same remarks apply to Italy, Denmark, and Ireland, from all of which countries England receives large supplies of eggs and poultry. In the wine districts of France fowls are permitted to wander amongst the vines all the year round, except just when the fruit is forming, and they do a most serviceable work in cleaning and manuring the ground. The poultry houses are placed in the vineyards, and in many cases are made sufficiently narrow to pass between the rows of plants.
In France, in the Surrey and Sussex districts of England, and also at Aylesbury, where so many ducks are fattened every year, systems of fattening are extensively carried on, but as a rule, in France especially, those who rear the birds do not fatten. Fattening is a business by itself, birds being purchased from the breeders when about eight weeks old. They are put into pens and fattened for a period varying from three to ten weeks, either by hand or with machines. Some of the latter are very elaborate, but as a rule they are simple. The head of the fowl is held in the left hand, and a brass nozzle, attached to a piece of india-rubber tubing, and connected with a cylinder, is inserted into the mouth of the bird. In this cylinder is a supply of liquid food, made of buckwheat or some other meal, milk, and a little fat, and it is so arranged that when a pedal is pressed by the foot a portion of the food, varying according to the stage of fattening—for it is increased in quantity each day until the process is completed—is injected through the tube and nozzle into the bird's crop. By this means the fattening is carefully and skillfully conducted, and there can be no doubt of the result, as every one who has tasted a well-fattened French fowl will be able to testify. In the La Bresse, Le Mans, and La Sarthe districts of France the number of fowls fattened every year is enormous, and the best specimens realise very high prices. The flesh is beautifully tender and white, and much more abundant than would be possible on an unfattened fowl. In Surrey and Sussex the method adopted is somewhat different, in that the birds are either fed by hand or with heavy crank cramming-machines, powerful enough to force semi-liquid food into the crop of the fowl. Here the process does not last more than three weeks. When the birds are killed they are immediately plucked, and placed, before they become quite cold, on shaping boards, so made as to give them the best appearance. In Ireland there is very little fattening carried on, and consequently the poultry from that country are poor and sell at about the lowest price on the English market.
Where poultry are kept in large numbers the best method of housing is by means of movable or portable dwellings, for these can be transferred about from place to place, giving the fowls fresh ground and distributing their manure, which is very valuable indeed, over the land. Under no circumstances should more than fifty be kept in one flock; and it will be found in practice that they will not wander far from their home, or mix with each other, even if the houses be placed in adjoining fields. The ordinary methods of management are applicable here. There can be no question that the increase in the size of farms, which has taken place within the last half of the 19th century, has done much to discourage poultry-keeping, and the opposite tendency ought to have a reactive effect (see PEASANT PROPRIETORS). Much might be done in the way of encouraging poultry-keeping by cottagers, who could maintain them with the minimum of cost and the maximum of results. A very important factor in successful poultry-keeping is the selection of right breeds, and it is essential that the produce should be marketed as speedily as possible. An egg two days old is worth twice as much as when two weeks laid, a fact which should always be borne in mind, but is too often forgotten. In the great cities and densely populated districts there is a constant demand for fresh eggs, and at high prices. To secure the best returns all eggs and poultry should be sent to market clean, well packed, and in the best possible condition. The supply of the commoner varieties of poultry produce is very large, and the prices obtained are consequently small, but there is no limit to the demand for high-class qualities at remunerative figures.
See L. Wright, The Illustrated Book of Poultry (new ed. 1885); Tegetmeier, Poultry Book (new ed. 1872), and Poultry for the Table and Market (1892); Poultry (Dean and Son); S. Beale, Profitable Poultry-keeping (1883); I. K. Felch, Poultry Culture (Chicago, 1886); Poultry-keeping for Farmers and Cottagers, by the present writer (1893); also the articles DUCK, GOOSE, GUINEA FOWL, TURKEY, EGG, FOOD, INCUBATION, &c.