Hens

“ Even the sick hen is so naturally sick, like a green leaf turning to brown. No wonder men love to have hens about them, and hear their creaking note. They are even laying eggs from time to time still, the undespairing race! ”

“ Some hens with wandering dispositions go back to the instincts of their wild race. They leave the hen-house and seek a hedge or thicket, where they select a hiding-place to suit them, and there make a little hollow in the earth which they line as well as they can with a mattress of dry grass, leaves, and feathers. That is a nest in the rough, without art, a shapeless construction in comparison with the clever masterpiece of the chaffinch and goldfinch. ”

“ At times the voices of the hens were lifted in a choral of self-praise, as if they had among them just laid the mighty structure which takes its name from its resemblance to the egg they ordinarily produce. ”

“ The hens appeared hypnotized by the action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing the afternoon fly, they would at once settle down into a conversational chuck-a-chu and begin forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost. ”

“ In the management, too, of their families, can any candid man resist the evidence of resemblances and affiliations between hens and humanity? Here a hen walks forth from her nest with but a single chick; the whole farm is too small for her anxious spirit. ”

“ Only calves and cows and the hens are laying now which does always seem news to a hen every time she does it. Did I ever tell you about a hen Emily we had here? She was venturesome to an extent I have not seen in other hens only she had poor judgement and would make no family ties. She would keep trying to get interest in the ties of others taking charge of little chicks and bantams and turkeys and puppies one time, and she thought most anything was an egg. ”

“ If to the usual qualities of hens, a breed of peculiar elegance, of graceful form, and beautiful plumage, be added, together with entire adaptation to the economical purposes required, good layers and good carcass, we have a combination of utility, luxury, and taste in this bird, which should commend them as general favorites. They can everywhere be kept with advantage, except in dense cities. ”

“ And she told a tale, which made the feathers of the other hens stand on end, and the cock's comb fall down flat. It is quite true!
But we will begin at the beginning; and that took place in a poultry-yard in another part of the town. The sun went down, and the fowls jumped up on their perch to roost. There was a Hen, with white feathers and short legs, who laid eggs regularly and was a respectable hen in every way; as she flew up on to the roost she pecked herself with her beak, and a little feather fell from her.
"There it goes!" said she; "the more I peck myself the handsomer I grow!" ”

“ Broody hens are a trial. The common practices of starving them, ducking them, and otherwise subjecting them to indignities, are little short of cruel and often fail to cure their natural desire to sit. Stop and reason not with, but about, [145] the hen. Having laid all the eggs nature has provided during the spring, the hen's instinct is to brood and rear a nestful. She has worked hard and maybe is run down physically. Feel her bones. What you want from her is more eggs. ”

“ I'm not saying the hens aren't doing their best. I take off my hat to the hens. As nice a hard-working lot as I ever want to meet, full of vigour and earnestness. It's that damned incubator that's letting us down all the time. ”

“ If they hide their nests and the eggs spoil, or if they sit and the chicks do not live to get to the barnyard, the owner is unaware of his loss. If, having no house and nest boxes, the hens lay in the weeds, in the wood pile, in the straw stack, in the haymow, it's no loss, for the women and children hunt the eggs and their time isn't worth anything! But do you believe there are any farm hens whose portraits will appear in the big magazines? ”

“ I cannot endure the society of a low-bred hen, and a refined hen seems to look down on me, and so I thought if I could get one of those ottymatic inkybaters I could have the whole process under my own control, and if the blooded hens wanted to go to the sanitarium and sit around there with their hands in their pockets while the great hungry world of traffic clamored for more spring chickens fried in butter they might do so and be doggoned. ”

“ When a hen wishes to sit, she utters a peculiar cluck, ruffles her feathers, wanders about, searches obscure corners and recesses, is very fidgety, feverishly hot, impatient, [49] anxiously restless, and seeks for a nest. Highly-fed hens feel this desire sooner than those that are not so highly fed. ”

“ But the hens will be glad of our superfluity, and so will the pigs, though we have neither hens nor pigs of our own. But hens we must certainly keep. There is something very sociable and quiet, and soothing, too, in their soliloquies and converse among themselves; and, in an idle and half-meditative mood, it is very pleasant to watch a party of hens picking up their daily subsistence, with a gallant chanticleer in the midst of them. ”

“ The hen's main duties are growing, laying, brooding, moulting, fattening. She needs a great variety of these three classes of foods throughout her life. Study your flock, read of the experiences of others in magazines, bulletins, and books, follow their advice, and work out mixtures and methods to suit your conditions after you gain experience. The hens will give you many a hint. Let them out of the pen now and then just before feeding time and see how they make for the grass. In the evening the earthworms are near the surface. The hens devour them greedily. ”

“ Our hens which we keep about our houses so ordinarily, and have daily in our eyes, how carefully do they look unto their young chickens whiles they receive some under their wings, which they spread and hold open for the nonce that they may creep in, others they suffer to mount upon their backs, gently giving them leave to climb and get up on every side, and this they do not without great joy and contentment, which they testify by a kind of clocking and special noise that they make at such a time ”

“ If a hen is starved she must not have hard corn at first, give her flour bread soaked soft in milk, till she is able to eat corn. Hens must not go in snow, it hurts them. They must not have fat meat. They must not be crowded, their room must be large enough. Their roosts must not be too high, for them to fly down on hard floor, it hurts their feet and hips. I know it. Hens want sun in winter and shade in summer. If hens' feet crack, bleed, and sore places, melt mutton tallow and white sugar together, rub it on faithful, they get well. ”

“ I keep my eye on them for a while at first, and they soon find out that they're not to fly either over the garden fence or the orchard fence. They roam over the farm and pick up what they can get. There's a good deal of sense in hens, if one manages them properly. I love them because they are such good mothers. ”

“ And in the side of the hen-house was a big door for people to go through.
When the summer was beginning, there were a good many hens and some chickens that were half grown up, and a very old rooster, and some that were not so old. ”

“ So the hens remain, just as ours is here on the table, for a long time, breathing heavily, but otherwise completely motionless on their backs, until at last either by themselves or by some other means they are aroused and fly away. ”

“ To make Hens lay perpetually.—Hens will lay perpetually, if treated in the following manner:—Keep no roosters (cocks) : give the hens fresh meat, chopped up like sausage-meat, once a day; a very small portion, say half an ounce a day to each hen, during the winter, or from the time insects disappear in the fall till they appear again in the spring. Never allow any eggs to remain in the nest for what are called "nest eggs." ”

“ Some flocks of russet, black and brown hens, crowers, and chickens, who live close by, are a great annoyance to Mater, and to all of us. They come shooting into the yard like little steam-engines, and snatch all they can of the dinner to which they were not invited ”

“ In the few cases where the hens are as conspicuously colored as the cocks, and yet the nest is open to view, we generally find that the hens are strong, pugnacious birds, and well able to defend themselves. There are even instances, though these are comparatively rare, in which the hens are more brilliantly colored than the cocks; and it is an interesting fact that it is then the cocks, and not the hens, which hatch the eggs. ”

“ A Spanish hen, in Mrs F—’s poultry-yard, was sitting on her nest in the hatching-house, which had a small window, through which a person might look to see that all was right. As the hens were usually fed upon their nests, the ground was strewed with corn, which tempted the rats and mice. The hens used frequently to punish the mice by a sharp tap on the head with their beak, which laid them to rest for ever. ”

“ Why, some hens are so larky that one doesn’t know how to manage them! So this is what the women do with a gay hen of that kind: they make little balls of bread, and dip them in spirits and give them to her.... The gay young hen eats them and gets tipsy; then they stick her on the eggs and put a coop over her.... ”

“ Those hens are liberal with their eggs, and those little chickens that are running around like two-legged puff-balls, are so willing to grow up and be broiled and roasted and stewed, that it would now be almost impossible for us to do without them. ”

“ That old hen is one of the toughest confidence operators in the yard, and if you take my advice, (and I have lived over four Thanksgivings,) you will keep an eye open for all black Spanish hens who have lost a husband. ”

“ I kin believe that hens lay eggs and don't cluck, and I kin believe that hens lay eggs all winter, and I kin believe that Plymouth Rock hens lay Leghorn eggs and Shanghai eggs and Banty eggs, Pap, but when hens begin layin' spoiled eggs I ain't no more faith in hens. ”

“ There was a barn containing a hay-mow and a large hen-coop, soon populous with hens and chickens, with an heroic snow-white rooster to keep them in order. Hens are the most audacious and presuming of pets, and they have strong individuality. ”

“ A few hens, and now and then a rooster, intended to serve God's mysterious ends, struggle through to maturity. The hens lay eggs out of which come other chickens and the dreadful cycle is thus made complete. It is all unbelievably complex. ”

“ About farmyards and cottages in rural districts, hens can pick up food that would otherwise be wasted. Besides, let it be kept in mind, that hens like to roam about scratching for seeds, worms, and particles of lime to furnish material out of which the shells of their eggs are formed. ”

“ Hens are the only ones on a farm that are not in a perpetual worry and ferment about "crops:" they fill theirs with whatever comes along, whether it be an angleworm, a kernel of corn, or a small cobblestone, and give thanks just the same. ”

“ And take these nine loaves of bread and these hens' eggs, there are seven times seven of them. Carry them along with you in a basket. When you come to the spot you will see a large nest up in the branches. Do not climb the tree, but chop it down with the curved sword. ”

“ Poultry, then, ceases to be an unimportant object of agricultural attention, and assumes its appropriate place among the other staples of the farmer.
Hens
Are the most numerous and profitable, and the most generally useful of the feathered tribe. The hen is peculiarly an egg-producing bird. She has the same predisposition for laying, that the cow has for secreting milk. Some breeds are better adapted for this object than others: but in all that have ever come within our notice, the proper food and circumstances are alone wanting, to produce a reasonable quantity of eggs. ”

“ Green.—If a hen has bright green come from her, look same as bright green paint, with yellow in it, give her rice water with nutmeg grated in it, and Jamaica ginger, a number of times a day, till it cures this disease. I cure them in a few days.
Feeling.—It is your duty to take good care, and not let anything hurt your hens, consider dear little hens.
Birds.—When I step down to the door, the little harmless birds come fly down on the ground, only one yard off my feet, and some of them half a yard off my feet. I give them oats and dough to eat; they eat it. Will they come to any one else? ”

“ Here, too, are hens' nests to be found, with frost-cracked eggs to carry in rats, and larger prey, also to be hunted when the hay is so nearly spent that the fork sticks into the loose boards at the bottom of the hay. ”

“ The fowl-house is finished, and this morning I had several gifts of hens to put into it. While we were at breakfast one small child of five, Lizzie Rogers, brought as her birthday gift a hen in a bag. One hen laid an egg an hour after its arrival! The eggs here are very small. I visit the house many times a day to show it to various visitors.
The garden is looking so bright; the zinnias have done splendidly, and some are over two feet high. Our vegetable garden now produces cabbages, turnips, and a few peas. Carrots are coming on, and the tomato plants are in blossom and look most flourishing. ”

“ The whole brood being hatched, place the hen under a coop abroad, upon a dry spot, and, if possible, not within reach of another hen, since the chickens will mix, and the hens are apt to destroy those which do not belong to them. ”

“ When a hen begins to set, remove her, nest and all, to a yard to which layers have no access, and you need have no difficulty with her. Set a hen near the ground, in a dry place, on fifteen fresh eggs, all put under her at once, and they will hatch about the same time at the end of twenty days. Old hens, of the common kind, are best to set. Let them have their own way in everything but running in the wet with their young chickens—and that they will not be much inclined to do if they are well fed. ”