Male chicken

“ Chicken manure was always highly prized but usually in short supply because preindustrial fowl weren't caged in factories or permanently locked in hen houses and fed scientifically formulated mixes. The chicken breed of that era was usually some type of bantam, half-wild, broody, protective of chicks, and capable of foraging. A typical pre-1900 small-scale chicken management system was to allow the flock free access to hunt their own meals in the barnyard and orchard, luring them into the coop at dusk with a bit of grain where they were protected from predators while sleeping helplessly. ”

“ Another precaution necessary to be taken with early chicken, even after they have attained some size, is to avoid letting them run in the grass whilst it is wet with dew, otherwise they are very apt to get chilled, and die with cramp. When hens are cooped care must be taken to supply them with gravel and a little mortar rubbish, or broken oyster shells,—the first being required for the digestion of the food, the second to furnish the materials of the bones of the growing chicken. ”

“ If it is still cartilaginous, and bends easily from side to side, the meat of the chicken will be tender. If the cartilage has hardened to bone, the bird is over a year old, and should be used only for the purposes which fowls serve. The skin of the chicken should be firm, smooth and white; the feet soft, the legs smooth and yellow, the spurs small, the eyes bright and full, the comb red. On young chickens there are pin-feathers; on fowls, there are long hairs. The dry-picked chickens are preferable to those which are scalded. ”

“ The use of chemical preservatives in potted chicken is also reprehensible. In general it may be said that there is no very extensive adulteration of chicken meat. The principal objection to the commerce in preserved chicken meat is the use of old chickens, the unlimited cold storage, the failure to draw at time of slaughter, and exposure in the market in an unsanitary condition and for an indefinite time. Cheaper meats are sometimes substituted for the genuine article in potted chicken. Turkey and pork are said to be used in chicken salad. ”

“ With a few years' experience in chicken raising back of you, it would not be risky to raise them for commercial purposes. The popularity of fancy chickens is just beginning in this country. There is a fine market for eggs for hatching, but as it is extremely important to keep the breeds pure your fancy birds should be kept by themselves practically the year round. Most of the breeds mentioned are quite hardy, and the same care required for ordinary poultry as to housing, food, prevention of disease, cleanliness, and records will insure a good measure of success with fancy fowls. ”

“ One unversed in such matters can have no notion of the many and tragic things that can happen to a chicken. It is born out of an egg, lives for a few weeks as a tiny fluffy thing such as you will see pictured on Easter cards, then becomes hideously naked, eats quantities of corn and meal bought by the sweat of your father's brow, gets diseases called pip, cholera, and other names, stands looking with stupid eyes at the sun, becomes sick and dies. ”

“ To be compared to a chicken is disparaging enough; but to be compared to a chicken so very young that he has not yet quite divested himself of his shell must be, as Pet Marjorie would say, "what Nature itself can't endure." A little chicken's greedy crop blinds his eyes to every consideration except that of the insect squirming in his bill. He is beautiful and round and full of cunning ways, but he has no resources for an emergency. He will lose his reckoning and be quite out at sea, though only ten steps from home. ”

“ I am called Chicken Hawk, and Hen Hawk, also, though I don't deserve either of those names. There are members of our family, and oh, what a lot of us there are—as numerous as the Woodpeckers—who do drop down into the barnyards and right before the farmer's eyes carry off a Chicken. Red Squirrels, to my notion, are more appetizing than Chickens; so are Mice, Frogs, Centipedes, Snakes, and Worms. A bird once in a while I like for variety, and between you and me, if I am hungry, I pick up a chicken now and then, that has strayed outside the barnyard. ”

“ The young chicken, a short time after it leaves the egg, knows how to take care of itself nearly as well as the young mound-bird. It can run after its mother, use its eyes, pick up food, and answer the call of the old hen ”

“ Before the chicken is dead he is stripped of everything except a few pin feathers—with one sweep of the hand on each side of the body and a dozen pulls at the wing feathers. The yet jerking, featherless bodies are thrown to the pin-feather man, who picks out the thickest of the feathers, singes the fowls over a charcoal grate-fire and tosses them to one of the under-cooks who cuts them open, cuts them up, and pots them, all inside of two minutes from the coop. A team of three or four expert darkies will dispose of one hundred and fifty chickens in an hour. ”

“ In a young chicken, it will be smooth and unmarred; in an old one, it will be rough and probably darker in color. If the feet have been left on, they too will serve to indicate the age. The feet of a young chicken are smooth and soft; whereas, those of an old bird are rough, hard, and scaly. The claws of a young one are short and sharp; but as the bird grows older they grow stronger and become blunt and marred with use. The spur, which is a projection just above the foot on the back of each leg, is small in the young chicken, and increases in size as the age increases. ”

“ In a few hours they are able to run about and follow their parent; they do not require to be fed in the nest like most birds, but pick up the food which their mother shows them; and repose at night huddled up beneath her wings. The chicken during its development in the egg is nourished by the yolk, and the remaining portion of the yolk passes into its body previous to its leaving the shell, being designed for its first nourishment ”

“ A smart fire is better than a slow one; but they must be tended closely. Slices of bread, buttered, salted, and peppered, put into the stomach (not the crop) are excellent.
Chickens should boil about an hour. If old, they should {54} boil longer. In as little water as will cook them. Chicken-broth made like mutton-broth.
FRICASSEED CHICKEN, BROWN.
Singe the chickens; cut them in pieces; pepper, salt, and flour them; fry them in fresh butter, till they are very brown: take the chickens out, and make a good gravy, into which put sweet herbs (marjoram or sage) according to your taste ”

“ Chickens may be canned in the same way as has been described for beef and in that way may be kept for a certain length of time without notable deterioration. The pickling of chicken is not very extensively practiced nor is it cured in the ordinary sense of the word, that is, by the addition of salt, sugar, vinegar, spices, and wood smoke. Chicken may also be put up in the form of potted chicken, which has already been described. Practically the only methods which are in vogue and which can be commended for preserving chicken are sterilizing or canning and cold storage. ”

“ The chicken require neither food nor drink on the day on which they are hatched; in fact, both are injurious, as they interfere with the natural digestion of the yolk, which is absorbed into the bowels at the period of hatching, and constitutes the first food. If grits, oatmeal, &c., are spread before the hen on the twenty-first day, she is induced to leave the nest, and the last hatched chicken, which are not perhaps yet dried, are unable to follow, and being weakly, perish; or unhatched eggs may be left. ”

“ After the chickens are cleaned and trussed fold them in a nice white cloth, put them in a large stew-pan and cover them with boiling water; boil them gently, and skim carefully as long as any scum rises; let them simmer slowly as that will make them plump and white, while fast boiling will make them dark and lose flavor. When done lay them on a hot dish, and pour celery, oyster, or egg sauce over them. Serve some also in a boat, as it keeps hot longer than when poured over the fowls. Boiled tongue or ham should be served with boiled chicken. ”

“ Take off the scum as fast as it rises. Take them up and carve them in the usual way. Put part of the water in which they were boiled into a spider or stew-pan. For two chickens rub a piece of butter as large as an egg, and a spoonful of flour together, and stir into the water as it boils up. Add some salt, and a gill of cream, or milk. Lay in the pieces of chicken, cover the pan close, and stew them gently eight or ten minutes. Parsley cut fine is a decided improvement. ”

“ But the chickens we hardly recognise as such, they are such poor, scrawny things, with their bodies and feathers all awry; and when Mpuke's mother prepares a chicken stew, the meat is so dry and tasteless that it seems scarcely worth eating. What can be the reason that the African chicken is so much poorer than the American bird? Perhaps it is because it is tormented by such numbers of insects. ”

“ The object is not to hurry the chicken out of its shell, but to prevent its being suffocated by being close shut up within it. If the chick is tolerably strong, and the assistance needful, it will aid its deliverance with its own exertions." When the chicken at last makes its way out, do not interfere with it in any way, or attempt to feed it. Animal heat alone can restore it. Weakness has caused the delay, and this has probably arisen from insufficient warmth, perhaps from the hen having had too many eggs to cover thoroughly, or they may have been stale when set. ”

“ Never had a leg of lamb or a piece of roast beef gone so far in her domestic experience, a chicken seemed almost to outlive its usefulness in its various forms of reappearance, and the salads he devised were as wonderful as the omelets he superintended, or the gay dances he played on his beloved violin, as soon as he could sit up enough to manage it. ”

“ The full grown chicken is better suited for food when still young. The flesh loses flavor and gains in toughness as the chicken grows older. There is no legal limit fixing the division of chickens into different classes with respect to age and the only criterion is the price and taste of the consumer. ”

“ The signs of a need of assistance are the egg being partly pecked and chipped, and the cluck discontinuing its efforts for five of six hours. Weakness from cold may disable the chicken from commencing the operation of pecking the shell, which must then be artificially performed with a circular fracture, such as is made by the bird itself.
CHICKEN OR FOWL PIE. 929. INGREDIENTS.—2 small fowls or 1 large one, white pepper and salt to taste, 1/2 teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoonful of pounded mace, forcemeat No. 417, a few slices of ham, 3 hard-boiled eggs, 1/2 pint of water, puff crust. ”

“ Remove from the chicken every bit of fat and skin. Cut the best portions of the meat into dice with a sharp knife. Chopping is apt to make it ragged and uneven in appearance. Cut the celery in like manner, and set both aside in a cool place, when you have strewed a little salt over the chicken. To the boiling water add the corn-starch, and boil fast until it thickens well. Then stir in the chicken-essence, skimmed from the top of the cold liquor in which the fowls were boiled. ”

“ In farm-yards where there are large numbers of poultry, it will be found by far the most desirable plan to keep separately a cock with from four to six of the best hens, and to hatch their eggs alone. By this means the chicken are all certain of coming from the best birds, and a much smaller number of cocks may be kept with the main stock of hens than would otherwise be desirable. ”

“ The chicken is hot and feverish, although trembling violently, and they are extremely tender on being handled, and soon a dark-colored, dry, horny scale will be found at the end of the tongue, and the beak may turn yellow at the base; the appetite fails and the plumage becomes ruffled, and they gradually sink and die. ”

“ The increase of age in a chicken is to some extent an advantage, because with age there is an increase in flavor. Thus, a year-old chicken will have more flavor than a broiler. However, after more than a year, the flavor increases to such an extent that it becomes strong and disagreeable. With the advance of age there is also a loss of tenderness in the flesh, and this after 1-1/2 or 2 years becomes so extreme as to render the bird almost unfit for use. As the age of a chicken increases, the proportion of flesh to bone also increases up to the complete maturity of the bird. ”

“ At this point it may as well be confessed that chicken-farming does not grow in favour under continued observation. It pays, of course, but the amount of attention required becomes tiresome. The grown hens are all right, needing food and water only three times a day, and the task of gathering the eggs is only a pastime, but young chickens are a constant source of worry and bother. They must be fed five or six times a day on a varied diet and they require different food at different stages of their growth. ”

“ In an article entitled “Changes Taking Place in Chickens in Cold Storage,” in the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, for 1907, we read that the fresh chicken is a pale, soft yellow, without any tinge or suggestion of green in the colour of the skin, while there is enough translucency to show through it the delicate pink of the muscles underneath. It can be plainly seen that the pink tint is not of the skin itself. ”