Hatching and rearing Turkeys.

The gobblers should be shut off from the rearing-ground. Early reared birds do best. Turkeys sit so very close that they often require to be taken off the nest and fed" A few eggs should be set under hens and added to the turkey's flock. A little before the eggs are hatched take her off the nest and clean it out, and see that she is dear of vermin. The eggs take twenty-eight or twenty-nine days to hatch.

Turkeys are hard to rear. The best helps are dryness and cleanliness and freedom from lice. Keep them inside for a day or two, then put the mother in a coop on short dry grass. Let her out when the young once are three weeks old, and feed them under a frame.

For the first week their food should be hard-boiled eggs with chopped dandelion leaves. Curd of sour milk with tops of onions or dock, cut fine, may also be given. They may be afterwards fed on pollard and meal, like chickens, and may get a little grain. Change the food now and then, Bonemeal and meat must be supplied, and milk will do no harm. The growing birds should perch on flat roosts only.

Lice kill about half the young turkeys that die.

Open sheds make the best roosting-places, and short grass the best runs.

Turkey-cocks should weigh 121b. or over, and hens 71b. or over, at twelve months old.

Fatten in a slightly-darkened shed, the light being let in while feeding and give them meal mixed with boiled potatoes. Boiled corn may be given for a change.