In breeding GAME CHICKEN, to breed with success, there are some general rules, which should be strictly attended to, and invariably persevered in. No BROOD-COCK should walk with more than _four hens_; three being, in fact, fully sufficient. GAME HENS should never be permitted to bring forth a clutch of chickens before the _last_ week in FEBRUARY, nor after the _first_ week in MAY; those hatched in MARCH and APRIL are only adapted to THE PIT, and are always preferable, in SIZE and GROWTH, to those hatched at _any other_ season of the year. Hens after hatching should be _cooped asunder_, where the chickens cannot intermix; as the hens will not only _kill_ the _young_ of _each other_, but FIGHT THEMSELVES with the same inveteracy as THE COCKS. If a game hen, with chicken, retreats when attacked by another in the same state, her produce has been suspected to prove, in future, _defective in courage_; this opinion has, however, been founded upon false principles; because it is a very common circumstance for the younger hen to give place to an older, as it always is for THE STAG to submit to the OLD COCK, who must and will continue master of his walk.
During the first year after being hatched, they are called individually CHICKEN; from twelve months to two years old, they are termed STAGS, and from that period called COCKS, being then thought in _their prime_; but they are probably more so AT THREE, if properly walked. COCK CHICKENS should never be permitted to run too long together, but be separated as soon as they begin fighting _with each other_; and this ought to be the more strictly attended to, because it frequently happens, that out of a _whole clutch_, by neglect or inattention, what with _scalped heads_, _loss of eyes_, _broken beaks_, or _deformed feet_, not one has ever been brought to the scale.
COCK CHICKEN, when first removed, at _three_ or _four_ months old, are placed where they continue to walk under an OLD COCK, and will continue obedient and submissive till _nine_ and _ten_, or sometimes TWELVE MONTHS old; the experiment is nevertheless too hazardous to be made; they had much better be taken to a MASTER-WALK in proper time, to avoid the probability of either _one_ or _both_ being SPOILED. The most eminent BREEDERS, as well as the most enthusiastic BETTERS, have one mode of endeavouring to fix a criterion, how far they can depend upon _the heel_, _the fight_, and _the blood_, of any particular BREED or CROSS they may have been induced to adopt. This experiment (dreadfully _cruel_ as it is) is termed "CUTTING OUT," and consists in _pitting_ such CHICKEN of _seven_, _eight_, or _nine_ months old, _unarmed_, against their own brothers, or others of superior _age_, _weight_, and _strength_, having SILVER SPURS; if the chicken, so unarmed, and without the least chance of success, continues the combat till completely _deprived of life_, without displaying the least tendency to cowardice, or consciousness of defeat, more of his brothers have the same severe and "fiery ordeal" to undergo, when, if the result is just the same, the _cross_ is admitted to be _good_, and the BREED is persevered in, till, from circumstances, the blood is thought to degenerate, when new crosses are adopted, and new experiments made. See COCKING, COCK-MATCH, and COCKPIT.