172. As to the _feeding_ of them, when young, various nice things are recommended. Hard eggs chopped fine, with crumbs of bread, and a great many other things; but that which I have seen used, and always with success, and for all sorts of young poultry, is milk _turned into curds_. This is the food for young poultry of all sorts. Some should be made _fresh every_ day; and if this be done, and the young turkeys kept warm, and especially _from wet_, not one out of a score will die. When they get to be strong, they may have meal and grain, but still they always love the curds.
173. When they get their _head feathers_ they are hardy enough; and what they then want is _room_ to prowl about. It is best to breed them under a _common hen_; because she does not _ramble_ like a hen-turkey; and it is a very curious thing that the turkeys bred up by a hen of the common fowl, _do not themselves ramble much when they get old_; and for this reason, when they buy turkeys for _stock_, in America, (where there are such large woods, and where the distant rambling of turkeys is inconvenient,) they always buy such as have been bred under the hens of the common fowl; than which a more complete proof of the great powers of _habit_ is, perhaps, not to be found. And ought not this to be a lesson to fathers and mothers of families? Ought not they to consider that the habits which they give their children are to stick by those children during their whole lives?
174. The _hen_ should be fed _exceedingly well_, too, while she is _sitting_ and _after_ she has hatched; for though she does not give _milk_, she gives _heat_; and, let it be observed, that as no man ever yet saw healthy pigs with a poor sow, so no man ever saw healthy chickens with a poor hen. This is a matter much too little thought of in the rearing of poultry; but it is a matter of the greatest consequence. Never let a poor hen sit; feed the hen well while she is sitting, and feed her most abundantly when she has young ones; for then her _labour_ is very great; she is making exertions of some sort or other during the whole twenty-four hours; she has no rest; is constantly doing something or other to provide food or safety for her young ones.