All birds, but especially old fowls, require more warmth and more nourishing diet during this drain upon their system, and should roost in a warm, sheltered, and properly-ventilated house, free from all draught. Do not let them out early in the morning, if the weather is chilly, but feed them under cover, and give them every morning warm, soft food, such as bread and ale, oatmeal and milk, potatoes mashed up in pot-liquor, with a little pepper and a little boiled meat, as liver, &c., cut small, and a little hempseed with their grain at night. Give them in their water some iron or "Douglass Mixture," which consists of one ounce of sulphate of iron and one drachm of sulphuric acid dissolved in one quart of water; a teaspoonful of the mixture is to be added to each pint of drinking water. This chalybeate is an excellent tonic for weakly young chickens, and young birds that are disposed to outgrow their strength. It increases their appetite, improves the health, imparts strength, brightens the colour of the comb, and increases the stamina of the birds. When chickens droop and seem to suffer as the feathers on the head grow, give them once a day meat minced fine and a little canary-seed. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Piper on Poultry: their Varieties, Management, Breeding, and Diseases; Price 1s. Groombridge & Sons, 5, Paternoster Row, London.] [Footnote 2: The Practical Poultry Keeper. By Mr. L. Wright. Cassell, Petter & Galpin.] [Footnote 3: The Practical Poultry Keeper. By Mr. L. Wright. Cassell, Petter & Galpin.]