The Royal Pastime of Cock-fighting: The art of breeding, feeding, fighting, and curing cocks of the gameR. H. (Robert Howlett)
History
The Royal Pastime of Cock-fighting: The art of breeding, feeding, fighting, and curing cocks of the game
R. H. (Robert Howlett)
Cockfighting
[Sidenote: Broody Hens commonly hated by the Cock.]
Now when your Hen is disposed to Sit if you can with conveniency remove
the Cock from that Walk, it will be a thing very grateful to your Hen,
who now no more delights in the Company of the Cock, nor the Cock in
hers, she slights his Court-ship, and by her froward carriage oft times
provokes him not only to dismantle, and strip her of her Plumes, but
also deprive her of her Life, unless she quit her self better in her
escape, for Broody Hens are ever hated by Cocks of the Game, especially
such Cocks as have in bloody Battles been engaged: but a Young
unfoughten Cock is not so dangerously cruel towards a Sitting Hen, and
therefore be farther trusted especially when the Walk cannot well be
spared.
_How the Chickens are to be brought up._
[Sidenote: Perfuming needless.]
During the time that your Hen Sits you must be careful in this, that
when she comes off her Nest, she may readily meet with her Craw full of
good sweet Oats, and fresh Water, but give her no Barly until she have
hatched; and in her absence from her Nest be you careful to turn her
Eggs if need require it, and see that no Hawk haunt the House whilst
the Hen Sits: and when she is hatching you must be very diligent in
taking away her first Chickens from her, least she quit her Nest too
soon, and leave many of her Eggs unhatched: give to each Chicken a
little bit of White-bread, and dip their Bills in new Milk, and then
put them into a Basket of Sheeps Wool close covered, and place it by
the Fire until Night, at which time you must also feed them again as
before, and so put them under the Hen as she Sits upon her Nest, to
hurk them all Night, and the next Day when she comes off her Nest with
her Flock, be they more or less, you must be sure to put them into some
dry warm place, where plenty of Groats, Groundmalt, and such like Food
may hourly be offered unto them, and a shallow Sawcer of new Milk set
for them to drink and bibble in, and at the Fortnights end give them
only Barly to eat, and fresh Water to drink, and now (if it may be)
let them have the benefit of the Sun, and be admitted to walk in some
Court, or Garden, where they may bather and dust themselves in some
Sun-shiny Bank, or Sandy Walk, which is a thing that much delights and
forwards Birds of this sort, and as their Strength increases let their
Walk be enlarged, but withall remember that Weesles, Cats, and Kites
are mortal Enemies to these young Duellers, and that a nasty Sink,
or Dunghill-hole is a most destructive thing to Chickens, for they
endanger, and breed ill humours in the Body, causing the Roop, Rot-gut
and such like dangerous Diseases to come upon them betime, which are
Maladies seldom or never cured; and therefore a walk that is clean, and
dry, is ever to be best esteemed for breeding Birds of this kind. But
for Perfuming either the Chickens, or the Room where they Roost, or by
way of Antidote, to give them the blades of choped Leeks, Skellians, or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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