SC - References-Chicken feed
LrdRas at aol.com
LrdRas at aol.com
Mon Dec 20 21:27:37 PST 1999
I have received the following references lending support to my position on
the feeding of chickens in period. Some are less than ideal but at least one
is very specific regarding not only the food being given but the age of the
birds being fed and what they were being fed. Special thanks to Thomas of
this list and Melanie Wilson of the SCA-arts list for 'refreshing' my memory
and providing the specifics. Thanks also to Elysant who proofread the text
for me.
1) Piers plowman writes of a capon cote, where the capons were fattened for
the
table (I presume grain. More importantly this passage indicates that chickens
did receive supplemental feeding of some sort under certain circumstances
such as the raising of capons for the table).
2) 'According to Hartley many manuscripts show hens being fed by old ladies,
unfortunately she doesn't say on what'. (again I presume grain as does
Melanie who opined that if other than grain were meant it probably would have
been mentioned))
3) 'There is an illustration in the Lutrell Psalter which appears to be a
women feeding grain to fowl.'
4) 'Gleaning-is an old English tradition, whereby the church bell was rung
after harvest, whereby all villages (non farmers) could go & collect the
grain in the fields missed by the harvesting process. ...... in living memory
this
practice saw poor families' poultry through the winter. How old this is I
don't
know.'
5) 'One such picture is in the Vienna Tacuin Sanitatis (AKA 'Four seasons of
the House of Cerruti', mentioned a few digests ago) under the heading
"Galli" (cocks), where hens are also treated. The picture shows a woman
with a basket feeding the hens with something I could not identify. The
text is somewhat more explicit: "To prefer: young ones (i.e. hens) that
are being fed with good grain".'
The text here definitely states that not only was grain being fed to the
poultry but that this grain was 'GOOD' grain. Since the translation specifies
young 'hens' (which I assume is a feminine word form in the original
language), this shows us that not only capons were fattened on supplemental
feeding but also that immature poultry were also fed with good grain. It is
not to much of a step to conclude that poultry of every age received at least
some form of supplemental feeding and that the form of the supplement was
most likely grain.
Ras
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