Haec erit cohortalis officinae dispositio, quam Columellae acceptam ferre debemus, a qua nonnihil diversa est, quam ponit Varro[1]. Si {ducentas} <ducentos>, inquit, alere velis, locus septus attribuendus, in quo duae caveae coniunctae magnae constituendae, quae spectent ad orientem versus, utraeque in longitudinem circa decem pedes, latitudine dimidio minores, et altitudine paulo humiliores. Utriusque fenestrae latitudine {bipedali} <tripedali>[2], et uno pede altiores, {a} <e> viminibus factae raris, ita ut lumen praebeant multum, neque per eas quicquam ire intro possit, quod nocere possit Gallinis. Inter duas ostium sit, qua Gallinarius curator earum ire possit. In caveis crebrae perticae traiectae sint ut omnes sustinere possint Gallinas. Contra singulas perticas in pariete exculpta sint cubilia earum. Ante sit, ut dixi, vestibulum septum, in quo diurno tempore esse possint, atque in pulvere volutari. Praeterea sit cella grandis in qua curator habitet, ita ut in parietibus circum omnia posita sint cubilia Gallinarum aut exculpta, aut affixa firmiter, motus enim, cum incubant, nocet.

This will be the arrangement of the barnyard workshop which we must recognize as due to Columella, which differs somewhat from Varro's suggestion. The latter says: If you wish to raise two hundred birds you need to assign a fenced-in place, in which two large adjacent rooms must be built, facing east, both of them around ten feet long, less than a half in width, and a little lower in height. The windows of each room should be three feet wide and one foot higher, made of wide weaved wickers, so that they may furnish much light and without through them anything can enter which might harm the hens. Place between the two rooms an opening through which the chicken keeper can pass, who takes care of the hens. In the rooms, have many perches crossing through so that they can support all the hens. In front of each perch there should be nesting places dug in the wall. In front of the pen let there be a fenced-in place where the chickens can walk during the day and tumble about in the dust. Further, let there be a large cell in which the keeper stays, so that in the walls all around there are all the nests of the hens, either dug or firmly attached, for movement is harmful when hens are incubating.

Haec ille, quanvis Florentinus non plures, quam quinquaginta in uno aviario nutriri prohibeat, quod in angusto arctatae labefactentur. Quapropter aviarium magnum sit, necesse est. Columella ducenta capita unius custodis curam requirere etiam scripsit, eamque sedulam, ne vel ab hominibus, aut insidiosis animalibus aliqua diripiantur. Quod vero ad cortem attinet, ea ad meridiem pateat, et soli obiecta sit, quo facilius hyeme aliquem tepore<m> concipiat. Porticus furcis, asseribus, et fronde formandi, {quae} <qui> vel scandulis, vel si copia suppetit, tegulis, vel, si facilius, et sine impensa placuerit, caricibus, aut genistis tegendi, ut aestate caloris saevitia temperetur, animaliaque ceu in umbra degant. Columella[3] monet, ut pulvis siccus, et cinis, ubicunque cohortem porticus, vel tectum protegit, iuxta parietes reponatur, ut sit, quo aves se perfundant. Nam his rebus, inquit plumas, pennasque emundant, si modo credimus Ephesio {Heracleto} <Heraclito>, qui ait[4], sues coeno, aves cohortales pulvere vel cinere lavari.

Thus far Varro, although Florentinus forbids no more than fifty hens should be raised in one pen because they would grow weak in cramped quarters. Therefore the hen house must be large. Columella also wrote that two hundred birds require the care of one custodian and that such a care must be active, so that some subjects may not be stolen by men or dangerous animals. As far as chickens' yard is concerned, it should be open southward and facing the sun so that it may more easily receive some warmth in winter. There should be built sheds made of forks, beams and wreaths of foliage and roofed with laths, or tiles if there is enough of them, or, if it is easier and without expense, covered with rushes or brooms to temper in summer the fierce heat and the animals can live as in the shade. Columella advises that dry dust and ashes be scattered near the walls wherever the shed or the roof protect the yard so that there is a place where the birds may take a bath. For with these things, he says, they clean their plumes and feathers, if we just believe Heraclitus of Ephesus, who says that pigs wash themselves with mud and barnyard fowls with dust or ashes.

Qui itaque emolumenti causa hocce avium genus educare volunt, aediculam qualem ex Columella, vel ex Varrone descripsimus, aedificare poterunt, et quae sequentur, diligenter observare. Nonnulli, teste Leontino, {domunculos} <domunculas>, et nidos purgant, ipsasque aves sulphure, asphalto, pice{a} lustrant, sed et ferri laminam, ac clavorum capita, atque lauri surculos imponunt nidis, ut quae ad arcenda prodigia (textus Graecus habet διοσημείας tempestates) omnia magnam vim habere videntur. Sed eiusmodi remedia, ut diximus nimiam sedulitatem veterum declarant.

Therefore those who wish to make money from raising this genus of birds can build a small pen such as I have described from Columella and Varro and observe carefully the following suggestions. According to Leontinus - a geoponic, some people purify the little houses and nests, and the birds themselves, with sulphur, asphalt - or bitumen, pitch, but they also place a thin sheet of iron and heads of nails as well as sprigs of laurel on the nests because these things seem to have great power in driving off bad things (the Greek text has diosëmeías - prodigies, heavenly signs - that is, disasters). But remedies of this kind, as I said, indicate the excessive zeal of the ancients.

Gallorum etiam ratio habenda est ut totius Gallinarum numeri sexta pars mares sint, sed id minime observatur a nostris Gallinariis, cum alioqui haud ab re ab antiquis Geoponicis ea norma tradita sit. Quoniam si plures Gallinae fuerint, Gallum nimio coitu enervant. Si ergo forte evenerit, quod Gallum vel noviter emeris, vel dono acceperis, eumque in corte tua {eum} <cum> reliquo grege educare volueris, non temere statim, ac fortuito solutum dimittes. Sed curabis, si alii Galli ibi sint, ne ab eis fugetur. Aelianus[5] eiuscemodi Gallum recentem sponte fugitivum ad suos familiares, et compascales, utcunque procul allatus fuerit, se recipere tradit, ideoque custodia ipsum muniendum, et vinculis occultioribus, quam quibus apud Homerum[6] {Vulcanus} <Mars> irretitur, coercendum, idque hunc in modum effici, si ei fidem adhibes, (nam revera fabulam sapit) mensam super qua cibum capere soles, in medium cortis siste, et Gallum ter circa ipsam circumferto, atque ita cum caeteris avibus domesticis liberum dimittito. Sic enim tanquam vinctus nusquam aufugiet. Sed Gallus ad suos non revertetur, ut ille ait, nisi a vicinis tuis illum emas, nam tunc propter veterem pellicum amorem facile domum repetit.

We must also make allowance for the roosters, so that the males are a sixth of hens’ number, but this is by no means observed by our poultry keepers, although this standard has been handed down not motiveless by ancient geoponics. Since if there are several hens, they wear out the rooster by too much copulation. Therefore if it happens that recently you buy or receive as a gift a rooster and wish to raise him in your barnyard with the rest of the flock, do not at once release him to run rashly and haphazardly. But take care that he is not driven away by other roosters, if there are any there. Aelian reports that such a recently arrived rooster spontaneously runs away to his friends and feeding partners, from however far off he has been brought, and thus must be guarded and bound with chains more invisible than those by which Mars - see The cheated on Vulcan, according to Homer, is snared. It can be done in this manner, if you have faith in him (for in fact his words smack of a fable): place the table on which you are accustomed to take your food in the middle of the barnyard and carry the rooster three times around it. Then let him run free with the other domestic birds. For in this manner as if chained he will run away nowhere. But a rooster does not return to his friends, as Aelian says, unless you buy him from your neighbors, for then, because of an old love for his concubines, he easily seeks his home again.

Quod vero ad reliquam ὀρνιθοτροφίαν, seu, ut Columella[7] vertit, rationem cohortalem attinet, ea iam in solo victu, et potu consistere videtur. Victus autem ratio ob duas potissimum causas instituitur, ut scilicet vel ova pariant, et proli {incubant} <incubent>, vel pro hominum futuro pastu saginentur. Sed cum animantia sint pamphaga, nihilque non devorent, absumantque naturae suae caliditate {adiuti} <adiuta>, adeo ut non solum praeter omnia fere granorum genera, omnium animantium cum terrestrium, tum aquatilium carnibus oblectentur verumetiam nec humanis stercoribus, nec serpentibus, scorpionibus, eiusmodique animalibus, venenatis sibi temperent, quinim<m>o conficiant ac nonnunquam arenas, lapillosque ingluvie sua devoratos, teste Dioscoride[8], dissolvant: nam cum hos in ventriculo aperto tantum reperire sit, (unde et Gallicum vulgus, ut scribit Laurentius Io<u>bertus[9] Gallus, earum avium ventriculum {perie} <periè> vocat a petris, quas patria lingua peiras dicunt[10]) nunquam vero in intestinis, itaque non dissolvi tantum, sed confici etiam ab illis quispiam non inepte iudicet, quia non prius descendit conclusa ventriculo materia, quam sit emollita, et in {chilum} <chylum>[11] conversa. Quinim<m>o avium genus, maxime earum, quae non sunt carnivorae, et seminibus pascuntur potissimum, ut Gallinae, ventriculi membranam habet densissimam, in eaque nativum calorem valde acrem, ut est in c<h>alybe ignito ob subiecti soliditatem.

As to the remaining things pertaining to chicken raising - ornithotrophían - or, as Columella translates, ratio cohortalis - the barnyard science, they seem finally to concern only food and drink. The method of feeding is determined chiefly by two purposes, that is, so that either they lay eggs and take care of offspring or they are to be fattened for human food. But since these animals are omnivorous and there is nothing they do not devour and swallow, helped by the heat of their nature, to such an extent that not only beside almost all kinds of grain they enjoy the flesh of all land and water animals, but they do not refrain from even human dung or serpents, scorpions, and poisonous creatures of this kind, and sometimes they even eat sand, and, according to Dioscorides, they dissolve swallowed pebbles by their own stomachs. For since such things have been found only in their opened stomachs (whence also the French people, as the Frenchman Laurent Joubert writes, call the stomach of these birds periè from petrae, stones, which they call in their language peiras) but never in their intestines, whence one would not conclude out of turn that these things are not only dissolved by them, but also produced, for whatever material there is in the stomach does not descend before it is softened and converted into chyle - today called chyme. Furthermore the genus of birds, especially those who are not carnivorous and feed mainly on seeds, such as hens, have a very thick membrane of the stomach and in it a very keen native heat, as there is in steel which is made hot by the compactness of the material which lies beneath it.