Gallinae quae paucis incubat, triginta tantum subijciendi sunt pulli, quandoquidem generi gallinarum res infensissima est frigus, Florentinus[1]. Veruntamen servare oportet modum, neque enim debet maior esse quam triginta capitum. negant enim hoc ampliorem gregem posse ab una nutriri, Columella. Pulli autem duarum aut trium avium exclusi, dum adhuc teneri sunt, ad unam quae sit melior nutrix, transferri debent, sed primo quoque die, dum mater suos, et alienos propter similitudinem dignoscere non potest, Idem[2]. Pullos autem non oportet singulos, ut quisque natus sit, tollere, sed uno die in cubili sinere cum matre, et aqua ciboque abstinere, dum omnes excludantur. Postero die, cum grex fuerit effoetus, hoc modo deponitur. Cribro vitiario, vel etiam loliario, qui (quod) iam fuerit in usu, pulli superponantur: deinde pulegii surculis fumigentur. Ea res videtur prohibere pituitam, quae celerrime teneros interficit. Post haec cavea cum matre claudendi sunt, et farre ordaceo cum aqua incocto, vel adoreo farre vino resperso modice alendi. nam maxime cruditas vitanda est, et ob hoc tertia die cavea cum matre continendi sunt, priusque, quam emittantur, ad recentem cibum singuli tentandi, ne quid hesterni habeant in gutture: nam si vacua non est ingluvies, cruditatem significat, abstinerique debent, dum concoquant. Longius autem non est permittendum teneris evagari, sed circa caveam continendi sunt, et farina ordacea pascendi, dum corroborentur. Cavendumque ne a serpentibus adflentur, quarum odor tam pestilens est, ut interimat universos. id vitatur saepius incenso cornu cervino, vel galbano, vel muliebri capillo; quorum omnium fere nidoribus praedicta pestis submovetur.

To a hen covering few of them - chicks, we have to put under her no more than thirty chicks, since the cold is a very harmful thing for a member of the genus Gallus, Florentinus. Nevertheless a limit has to be set, in fact it – the crowd - doesn't have to be larger than thirty subjects. For they say that by only a hen a crowd larger than this number is not raised, Columella. The chicks born under two or three hens, when are still newborns, they must be transferred to only a hen who has to be a rather good breeder, and this must happen at the first day of life, when the mother is not able to distinguish her own chicks from the intruders, since they are similar, still Columella. It is not a good thing to remove the chicks one by one the day on which they hatched, but they have to be left an entire day in the nest with the mother, and they must to abstain from water and food until are all hatched. On next day when the flock will be hatched, it has arranged in this way: the chicks must be placed upon an already used sieve for vetch or darnel: then fumigated with sprigs of pennyroyal - Mentha pulegium. It seems that this practice prevents the pip which kills the very young birds quite swiftly. Subsequently they must be shut up in a hencoop with the mother and given a moderately feeding of barley flour boiled in water or of wheat flour sprinkled with wine. For indigestion must be avoided as much as possible, thus until third day the chicks should be kept in the hencoop with the mother, and before they are sent out for fresh food, each should be touched to see if they have nothing of the day before in their crops: for if their ingluvies is not empty this indicates digestive disorders and they should abstain from food until they concluded the digestion. While they are quite young they should not be allowed to stray far but be kept around the hencoop and fed with barley flour until they become stronger. We have also to pay attention that they are not reached by the breath of the snakes, whose scent is so pestilential to kill all of them. This is avoided by burning rather often horn of buck, or galbanum, or hair of woman; for the more the aforesaid calamity is held off by acrid exhalations of these materials.

Sed et curandum erit, ut tepide habeantur. nam nec calorem, nec frigus sustinent: Optimumque est {infra} <intra> officinam clausos haberi cum matre, et post quadragesimum diem potestatem vagandi fieri. Sed primis quasi infantiae diebus pertractandi sunt, plumulaeque sub cauda clunibus detrahendae, ne stercore coinquinatae durescant, et naturalia praecludant. Quod quamvis caveatur, saepe tamen evenit, ut alvus exitum non habeat: itaque pinna pertunditur, et iter digestis cibis praebetur, Columella[3]. Obijciendum pullis diebus quindecim primis mane subiecto pulvere (ne rostris noceat terra dura) polentam mistam cum nasturtii semine, et aqua aliquanto ante facta<m> intrita<m>, et ne tum deinde in eorum corpore turgescat, aqua prohibendum, Varro[4].

But also care has to be taken that they stay at lukewarm: in fact they bear neither hot nor cold. And it is a good thing to keep them closed in the hen-pen together with their mother and that have the possibility to go round after forty days - from the birth. But practically since the first days of their childhood they are to be taken in hand and to remove the down from buttocks under the tail so that, dirty of dung, the former doesn't become hard obstructing thus the cloaca. Even if this attention is paid, nevertheless often it happens that the bowel doesn't have outlet: and then it is pierced with a feather, allowing so the vent of digested foods, Columella. In the first fifteen days in the morning give them barley polenta to eat mixed with nasturtium seed and soaked with water as well as prepared rather in advance, with dust laid down (so that the hard earth doesn't damage their beaks), and then, so that  the polenta will not swell inside of their bodies, they have to be kept away from water, Varro.

Nutrimentum quo utuntur primis quindecim diebus, est farina mista cardami semini, ac vino perfusa cum aquae fervefactae portione[5]. porri[6] etiam folia tenerrima cum caseo musteo contusa, illis porrigimus. Hordeum autem exactis duobus (sex, in Graeco codice. sed interpres mendum suspicatur[7]) mensibus offeratur, Didymus[8]. Ut nutriantur pulli, accipiens hordeaceum fermentum, id, atque etiam furfur, aqua irrorato, Democritus. Recentes pulli ubi primum in corbem coniecti sunt, statim suspenduntur in tali loco, ubi levem fumum excipiant. Alimentum autem duobus primis diebus non sumunt. Vas porro in quo illis apponitur nutrimentum, fimum bubulum in se contineat, (βολβίτῳ κλεῖε, bubulo stercore claudatur, ut Cornarius vertit,) Didymus. Asininum sive equinum stercus, in vasa capacia iniicito, ex quo decem diebus exactis nascentur vermes pullorum nutricationi percommodi, Democritus.

The nourishment they use in the first fifteen days consists in flour mixed with seeds of garden cress and dunked of wine together with an equivalent amount of hot water. We also offers them very tender leaves of leek crushed with fresh cheese. But barley should be given them when two months have passed (six in the Greek manuscript, but the translator suspects a mistake) Didymus - a geoponic. To feed the chicks, take fermented barley and sprinkle it with water together with bran, Bolos of Mendes. The just born chicks, as soon as they have been put in a basket, they are sudden suspended in a place where can receive a thin smoke. But in the first two days they don't take up food. Besides the container, in which is given them the nourishment, has to contain cow dung (bolbítøi kleîe, must be plugged with cow dung, as Janus Cornarius translates), Didymus. Put inside of large vessels dung of donkey or horse, from which, when ten days are passed, worms will be born very suitable for feeding the chicks, Bolos of Mendes.

Quando de clunibus coeperint habere pinnas, e capite, et e collo eorum crebro eligendi pedes. Saepe enim propter eos consenescunt. Circum caveas eorum incendendum cornu cervinum, ne qua serpens accedat: quarum bestiarum ex odore solent interire. Prodigendi in solem et sterquilinium, ut se volutare possint, quod ita alibiliores fiunt. Neque pullos tantum, sed omne ὀρνιθοβοσκεῖον cum aestate, tum utique cum tempestas est, molle, atque apricum eligi debet intento supra rete, quod prohibeat eas extra septa volare, et in eas involare extrinsecus accipitrem, aut quid aliud. Evitare item caldorem, et frigus oportet, quod utrunque his adversum. Cum iam pinnas habebunt, consuefaciendum, ut unam aut duas gallinas sectentur. Caeterae ut potius ad pariendum sint expeditae quam in nutricatu occupatae, Varro[9]. Ut pulli multum et cito crescant: Testas e quibus emerserunt pulli, tunica interiore dempta, contritas, cum sale et ovo cocto duro miscebis, et pullis primi alimenti loco appones, Innominatus.

When from buttocks the feathers will start to sprout, frequently the lice have to be removed from their head and neck. Often in fact because of them they weaken. Around their enclosures horn of buck has to be burnt so that in some way a snake doesn't come in: they usually die because of the smell of these animals. They have to be sent in the sun and in the dunghill so that can roll, since in this way they are raised better. And not only the chicks, but the whole hen-pen, both in summer, and especially in bad weather, a slightly undulated place and exposed to sunlight has to be chosen, stretching above a net which prevents these birds from flying out of fences, and that from the outside flights on them a sparrowhawk or something else. Likewise it is necessary to avoid the hot and the cold, since are both harmful for them. When already they will have the feathers, it will be necessary to accustom them to follow one or two hens. So that the other ones are free to lay eggs rather than busy in raising them, Varro. So that they may grow large and quickly: In place of their first food give the chicks the shells from which they emerged, with the inner tunic removed, ground up and mixed with salt and hard boiled egg, an anonymous author.

¶ Servatio ovorum. Ova in lomento servari utilissimum, Plinius[10]. aut hyeme in paleis, aestate in furfuribus, Idem et Leontinus. Ut primum emissa sunt ova, statim reponenda sunt in vasis cum furfure, Florentinus. Qui ova diutius servare volunt, perfricant sale minuto, aut muria: atque ita sinunt tres aut quatuor horas, eaque abluta condunt in furfures aut acus, Varro[11]. Aliqui aqua abluentes ova, ea sale minutissimo inducunt, (καταπλάττουσι, malim καταπάττουσι, id est conspergunt,) et sic conservant. Nec desunt qui tres horas aut quatuor, ova ipsa in tepidam salsuginem infundentes, eaque postea eximentes in furfure aut paleis reponunt, Leontinus. Ovorum quoque longioris temporis custodia non aliena est huic curae: quae commode servantur per hyemem, si paleis obruas, aestate si furfuribus. Quidam prius trito sale sex horis adoperiunt: deinde eluunt, atque ita paleis, aut furfuribus obruunt: nonnulli solida, multi etiam fresa faba coaggerant; alii salibus integris adoperiunt. Alii muria tepefacta durant. Sed omnis sal quemadmodum non patitur putrescere, ita minuit ova, nec sinit plena permanere, quae res ementem deterret. Itaque ne in muriam quidem qui dimittunt, integritatem ovorum conservant, Columella[12] et Leontinus. Sale exinaniri creduntur, Plinius[13]. Ova recentiora quidam servari aiunt frumenti genere quod secale vocant, nostri roggen: vel cinere, ita ut acutior pars ovi inferior sit, tum rursus secale aut cinerem superinfundunt.

¶ Preservation of the eggs. It is very useful that the eggs are preserved in flour of broad beans, Pliny. Or in the straw in winter, in summer in the bran, still he and Leontinus - a geoponic. The eggs, as soon as laid, are suddenly to be put in pots with bran, Florentinus. Those people who want to preserve the eggs for a longer time rub them with fine salt or brine: and leave them thus for three or four hours and after washed they place them in bran or in chaff, Varro. Some people, washing the eggs with water, cover them with very fine salt (katapláttousi - they smear, I would prefer katapáttousi, that is, they sprinkle) and they preserve them this way. Neither are missing those people who, dipping the eggs for three or four hours in lukewarm salty water, and when then they remove them, put them in bran or in straw, Leontinus. Also the preservation of the eggs for a rather long time is not unrelated with the following manner of taking care of them: they keep well during the winter if you cover them with straw, in the summer with bran. Some people cover them before for six hours with fine salt: then wash them and after cover them with straw or bran: some piles up them with entire broad beans, many people also with ground broad beans, others cover them with uncrushed salt. Others harden them with lukewarm brine. But whatever kind of salt, as it doesn't allow the eggs to become rotten, at the same time reduces their weight and doesn't allow them to remain full, a fact which keeps away him who has to buy them. Therefore neither those people putting them in brine are preserving the integrity of the eggs, Columella. Some people say that the most recent eggs must be preserved with a kind of wheat they call rye, ours call it Roggen: or with ash, in such a way that the most pointed part of the egg is downwards, then they still put above rye or ash.