The markings
of the wild fowl, however, are the most common, and practically all
small chickens are marked as are their wild kin. The wild fowl bears
markings similar to those of the American black-breasted red game,
though the fowls are smaller than the American game fowl. Each of
the twelve wild cocks I have had in my hands had perfect five-pointed
single combs, and the domestic cock of Bontoc also commonly has this
perfect comb. I know of no people within the Bontoc area who now
systematically domesticate the wild fowl, though this was found to be
the custom of the Ibilao southeast of Dupax in the Province of Nueva
Vizcaya. Those people catch the young wild fowl for domestication.
The Bontoc domestic fowl are not confined in a coop except at night,
when they sleep in small cages placed on the ground in the dwelling
houses. In the daytime they range about the pueblo feeding much in
the pigpens, though they are fed a small amount of raw rice each
morning. Their nests are in baskets secured under the eaves of the
dwelling, and in those baskets the brooding hens hatch their chicks,
from eight to twenty eggs being given a hen. The fowl is raised
exclusively for ceremonial consumption, and is frequently sold in
the pueblo for that purpose, being valued at from half a peso to a
peso each.
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