VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 37 



gradually reduced according to the temperature outside. care 

 being taken not to drive the chicks out by too much heat, or to 

 cause them to crowd together under the hover because they are 

 cold. They should flatten out separately, when young, and a 

 little later, lie with their heads just at the edge of the fringe of 

 the hover. Under no condition are they allowed to huddle out- 

 side of the brooder. They huddle because they are cold, and 

 they should be put under the hover to get warm, until they learn 

 to do so of their own accord. Neither are they allowed to stay 

 under the hover too much, but are forced out into the cooler air 

 where they gain strength in the day time. They are not allowed 

 to get more than a foot from the hover during the first two days; 

 then a little further away each day, and down onto the house 

 floor about the fourth or fifth day, if the weather is not too cold. 

 They must not get cold enough to huddle or cry, but they must 

 come out from under the hover frequently. 



The floor of the brooder is cleaned every day and kept well 

 sprinkled with sharp, fine crushed rock, known in the market as 

 "chicken grit." The floor of the house is covered with clover 

 leaves, or hay chaff, from the feeding floor in the cattle barns. 

 For raising winter chickens the long piped brooder house is 

 indispensable, and it has many advantages when used at any 

 season of the year. The advantages are especially great when 

 raising chickens, if April or May prove to be cold and wet, for 

 then the small houses are apt to be cold outside of the brooders. 



The expenditure is greater for the piped house, for the reason 

 that colony houses should be provided in which the chickens may 

 be sheltered after they leave the brooder house. In ordinary 

 seasons we experience no difficulty in raising April and May hatched 

 chicks in the small houses. With proper feeding, pullets hatched 

 in these months are early enough to do good work throughout the 

 year. 



FEEDING THE CHICKS. 



For feed for young chicks we make bread by mixing three 

 parts corn meal, one part wheat bran, and one part wheat mid- 

 dlings or flour, with skim milk or water, mixing it very dry, and 

 salting as usual for bread. It is baked thoroughly, and when 

 well done if it is not dry enough so as to crumble, it is broken up 

 and dried out in the oven and then ground in a mortar or mill. 

 The infertile eggs are hard boiled and ground, shell and all, in a 

 sausage mill. About one part of ground egg and four parts of 

 the bread crumbs are rubbed together until the egg is well di- 

 vided. This bread makes up about one-half of the food of the 

 chicks until they are five or six weeks old. Eggs are always used 

 with it for the first one or two weeks, and then fine sifted beef scrap 

 is mixed with the bread. 



