Aug. 2, 1920.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 597 



Successful rearing is not simply dragging up batches of chickens — it is not 

 merely keeping them alive. A good deal more than that is involved, because, 

 unless we can secure adequate growth we are not only spending too large an 

 amount of food to got a certain development, Hut we are also affecting the 

 laying, for slow growth means late laying. In other words, without early 

 laying the pullets are rarely able to put up good performances. Not only 

 so, but badly grown pullets scarcely ever make profitable layers in their 

 second season. Avery great proportion of the poor producers are so because 

 of indifferent rearing, rather than because of the innate bad laying quality 

 of the stock. 



I might even emphasise the point by saying that I have never seen a well- 

 grown, well-developed flock of utility pullets that would not pay when 

 properly fed and attended to, irrespective of their breeding for egg produc- 

 tion. Failure to secure good rearing for two or three seasons will ruin the 

 best of breeds. Unfortunately, it is one of the insidious things that is 

 adversely affecting the poultry industry at the present time. 



Brooder Trouble. 

 We have now arrived at the months when brooder troubles are most 

 acute. During the months of June and July, as a general rule, batches are 

 small. Everything then is, or should be, clean from the previous season, 

 and conditions generally have been favourable for the early small batches of 

 chickens. Plenty of infertility will perhaps have been experienced from the 

 eggs set, but the chickens hatched will have been on the whole strong. 



In August and September more eggs will be available, and better fertility 

 with higher percentages of chickens should result, but right here is where 

 the chicken-rearer enters the danger zone. On very few farms is the 

 brooding capacity equal to thai; of the hatching facilities. The result is 

 that improvisation and crowding is resorted to in order to accommodate the 

 chickens that appear so welcome. Larger numbers are put into each 

 compartment, until the brooders become so congested that trouble is 

 inevitable. When this happens, the farmer, instead of recognising what 

 he has done, is prone to attribute his troubles to disease — " white diarrhoea " 

 being the one most frequently blamed, because the chickens show more 

 or less looseness, or perhaps enteritis in an acute form. It does not follow, 

 however, that Bacterium pullormn (the causative agent of white diarrhoea) 

 is responsible for the trouble, though it is a deceptive feature that nearly 

 all diarrhoea in baby chickens is white. 



However, it matters little what the immediate cause is. It has usually 

 been brought about in the manner described, or through other faults in 

 running the brooder. Giving too little warmth is one of the most fatal, 

 because it results in the chickens packing together to get it; indeed, no 

 matter how large the brooder capacity, this will take place if the temperature 

 is kept too low. What is known as "cold brooding" — that is, brooding 

 without heat — is quite a different thing. This method requires the chickens 

 to be run in very small batches to prevent the same occurrence. 

 G 



