1907.] MY FRIEND THE HEN. 'J'J 



Now as to the roaring of chickens I would Uke to say 

 something very similar to what was said this afternoon in 

 regard to the heat of brooders. So many people keep their 

 brooders at ninety or less. That is not warm enough. When 

 I first began to keep chickens one of my first duties was to 

 put on an old bonnet and take a garden rake and go out and 

 rake out the dead chickens that I expected to find. I could 

 not understand why so many of them died. I tried to take 

 the best care of them I knew how. They seemed to have 

 everything on earth that chickens could desire. Sometimes I 

 would lose an entire brood. I worked in this discouraging way 

 for a long time, and one day I went over to Groton, that is 

 a town in the market o.^^ district, where they raise thousands 

 of chickens, and saw Mr. Blanchard. I went to visit some 

 neighbors of Mr. Blanchard. You know his name well 

 through the poultry papers. I said to Mr. Blanchard, " I have 

 so much trouble with my chickens. What do you suppose ails 

 them ?" " How do you treat them," he says. I told him my 

 story, and he said, " You do not keep your chickens warm 

 enough." I went home and I warmed up those brooders, and 

 I have kept them warm ever since. The only way to keep 

 chickens is to keep them out of a cold room. You may think 

 the brooder is too warm, but you cannot judge the heat by 

 your own notion of what it ought to be. You must judge by 

 what experience has taught the demands of the nature of the 

 chick" call for. If a chick is warm it will be comfortable, and 

 happy, and will do well. You can tell by the appearance of 

 the chicken more than in any other way. Most every brooder 

 has a thermometer to show what the heat is, and an occasional 

 glance at that will show whether they are warm enough or 

 not. 



Now in regard to feeding chickens, you know how one 

 neighbor brags of how many eggs he gets, and the next door 

 neighbor brags about his method of feeding, one feeding corn, 

 and the other never feeds corn. One man feeds this, another 

 man feeds that, and still another man feeds something entirely 

 different, and the results that those men obtain are as varied 

 as the methods which they pursue. So it all comes to my mind 

 that it amounts simply to this, that it is not so much what you 

 feed, as was said this afternoon, as it is the food taken in 

 connection with the surroundings. After I started in the 

 poultry business I was afraid that I would over- feed. I wonder 



