412 Missouri Agncultural Report. 



Cleanliness and warmth are necessary if the chick is to be 

 kept healthy. Beware of allowing the chick to become chilled. 

 See that its surroundings are conducive to comfort. Keep the 

 brooder clean and free of vermin. Do not crowd the chicks, nor 

 have the brooder too close or too hot. Remember that the chick's 

 instinct teaches it to go toward the heat, rather than from it. Bear 

 in mind, too, that with the little chick, too much dampness means 

 death. In operating a brooder be guided always by the action of 

 the chicks. In this way you can tell whether the brooder is too hot 

 or two cold. 



The chick's food for the first day or two is supplied in the 

 yolk of the Qgg, which is enclosed in the body of the chick a short 

 time before it leaves the shell, so that the chick need be given no 

 food for from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and some author- 

 ities say longer. Do not give the chicks anything that will sour 

 in their stomachs. Do not overfeed, leaving the excess to sour. 

 Many chicks die because of sour, fermenting food, fed in filthy 

 troughs or vessels. The little chicks should always be kept hungry 

 enough to hunt for food, but remember that a little chick, like a 

 little child, needs food often. Weak chicks may be started upon 

 dry bread crumbs moistened with milk. Hard-boiled eggs are 

 also good. After three or four days well-cooked corn bread baked 

 in a pone may be added. A feed that is recommended is to make 

 bread by mixing three parts corn meal, one part wheat bran, one 

 part wheat middlings or flour, with skim milk or water, mixing 

 it very dry and salting as usual for bread. Bake thoroughly and 

 when dry enough to crumble, break up, dry out in oven, and grind 

 in a mortar or mill. Grain cracked in an old coffee mill and sifted 

 through a sieve so that the particles will not be too large makes 

 good chick feed. As the chicks grow older see that they have 

 plenty of grain, meat and green food and pure fresh water. 



To prevent bowel trouble in young chicks avoid all sloppy 

 food, and if necessary, take away the drinking water and use 

 scalded milk instead. She so-called white diarrhoea usually at- 

 tacks the chicks that are constitutionally weak, and seems worse 

 when they are exposed to dampness and cold. 



Little chicks need grit, but the use of sharp, flinty grit is 

 condemned, for in the newly hatched chick the tissues are soft. 

 Crushed egg shells are the best grit for all very young chicks. 



Some authorities contend that the incubator-hatched chick 

 doesn't know enough to select food until it is eight or ten days 

 old, so may fill up on bran, sawdust or sand. These writers hold 



