i84 



Bulletin 246. 



ro^.* 



1^ 



^^Aif «^ ■ ^-^^ 



«^ 





Fig. 63. 



-The liovcr and heater drum raised. 



heater. It was 

 not fire proof, 

 did not supply 

 sufficient heat, 

 was a cumber- 

 some hot water 

 system, too ex- 

 pensive to make, 

 and therefore, 

 was abandoned. 

 However, the 

 idea of using a 

 blue flame gaso- 

 line burning 

 lamp without 

 wick to trim or 

 lamp to fill e:\ch 

 day, was attrac- 

 tive. White & 



Rice, therefore, adapted the gasoline burner to the heating of ordinary 

 outdoor brooders by using a heater invented by C. S. Menges of York- 

 town, N. Y. The heater was the one then being used in home-made 

 brooders, heated with kerosene lamps. 



The experiment was successful in so far as it saved labor and fur- 

 nished a high heat, but it was not fire proof. The penalty of the experi- 

 ment was several expensive fires. It was quickly seen that heat was 

 being wasted in the small brooders containing 50 chickens each and that 

 much heat could be saved by building colony houses 6x8 feet and fur- 

 nishing the same amount of heat to two flocks of 50 chickens each from 

 the same burner and heater under a divided hover. This plan worked so 

 satisfactorily that the partition separating the two flocks was removed 

 for subsequent hatches as an experiment, and it was found that one flock 

 of 100 chickens running together did as well or better than the two flocks 

 of 50 chickens each. A very large hatch later in the season when press 

 of work prevented the building of more colony houses, compelled the 

 putting of 200 chickens under one enlarged hover. These chickens 

 apparently did as well as those kept in flocks of 100. As a result of this 

 experience all of the colony houses were fitted with large hovers for 200 

 chickens and the outdoor brooders were entirely abandoned. By this 

 method of rearing chickens in large flocks in colony houses heated with 

 gasoline, from 1,700 to 2,000 chickens have been reared each year for the 

 past five years in 13 colony houses which formerly would have required 

 about 50 ordinary kerosene heated brooders. 



