FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 423 



is to look after your young chicks. I do not consider it such a task since 

 learning how to use common sense and system about the work. Chickens 

 grow and thrive even while we sleep. Just before leaving the shell the 

 chick draws into the body the whole of the unabsorbed yolk of the egg. 

 This is its food before and after leaving the shell. It must be exactly right, 

 as nature never errs. It is the food nature provided to sustain life until the 

 chick is strong enough to take other food. Chicks should not be fed until 

 forty-eight hours old. If fed too soon or too much the yolk of the egg which 

 it took into the body before leaving the shell will not be drawn upon; it will 

 remain unabsorbed and in time decompose, causing bowel trouble and death . 

 The greater number of chicks which die of bowel trouble do so at about a 

 week or ten days of age. If you will open one of the chicks, nine cases out 

 of ten you will find decomposed yolk in the yolk sack. 



Chicks normally hatched and given almost any kind of care will live and 

 seem to thrive for the first week, then the trouble begins. The critical 

 period in the chick's life is the first two weeks. Starting the chicks right is 

 half the battle. When they have arrived at three or four weeks old they 

 have nearly passed the dangers of chickendom. One great danger is over- 

 feeding. The young chicks require but little food for the first few days of 

 their life. Their digestive organs -are not strong, and by overfeeding it 

 overtaxes the digestive system and bowel trouble results. Improperly feed- 

 ing chicks, especially for the first two weeks, unmakes more would-be 

 poultrymen than any other one thing in the whole business . It is the foundation 

 of all disease. It is essential that chicks should be well born. There is no 

 mystery about feeding chicks. It is easy and only requires common sense. 

 When this is lacking better tackle something else. Chicks die of ' ' too high 

 living." No matter what the feed, be careful to just supply the need of the 

 chick. Better keep them just a little hungry than to feed too much. After 

 the chicks are a few weeks old they will be able to stand more feed. Failure 

 in brooder chicks is due to the care given them. In most cases it is 

 wretched. The more care you give them the larger the returns. Lice prey 

 upon the chicks if brooders are not kept clean. They should be cleaned 

 every day. When lice and mites are present you feed in vain. " Verily, 

 the path of the brooder chick is strewn with thorns " it you do not give them 

 constant care. As has been truthfully said, "It is one thing to hatch the 

 chicks, but another to raise them." I don't claim to know it all; far from it; 

 but there are a few things that I have found out through sad experience and 

 that I can properly claim as my own. 



I shall endeavor to give a synopsis of the method I have found to be the 

 most successful. The only right way to start is to start right. The breeding 

 stock must be healthy and vigorous. If this is not the case you had better 

 quit before you start. There are a number of good brooders on the market. 

 We have used the Successful and are content to let well enough alone. 

 Don't put more than seventy-five or one hundred chicks in a brooder of any 

 size. If you have a brooder as large as a house and more than this number 

 are placed therein they will crowd, then your troubles will commence. We 

 have three brooders. After the chicks are ten days or two weeks old we 

 remove them froom the brooders and place them in boxes in numbers of 

 fifteen or twenty. As they grow older we decrease the number in the boxes. 

 I find they do better handled in this way than when left in the brooders. 



