TYPES OF BROODERS. 



strips, and so left for some honrs exposed to 

 the air before the earth was shaken out again. 

 We found also that the heat was too great ; 

 not, perhaps, as now reckoned and practised, 

 but in the circumstances. With the aid of 

 our many friends and correspondents we were 

 able to make an exhaustive investigation ; and 

 it soon appeared that the best results were 

 always accompanied by the lowest recorded 

 temperatures, even though, in some cases, the 

 chicks showed evident signs of being somewhat 

 chilled ; in spite of that they did the best, and 

 lived when others died. We know now that the 

 real reason was want of circulation and venti- 

 lation of the air ; it was entangled amongst the 

 flannel strips, and the foul, re-breathed, con- 

 fined air simply sweated and murdered them, 

 at a temperature which might not have been too 

 great with purer atmosphere. We mention 

 facts now only historical for the important 

 lessons they convey. 



For these reasons chiefly, brooders of the 

 " coverlet " kind have now almost everywhere 

 gone out of use. They were, however, and 

 can be, made efficient. The later and more 

 successful ones were constructed so that the 

 nestling cover was lowest in the centre, rising 

 all round, on all sides, like the conve.K body of 

 the hen, and with tufts of sheepskin, or loosely 

 spun thread lamp-wick, instead of flannel strips. 

 A very efficient one, which was rather widely 

 used for a time, consisted of such a nestling 

 cover szviing by cords from a hook above, which 

 moved and swayed a little with the motions of 

 the chicks, thus increasing the circulation of 

 air. A coverlet thus made and slung, with 

 a hot-water rubber bottle wrapped in plenty of 

 flannel laid on top, as we can state from 

 personal knowledge, makes a very efficient 

 apparatus, from material always at hand except 

 the rubber bottle, which can generally be got 

 at any chemist's shop ; such expedients may 

 therefore save a valuable brood on occasion. 

 Heat might be kept up longer and more 

 uniformly by adopting the principle of the 

 hydro-incubator before described, filling the 

 rubber bottle only very slack with hot water, 

 and bedding on top of this warm bottle fresh 

 stone bottles — say a couple of common ginger- 

 beer bottles — filled with boiling water, renewed 

 at intervals, covering the whole with thick 

 blankets. The heat from the hot bottles will 

 gradually percolate downwards through the 

 other. 



All such brooders should, as scrupulously 

 as others, be placed upon half an inch of dry 

 earth or sifted ashes, renewed daily, or upon 

 peat-moss litter. They can only be used out 



of doors when placed beneath a shed or other 

 shelter ; unless enclosed, like those presently 

 described, in a much larger hutch or shelter, 

 to screen them from the wind, and to provide 

 a shelter for the chicks when they need this, 

 but do not actually crave the heat of the 

 apparatus itself. The coverlet portion must be 

 regularly deodorised and disinfected in the 

 way already described, and an occasional fumi- 

 gation with sulphur or chlorine is very advis- 

 able, as the coverlet material, whatever it is, 

 is specially likely to retain various microscopic 

 disease-germs. 



At the present day, and where artificial rear- 

 ing is seriously intended, it is found much the 

 best to rear the chicks in a chamber sufficiently 



heated, but with nothing touching 

 Modtra^ their backs. Practice chiefly differs 

 Brooders. ^s regards the degree to which heat 



is specially radiated from the top, or 

 more evenly diffiised ; in whether it is at all con- 

 fined or not under a " hover," as distinguished 

 from an actual coverlet ; and in the method of 

 heating. The varieties made can readily be 

 classified into certain types, of which it will be 

 most useful to give in mere diagram the general 

 type-forms. 



I'"ig. 57. — Circulatory Systeir. 



That indicated in Fig. 57 is more common in 

 America than England. As here shown, the 

 heat from the lamp L passes through a loop of 

 hot pipes II P back- to a flue at F, radiating heat 

 to the chick-chamber C II from above, but from 

 such a height that the chicks cannot touch. 

 Sometimes this kind of brooder has been fur- 

 nished with a thermostat and heat regulator, but 

 this is not usual. In England, brooders of this 

 class are more usually constructed with a water- 

 tank at the roof of the chick-chamber, through 

 which the flues pass and heat the tank : this has 

 the appreciable advantage that if the lamp goes 

 out, or blows out, the brooder will retain warmth 

 for some hours. This makes a tank safer for 

 some mexperienced poultry-keepers, but 

 amongst experienced rearers such an occurrence 

 ought not, of course, to happen. Or the flues 

 may pass through a hot-air radiating chamber. 

 The general type may be defined as that in 

 which the heat of the lamp circtdates through 



