80 PROGRESSIVE POULTRY CULTURE 



outside when the season is sufficiently advanced and 

 mild weather is prevailing. 



STARTING AND RUNNING THE BROODERS. 



About the time the eggs in the incubator are begin- 

 ning to be pipped the heat should be started in the 

 brooders or brooder house so that they may become well 

 warmed and properly regulated by the time the chicks 

 are ready for brooding. A temperature of about 90 at 

 a height of two or three inches above the floor of the 

 hover should be secured and maintained for the first 

 week of brooding. Gradually the temperature is low- 

 ered until at the end of the second week it may stand 

 at about 80 and at the end of the third week 70 should 

 be sufficiently high. The chicks themselves will be the 

 best indicators however and a temperature should be 

 maintained which certainly keeps them comfortable. 



Before the chicks are placed in the brooder, the 

 floor of the hover or of the whole brooder may be cov- 

 ered with thick paper or several layers of newspapers. 

 The purpose is to remove and replenish the floor paper 

 when cleaning out the hover and brooder weekly. Upon 

 the paper place two or three inches depth of sand or 

 mellow sandy loam. Over this strew a layer of chaff, 

 short cut straw or better fine cut clover hay or best of 

 all alfalfa leaves one or two inches deep. The chicks 

 having been kept comfortably under the sitting hens or 

 in the nursery of the incubator for one, two or three 

 days are ready for removal to the brooder. 



If the chicks must be carried some distance in cold 

 or windy weather provide baskets lined inside with 

 flannel and furnished with covers. The chicks taken 

 from the nursery of the incubator or from under the sit- 

 ting hens are placed in the baskets, covered and carried 

 quickly to the brooders. Here they are promptly placed 

 about fifty in a lot, in the warm hovers. This may well 

 be done in the morning. 



Artificial Mothering: For the following few hours 

 the attendant should be at hand and watchful of the 

 little fluffy fellows. The machine mother can not "cluck" 



