PROGRESSIVE POULTRY RAISING 



While the larger coal-heated brooders usually do not 

 interfere with proper ventilation, the small hovers with 

 the cover curtains reaching clear to the floor are frequently 

 very defective in this regard. With insufficient ventila- 

 tion, one can only expect dopy, unthrifty chicks. With 

 the coal-heated brooder, the main thing to look out for 

 is a fire box large enough to carry fire and keep up the 

 temperature over night. This type of Colony brooder 

 particularly meets the needs of those persons who wish 

 to rear 250 to 300 pullets or to buy perhaps 600 or 700 

 baby chicks at one time. 



A used brooder should be thoroughly disinfected 

 before the chicks are put under it. In any case, the 

 brooder should be heated up until it gives a temperature 

 of about 1 00 under the hover and run two or three days 

 to make sure that it can maintain that temperature. 



It is a good thing to take the chicks from the incubator 

 and put them under the hover, at night, as they seem to 

 become accustomed to the hover and return to it when 

 chilly, more quickly than when they are first put under 

 it in day light. Some sort of litter should always be 

 scattered under the hover and over the floor surrounding 

 it. The material used when the chicks are first put out 

 should be digestible, such as mealed alfalfa, bran, or 

 the shatter ings from alfalfa or clover hay. The reason 

 for this is that not infrequently before the chicks have 

 learned to distinguish between the different kinds of 

 feed, they get to eating the litter. In the case of sand, 

 gravel, chaff or chopped straw which are all highly 

 indigestible, their crops become impacted and a large 

 death loss results. 



With brooder chicks the main effort should be to 

 keep them comfortable. As a general rule it will be 

 found that where a temperature of 100 F. is given at 

 first it can be reduced 4 or 5 a week until the chicks 

 are well feathered out. If the weather is over warm it 

 may be reduced even faster. If it turns cold, it is fre- 

 quently necessary to increase the heat again. It is 



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