THE ALTERNATE AND PARALLEL SYSTEMS. 231 



than the floor of the tilt box, to allow for the thickness 

 of the two-inch layer of cut hay or chaff in the latter. 

 You can use lamps and either hot water or hot air for 

 your brooders, when you have but a small number. 



Now, if you have eight, ten or more brooders occu- 

 pied at the same time, use the alternate system and 

 sunken alley above described, and attach all your tilt 

 boxes to a continuous axle furnished with a crank and 

 nse feed cylinders, 

 as in Fig. 79. The 

 axle may be of three- 

 quarter inch or inch 

 iron pipe arid must KG. 121. PIECE FOR ATTACHING SHAFT 



T , i TO SPOOL. 



pass under the sta- 

 tionary boxes, or brooders or hovers, as they may be called, 

 on its way from one tilt box to the next. 



Under this plan, of course, you do not have to go from 

 one box to the other, but stand at one end of the axle, 

 where you tilt all afc once. The quantity and kind of 

 feed needed for each brood, according to the number of 

 birds composing it and their age, is provided for when 

 the feed cylinders are charged, which will ordinarily be 

 but once a day, with the dry grain, which should be the 

 main feed. 



Green stuff and meat may be fed in the usual manner, ' 

 it being not adapted to the feed cylinder. One of the 

 merits of the system of poultry keeping by machinery is 

 that the birds, both young and old, can digest plain, 

 dry, uncooked grain and thrive upon it with very little 

 else, excepting green stuff in slight allowance, gravel and 

 water, if they are compelled to work hard for nearly 

 all they get. Meat, vegetables, and the various prepared 

 articles of food take too much time, besides costing ordi- 

 narily more than grain. Feeding milk is an uncleanly 

 practice, daubing and soiling beaks and feathers more or 

 less. A little green stuff is useful, not, as some persons 



