BROODERS. 309 



We have never succeeded as well at an adjustment at 

 either 98 or 90, as at 94, a mean between the two, 

 which mitigates some of the disadvantages of each, 

 though all troubles cannot be escaped, no matter how 

 you set your regulator. The nearest approach to perfec- 

 tion in automatic regulation of a brooder consists in 

 having the air of the brooder house itself heated artifi- 

 cially and its temperature governed automatically to 

 guard against the effect of fluctuations of the outside 

 temperature during the night, and have a regulator 

 attached to each brooder also, put at 98 as in the first 

 instance, or 99 or 100 even, thus escaping the chill- 

 ing when the birds go to bed. Also have another regu- 

 lator attached to every brooder set at 104, this one not 

 being connected with the lamp at all, but with a thin, light 

 lid over a circular opening one and one-half or two 

 inches in diameter in the top of the brooder. Have 

 numerous small holes in the curtain. Then, with a not 

 too numerous brood there will be very little crowding, 

 and as the temperature can never get below the notch 

 of the lamp regulator, and never very much above the 

 notch of the other regulator, there will be no disastrous 

 chilling, at any rate. 



The ill effects of a too cool hover when chicks are in 

 the down are much greater, be it remembered, than of 

 an overheated hover. For when the brood consists of a 

 safe number of birds, the chicks can spread out to cool 

 themselves, nature having taught them to do this, as 

 may be ascertained by their avoiding close contact with 

 the hen's body of a sultry summer night, and squatting 

 close to the outer rim of her. feathers, with their heads 

 entirely outside. 



This three-regulator plan, two for each brooder and 

 one for the brooder house, approaches the perfection of 

 natural brooding, but does not reach it, as will be shown 

 further on in the description of the Brooder of the 



