HEATING AND VENTILATING BROODERS. 313 



platforms to stand on, the possession of which is fought 

 for ; fratricides fighting for the dead bodies of their 

 brethren. 



At this stage in the progress of brooder building the 

 idea appeared of locating the source of heat supply some- 

 where else. The writer remembers being invited many 

 years ago to the country seat of the then president of 

 the New York State Poultry association, which was at 

 the time holding an annual exhibition. On arriving at 

 his place, after seeing his extensive poultry plant, the 

 ruins of his brooder house, once the largest in America, 

 destroyed by fire but a few weeks previously, were shown 

 us and the proprietor said, pointing to a spot in the 

 ashes: " There stood the first bottom-heat brooder ever 

 built in America." Very soon after that, bottom heat 

 was all the rage, and the parties adopting it said they 

 found decidedly fewer chicks trampled to death and 

 pressed as flat as a flounder, and also stealthy visits made 

 by the owner in the silent watches of the night demon- 

 strated that the former struggle, " upwards, upwards, 

 still upwards," was not going on. 



But the path was not yet strewn with roses. No reg- 

 ulator was attached to a brooder in those days, that we 

 ever heard of, and if the bottom-heat brooder were too 

 cool, the chicks would crowd, even if they did not tram- 

 ple, and if it were too warm, their legs and the under 

 parts of their bodies were the first to become overheated. 

 It is evident that in the natural order of things, the 

 ground on which the chicks rest never is and never can 

 be more than moderately warm, even when the hen has 

 hovered over it all night, and is frequently decidedly 

 cold, and sometimes frozen as solid as a rock, when she 

 begins to brood. "Weakness of the legs, general debility, 

 a tendency to go to sleep in the daytime because resting 

 so poorly at night, and various other symptoms gave 

 warning that something was wrong. 



