HEATING ASD VENTILATING BEOODERS. 317 



necessity for outside yards or roofed runways, of liberal 

 area, or the exercising apparatus described in this book. 

 The disadvantages, as compared with the indoor brood- 

 ers are, that the attendant has to chase all over creation 

 to do his work when brooders are scattered far enough 

 from each other to keep the broods from mixing, and, 

 worse than all the rest, the birds have to be confined in 

 stormy weather to the narrow quarters of the brooder, a 

 serious matter in parts of the country where rains are 

 frequent. 



VENTILATING THE BROODER. 



If fresh air is necessary for the chick in the egg, still 

 more is it absolutely necessary for the chick under the 

 hover. How to get rid of poison exhaled by the lungs 

 and still not subject the young birds to injurious drafts, 

 is the problem, and it is not an easy one to solve either, 

 without elaborate regulating apparatus or else constant 

 supervision, both of which entail much expense. You 

 can cheapen your arrangements and pitch in a lot of 

 birds, expecting to have fifteen to twenty-five per cent 

 die, and sell the rest. But the writer wants nothing 

 whatever to do with any such barbarous practices. No 

 attendant, who has the suitable make-up for a good 

 attendant, can ever maintain zeal and enthusiasm when 

 he has to officiate every day as undertaker and medical 

 director. It would be amusing, were it not sad, to see 

 how sedulously the owners of many brooder plants con- 

 ceal their death rate statistics. 



When the chicks receive their first warm coat of feath- 

 ers, they are approximately like adult birds, which are 

 capable of enduring changes of 40 in twenty-four hours 

 without much harm, if they have plenty of exercise and 

 are sound and vigorous in every respect ; but the downy 

 chick, especially at night, cannot withstand such vicis- 

 situdes. Yet the tender youngling needs pure air to 



