70 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



carrying them to the brooder, or fed too soon, before the digestive 

 organs were ready to digest the food. 



Elbow Room Needed 



Mr. Hunter, the veteran poultry man, says : "With incubator 

 chicks raised in brooders, elbow room seems to be a most important 

 factor, and want of elbow room is one cause for the great mortality 

 in brooder chicks." 



It is quite natural to suppose that a brooder which is three feet 

 square is abundant room for seventy-five or a hundred chicks, and 

 indeed it is for the chicks as they come out of the incubator, and 

 if we do not want them to grow it might be all right to crowd them 

 into the brooder, but these chicks will be almost twice as large at 

 three weeks old as when they are hatched and will require twice 

 as much room or will suffer for it. 



Fifty chickens are as many as should be put into any brooder. 

 To increase the number beyond that point will induce crowding, 

 which kills some and stunts others, and will prevent the quick, 

 healthy growth that is necessary for all young animals. Ample 

 brooder room is the first and chief requisite for the health and com- 

 fort of the chicks. The next requisite is oxygen. In other words, 

 plenty of fresh, warm air, but no drafts in the brooder. Here is 

 one of the great faults with many brooders, as for example the hot 

 water pipe brooders in use in many brooder houses. Those hot 

 water pipes merely heat the air that is already within the hovers, 

 which air is practically confined to the hovers by the felt curtain 

 in front, provided to keep in the heat. It does that, but it also en- 

 closes the air, which the chicks have to breathe over and over again. 

 This defect in my brooders cost me the lives of many chicks before 

 I discovered the cause. A current of warmed fresh air supplied 

 under the hovers overcame this difficulty, when I substituted the 

 hot-air plan. 



Comfort Essential 



The brooder should be heated for at least twelve hours before 

 the chicks are put into it. I always keep a thermometer in the 

 brooder and have it at 95 degrees when they are first removed from 

 the incubator. They should be carried to the brooder in a basket 

 lined and covered with flannel, great care being taken that they be 

 not chilled on the way. I am sure that many chicks lose their lives 

 by being chilled on this their first journey. The abrupt change 

 from the warm incubator to the outside air, which is thirty or forty 

 degrees colder, is sufficient to chill the chick. 



A chill will harden the yolk of the egg, which is drawn up into 

 the chick the last day of its stay in the egg shell. You know that 

 the yolk of the egg forms the nourishment for the chick inside the 

 shell. The last day of its life in the shell all that remains of the 

 yolk, about one-fourth of it, is drawn up into the chicken through 

 the navel. If the chick is vigorous the yolk should be assimilated 

 or digested in about three days. But if the chick is chilled or over- 

 heated, it so weakens the bowels that they cannot digest the yolk 

 or absorb it, and the yolk hardens or toughens, becomes almost 



