80 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



killed by too early feeding than by delay in feeding, and all advise 

 that the chick be not fed until it is at least two or three days old. 

 In fact, some people attribute the diarrhoea of little chicks to too 

 early feeding. If you overcrowd the chick's digestive system before 

 it is ready to digest, you will have bowel trouble, and you know with 

 that you will not have the chicks very long. If it is the advice of 

 men of experience, not to feed until at least the chick is a couple 

 of days old, then why cannot the bird be traveling during that time, 

 comfortably packed in a warm box. That chicks can be safely 

 shipped, has been successfully proved through all who have ever 

 attempted to do so, unless the chicks have very low vitality. Thou- 

 sands are being shipped all over California and the neighboring 

 states, most successfully, where if eggs had been expressed instead 

 of chicks, many would have been broken en route, for they would 

 have. been handled many times rougher than the baby chicks. It 

 would be a very hard-hearted expressman who would throw a box 

 of baby chicks across an express car as they sometimes do when 

 they handle eggs. The selling of day-old chicks should be en- 

 couraged, especially among amateurs who often get so discouraged 

 by having poor hatches that they give up after their first attempt. 

 I have frequently had persons write to thank me for sending 

 the chicks, saying that the chicks arrived in such good condition 

 after three days' journey that they were better and stronger than 

 those hatched at the same time that had not taken the journey. One 

 man in particular, in Mexico, ordered fifty chicks and his success 

 was so great that the neighbors around ended by getting two thou- 

 sand last season, and this year others in the same neighborhood are 

 already sending for them by the thousand. The day-old chick busi- 

 ness has come to stay in America as well as in Egypt. 



BROILER RANCHES 



Broiler raising is one of the lucrative branches of the poultry in- 

 dustry. It is a business, however, which should not be entered into 

 without study or experience. There are some very large broiler 

 ranches in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. 



The ration for broilers is usually that given for chicks till they 

 are four or five weeks of age, when they are finished off with a 

 fattening ration for from two to three weeks. The average cost 

 of raising a broiler is from fifteen to eighteen cents, while the selling 

 price on contract is from fifty to sixty cents at a pound and a half 

 in weight. 



By using the ration given for broilers after the first two weeks, 

 some breeders have attained the weight of two pounds for their 

 broilers at six weeks of age. This was in small lots of twenty-five 

 to fifty broilers in a brooder.* 



'See Page 36. 



