82 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



edges. This little frame can be laid across the top of a small pen or 

 even hung on wire fence and afford a grateful shade. 



Overcrowding or the chicks huddling for even one night may 

 stunt the growth or be the means of bringing on an epidemic of 

 colds which may result in roup. 



But how to stop them crowding? A mother hen often solves the 

 difficulty by taking the half grown chicks on the perch with her, 

 but for brooder chicks some other plan must be found ; the best 

 way is to divide them into flocks or colonies of only twenty-five in 

 each, and supply comfortable perches for them. The chicks will in 

 a short time take to the perches of their own accord. 



At one time I had not enough colony coops and a great many 

 chicks. I put them a hundred together in my regular henneries, 

 but they crowded and I not only was losing every night some of 

 the best, but the survivors looked very badly. They sweat off in 

 the night all they had gained during the day. I realized that this 

 meant failure for me if I could not control it. I spent my evenings 

 going around and patiently placing the chicks, hundreds of them, 

 on the perches till I was completely tired out, when I decided to 

 make it so desperately uncomfortable for them they could not 

 crowd. 



I bought a bundle of six-foot lath and made a lath platform or 

 floor, by nailing them one and a half inches apart, the width of a 

 lath, on stringers one inch by three. This made a flooring of small 

 lath perches three inches above the ground, and made it so un- 

 comfortable fr the chicks to crowd that it entirely prevented it. 

 I placed regular perches four or five inches above the lath floor and 

 in a few nights on making my nightly rounds with my lantern, I 

 had the satisfaction of finding all the chicks on the regulation 

 perches. I have recommended the lath platform or floor to many 

 and it has proved always successful. 



The Proper Range 



I would advise you to let the young chicks have free range, and 

 when the pullets begin to show signs of maturing, or at any rate 

 by the beginning of October, to put them into their permanent 

 winter quarters, and to confine them so they will be under your 

 control. They will lay more eggs if they do not range too far. It 

 has been proved many times and with different breeds, that hens in 

 confinement lay more eggs than those that run at large. The hens 

 can be watched better, are less liable to suffer from maladies ; the 

 nests can be kept cleaner and the eggs gathered more easily, while 

 on free range many eggs are lost, nests stolen and the hens will 

 acquire the habit, which we are breeding out of them, of laying 

 only a few eggs and then wanting to set. 



In reply to the question of pullets or hens, the rule is pullets for 

 winter layers and hens for breeders. The reason for this is that 

 pullets in most breeds give more eggs than hens, and also usually 

 do not want to sit as frequently, while the hen lays a larger egg 

 and the chicks from them are larger and sturdier than from pullets. 

 In some breeds the two-year-old hen lays quite as well as pullets, 



