CHAPTER XVI 



RAISING BROILERS 



The raising of broilers at a profit, unless you feed your own laying 

 stock, is almost impossible. The three great drawbacks being infertile 

 eggs, diarrhoea, and chicks with not enough vitality to stand forcing. 

 All three of these faults will be dealt with in the chapter on "How 

 to Feed the Breeders." We often hear the stock condemned for all 

 these troubles, but it is not the stock that needs the blame, but the 

 feeder. Nearly all a poultryman's troubles can be traced to the feed- 

 ing. And that ought to make us more careiful, but the fact is, that, 

 people will persist in doing things even when they know they are 

 losing by it. But all this belongs to another place and right here is 

 the place to talk about raising broilers. 



The chicks that are intended for broilers will be all the better for 

 a good long fast before feeding at all. Instead of 48 hours keep them 

 72 hours in the incubator without food or water. This cleans up every 

 particle of the yolk that the chicks have to live on during these first 

 hours of life. The digestive tract is empty and now ready to absorb 

 whatever food is carried to them. 



There are two plans of feeding broilers and choice of plan depends 

 somewhat on the time the chicks are hatched, and on the demands of 

 the market they are intended for. What I call the rapid plan will put 

 the chicks on the market as early broilers but at the price of quality, 

 for the meat is never quite as good. The slow plan takes a little 

 longer but the meat has a better flavor. 



The Slow Plan 



We will take the slow plan first. The chicks can be treated as if 

 intended for layers and breeders for one month. That is they can 

 be allowed ample exercise, indoor and out and given moderate feeding. 

 At the end of a month, if they commenced with a 72-hour fast, they 

 have built up strong gizzards and good strong digestion, so that they 

 can assimilate a lot of feed without being laid out with diarrhoea. 

 This is most important, for unless you have a strong bony structure 

 that will hold meat, and unless the digestive tract can assimilate the 

 food, you can't raise profitable broilers. 



At the end of a month you can select the pullets from the cockerels, 

 if you wish, and they have had the very best treament towards making 



