138 



THE LEGHORN'S 



been heated up at least twenty-four hours, thus making 

 sure of its being dry and warm. Have the hover-covered 

 space heated to 95 degrees before the chiclts are put in, 

 as shown by a trustworthy thermometer, the bulb of 

 which is located just above the backs of the chicks. The 

 chicks will raise the temperature three to five degrees 

 when all are under the hover, but do not attempt to lower 

 the heat on this account. Maintain the hover-s'pace tem- 

 perature at as near 95 degrees as you can the first week, 

 gradually dropping to 90 degrees by the fourteenth day, 

 and to 80 degrees by the twenty-first day. For the balance 

 of the time the chicks are in the brooder, run the hover- 

 space temperature at 75 degrees. These temperatures are 

 for the hover-space when the chicks are outside. Always 

 keep the hover-space sufficiently heated so that the chicks 

 can warm up quickly. 



The First Day 



After the chicks have been in their new "home" an 

 hour or two, snug and warm underneath the hover, coax 

 them out and give them their first meal, consisting of one- 

 third stale bread, one-third rolled oats (or oatmeal) and 

 one-third hard-boiled eggs, using shells and all (infertile, 

 mis-shapen, soft-shelled, thin-shelled eggs etc.) mixed 

 with sweet milk if you have it to spare, otherwise with 

 water. Mix crumbly, not sloppy, adding a little chick- 

 size grit or sharp sand and feed all the chicks will eat 

 at each meal. Boil the eggs fifteen or twenty minutes, 

 so the yolks will be mealy. It is a good plan to sprinkle 

 a small quantity of chick-size grit of clean, sharp sand on 

 the nursery food after it is spread out for the chicks to 

 eat. Feed five times during the day, about every two and 

 a. half hours from 7 A. M. to 5 P. M. in late winter and 

 early spring. As the season advances and the days grow 

 longer, it will pay to give the chicks their first feed at 6 

 or 6:30 A. M. Late in the season some poultrymen feed 

 newly-hatched chicks six times a day while they are on 

 nursery foods entirely, giving the first feed at 6 A. M. and 

 the last one at 5 P. M. Feed all that the chicks will eat 

 up clean in a period of fifteen to twenty minutes, seeing 

 to it without fail, that the smaller and weaker ones get 

 their fill. Hard-boiled eggs may be omitted from this 

 nursery food, or pin-head oats can be substituted for the 

 rolled oats or oatmeal, but our choice for best results is 

 the formula as given. Stale bread can be obtained at any 

 bakery, the usual price being one cent per pound. If you 

 have it to spare, give your chicks sweet milk (whole or 

 skimmed) to drink the first week, using drinking dishes 

 that will keep it out of their eyes. If the milk gets into 

 the corners of the chick's eyes it will ferment there and 

 cause sores. Dishes should be kept clean and sweet smell- 

 ing. In the absence of milk, use fresh, pure water, sup- 

 plied in chick-size drinking founts, or shallow vessels 

 arranged so that the chicks can not get wet and thereby 

 become chilled. Dip the bills of a few chicks in the water 

 and they will teach the others to diink. For use on Cy- 

 phers Company Poultry Farm we buy sweet skimmed 

 milk at the rate of 15 cents pei eight gallons. It would 

 be cheap at 25 cents per eight gallon can as compared 

 with water. 



CAUTION: — In feeding chicks and ducklings for best 

 results, make sure, first to last, that they do not get any 

 musty grain or sour food to eat. This is a matter of vital 

 importance. Musty grain (musty to your sense of smell) 

 will at once cause bowel disorder, stunting the growth 

 and resulting in heavy mortality. Sour food is even more 

 harmful. It will cause diarrhoea in little chicks within 



forty-eight hours. Do not feed frozen vegetables 

 to young chicks — nor to adult fowls. Clean all 

 nursery food dishes after each meal — also scrape the feed- 

 ing boards and dispose of the leavings beyond the reach 

 of the chicks or ducklings. Many thousands of valuable 

 chicks are lost every season by carelessness in feeding 

 musty grain and by allowing little chicks to eat various 

 wet mixtures that have started to ferment under the 

 action of the sun's rays. Skim-milk curd, separated from 

 the whey and pressed dry, is a valuable food for young 

 chicks, after they reach two weeks old, but we advise our 

 customers not to use sour milk for little chicks. Sour 

 milk at best is a troublesome article to handle and it 

 pays better to use all milk (whole or skimmed) while 

 sweet. If a supply of milk should turn sour, convert it 

 into curd, discard the whey and feed the curd sparingly 

 by itself or mix it with ground-grain mash food composed 

 of 



30 lbs. Corn Meal 



10 lbs. Red Dog Flour 

 5 lbs. Beef Scrap 

 5 lbs. Bran 



10 lbs. Cut Clover or Alfalfa. 

 Do not feed first sweet milk and then sour milk, as this 

 plan is almost sure to result in serious bowel disorders. 

 Mash food of any kind that is fed moist (crumbly wet) 

 to chicks should be given sparingly, or they will over-eat. 

 This is equally true of home-made "chicken cake" and 

 various moist or wet mixtures. 



The Second Day 



Feed the home-made nursery food as above recom- 

 mended, and while the chicks are eating this food, sprinkle 

 upon it a small amount of high-grade commercial chick 

 food and also sprinkle a little of this food on the litter 

 nearby that covers the biooder or runway floor, which will 

 start the chicks picking at it and scratching for it. A 

 good chick food can be prepared with the following in- 

 gredients; 



30 lbs. Crushed or Clipped Wheat 

 20 lbs. Coarse Corn Meal 

 10 lbs. Hulled Oats 

 10 lbs. Pinhead Oat Meal 

 10 lbs. Crushed Kaffir Corn 

 5 lbs. Cracked Rice (Split Rice). 



To this six-grain, well granulated, balanced-ration 

 chick food, add about one per cent, (by measure), of 

 chick-size grit, mixing thoroughly. Feed in this way five 

 times daily, the same as on the first day, sprinkling a 

 little of the chick food before the chicks on the nursery 

 food at each meal and scattering a handful in the litter 

 nearby. During these two days, after each feeding, push 

 the chicks back under the hover and let them come out 

 later on of their own accord, one or two at a time, in 

 which case they will know enough, as a rule, to go back 

 to the heat. If the chicks are being raised in a brooder 

 house, be sure to place a six or eight-inch board on edge, 

 about a foot away from the front of the hover, so that the 

 chicks will be kept near the source of heat and, therefore, 

 can find their way back to it. In the limited space of the 

 brooding chamber of a separate or individual brooder, the 

 use of a "chick guard" during the first two or three days 

 should not be necessary, unless there are cold corners 

 where the chicks are liable to huddle and remain away 

 from the heat until they become chilled, in which case a 

 si.x or eight-inch guard made of inch or half-inch mesh 



