CHAPTER VI. 



The Chicken's Nurse. 



The beginner with poultry is often discouraged over losses of little 

 chicks. Where incubators are used^ it is of course impossible to find 

 hens to brood the chicks. Hens will sometirnes "sit" long enough to hatch 

 two broods. Thus several hens can be started at one time and the chicks 

 put together in a brooder, more eggs being put under the hens. A brooder 

 is a chicken nurse. In using it we try to confine warm air among pieces 

 of soft cloth — in imitation of the hen's warm body and soft feathers. 



There are many different kinds of brooders, the best of them so arranged 

 that the warm air will come from above, just as the heat of the hen is 

 above the chicks. This heat may come from hot water or steam pipes run 

 above the chicks, or from kerosene, lamps or gas burners below them, with 

 the heat forced above. Unless one is a natural mechanic and handy with 

 tools he should buy one of the readymade brooders. We would not advise 

 one to try to make an incubator, though it has been done, but it is possible 

 to make a brooder that will keep the chicks warm and provide them with 

 fresh air. The homemade brooder pictured here is known as the "Cos- 

 grove" and is described as follows. It will give an idea of the principles 

 upon which a hot-air brooder is built. 



HOMEMADE BROODER.— -"The material required is an empty one- 

 pound coffee can, a two-pound coffee can, a piece of galvanized sheet 

 iron 24x36 inches, with a hole in center that will just fit the one-pound 

 can, 85 feet of seven-eighths-inch matched pine and six feet of one- 

 half-inch pine. Make the four sides of the box nine inches high ; that will 

 just take in the sheet iron; put strips %xl inch inside the box two inches 

 below top edge, for the sheet iron to rest on. Take the one-pound can 

 and cut slits a half inch apart all around the top edge; cut just down to 

 where the bulge in the tin is (about one-half inch), put the slit part 



through the sheet iron and bend 

 the slit pieces down flat on the 

 iron. The bulge prevents the can 

 from going through the iron, and 

 if the slit pieces are hammered 

 down tight it makes nearly an air- 

 tight job, but to make sure that 

 no fumes from the lamp get above 

 .- . .2^: . . •- ^Yie sheet iron it is better to solder 



Fig. 12. HOMEMADE BROODER. 't tight. Place the iron in the box 



