CHAPTER VII. 



Care of the Baby Chick. 



Neither brooder nor incubator can think. Both require constant atten- 

 tion, or the eggs or chicks may be too hot or too cold. The old hen looks 

 after her brood, and sees that they are made comfortable. Man must be 

 half hen, and let his brooder represent the other half. Even when the 

 hen hatches the chicks she cannot be expected to nurse them as a cow 

 would nurse a calf! If it is possible to give it the chicks will do better 

 with a free range with hen, but hawks, rats and other vermin may get 

 too many of the little ones. If these pests are bad the hen may be kept 

 in a coop and a frame made for the chicks by placing four 12-inch-wide 

 boards on edge with inch-mesh wire netting over the entire top. This gives 

 the chicks a run and protects them. Even when free range is possible the 

 hen should not be given entire charge until the chicks are strong enough 

 to follow without being tired out. Do not think the hen can scratch a 

 living for a large family out of the dirt. Give hen and chicks when at 

 large at least two feeds a day of grain. The following account of the 

 care given the hen and her chicks is given by a successful poutlry keeper:. 



HENS AND LITTLE CHICKS.— "My little 'setting' house has nests 

 for IG hens, and I try to set as many at a time as 1 can. When the chicks 

 are hatched I take them all out of the nests, put them in a big market 

 basket with a warm woollen cloth to cover them, then selecting the hens 

 that seem the most anxious about their chicks (for the mother instinct 

 varies as much in hens as in human beings, some even picking and killing 

 their chicks as fast as hatched) I put the hens in little "A" coops (see Fig. 

 17) made with the slats perpendicular, the back boarded up, the upper half 

 of back hinged to lower half and held in place by button at top. Made 

 in this way the hen can be got at easily, or a dead chick taken out of the 

 coop without difficulty, and on a cold windy day the wind does not sweep 

 through coop, chilling the chickens, as it does when both ends of the 

 coop are slatted. 



"I place two of these coops about 10 feet apart, and connect them by 

 two frames, one covered with inch-mesh wire netting for front, and back 

 frame covered with half-inch matched boards, with a door at each end, 

 so as to get at the front of the coops with feed and water. As the top part 

 of the front frame is made of a board a foot wide, thus more than half 

 of the runway is kept dry, and the chicks can run around on a rainy day 

 without getting wet, and are safe from hawks and 'varmints.' As these 

 frames are only fastened to the coops by a nail or screw, they can be 



