42 The Business Hen. 



them I take out the front of brooder and put the chicks in, and now they 

 have their first feed of hard-boiled eggs, chopped very fine and purposely 

 scattered on the clean sand, so that the chicks will get some grit in their 

 gizzards with their first meal. Some so-called experts do not favor hard- 

 boiled egg, but my experience is that chicks will eat it in preference to 

 anything else than can be set before them. I always save all the infertile 

 eggs for that use. 



"With the first little 'cheep' that shows they are getting too cool I take 

 a board half an inch shorter than inside width of brooder, and press the 

 chicks all back through the cloth strips into the hover, leaving the board 

 leaning against hover to prevent chicks getting out. This board is one 

 and a half or two inches narrower than the height of hover, so that by 

 turning up two or three of the cloth strips there will be sufficient venti- 

 lation. A better scheme would be to make a frame and cover it with 

 fine netting to keep the chicks in. I feed the first two or three days about 

 once in three hours, the third day making the feed half rolled oats (the 

 common oatmeal) and half boiled egg, chopped together. The chicks will 

 pick out all the egg first, but if you do not overfeed will eat the oatmeal 

 too. To have the chicks continue to thrive, overfeeding must be avoided 

 until they are five or six weeks old. After they are a week old we bake 

 a cake of wheat bran and cornmeal, with a teaspoonful of baking powder to 

 make it light, and feed fine cracked corn also. As soon as frost gets 

 out of the ground and worms come up, I make it a point to dig some 

 worms nearly every day for them. It is live food, and the tenderest meat 

 to be got, but the chicks will be made sick if too many are fed. Green 

 food of some kind is almost a necessity after they are three weeks old. I 

 put a cabbage head in tneir yards, and they will eat it clear to the stump. 



"In from three to five days, according to the weather, I let them out of 

 the brooder, and begin educating them to go up the incline and into 

 their hover when cool. Some will huddle into a corner and get chilled 

 unless watched and pushed in. After four or five weeks they ought to be 

 left outdoors, if the ground is bare. I have seen chickens in a neighbor's 

 $300 brooder house gets pale and so weak they could not stand up, until he 

 put brooders and all outdoors on the grass, and in less than a week they 

 were all right. I make a cheap drinking fountain by cutting slits in a 

 tin can half an inch apart, bending in the slit part, filling the can with 

 water and placing on top of it the cover of a larger can, then by inverting 

 the two you have a self feeding fountain that the chicks cannot get wet in, 

 and that it may not get upset put a stone on top of the can, for damp- 

 ness in a brooder is to be most carefully avoided. My brooders are 

 cleaned out twice a week, all the sand scraped out ; then with a fine sieve 

 sift out all the droppings and spread the sand around again. If it is 

 clean sand, not earth, it may be used many times." 



