CHAPTER V 



Feeding Chicks From Hatching to Weaning 



Relations of Vitality in Chicks and of Conditions of Life to Results in Feeding Contaminated Soils Bad For Young 



Chickens Differences in Details of Practice With Hen Brooded and Artificially Brooded 



Chicks Model Rations For All Localities and Climates Quantities of 



Feed Consumed by Baby Chicks 



A BABY CHICK is a tender little thing, so sus- 

 ceptible to extremes of heat and cold, and so 

 easily hurt by rough handling, that people natur- 

 ally suppose that it requires especially easily digested 

 feeds. Even after long experience with chicks, most people 

 do not fully realize that the only necessary differences in 

 the feeds of large fowls and small chicks are that the pieces 

 of the feeds they cannot separate with their beaks must 



READY TO LEAVE THE NEST 



be smaller for chicks, and that the use of unwholesome 

 things, even in small quantities, must be more carefully 

 avoided. Nothing that an old hen can digest is too hard 

 for a baby chick: in both, sound physical condition is es- 

 sential to good digestion. 



Measured by results, the digestive power of healthy, 

 thrifty chicks is greatest in the first few months, and 

 greater- at any period of growth than in adult life. A hen 

 that weighs about five pounds, and lays 200 eggs in a 

 year the eggs weighing 24 ounces to the dozen pro- 

 duces about five times the equivalent of her own weight 

 in eggs in the year. An average chick hatched from one 

 of these eggs, and weighing less than an ounce and a 

 half when hatched, will weigh if well grown one pound 

 when eight weeks of age. It will have increased its 

 weight at the beginning of the period more than ten 

 times. In a second period of eight weeks it will add to 

 its weight three pounds, increasing its weight at the be- 

 ginning of the period three times, and making its total 

 weight four pounds, which is more than forty times its 

 weight when hatched. 



When growth is at this rate the average daily increase 

 in the first months is approximately one-sixteenth of the 

 weight at the beginning of the day. Many thrifty chicks 

 have a higher rate of growth and continue it much longer 

 than the average. As a chicken that is growing well ap- 

 proaches a pound in weight the increase is often more 

 than an ounce a day. The real capacity of a chick for 

 growth is still more strikingly illustrated by comparison 

 with large mammals or with human beings. A child that 



44 



weighed eight pounds at birth and grew at the rate stated 

 for chicks would weigh at sixteen weeks, 352 pounds. A 

 calf that weighed fifty pounds at birth and grew at this 

 rate would weigh 2200 pounds when sixteen weeks old. 

 The rapid growth of young poultry is possible only when 

 they are in good health and well fed, and because they are 

 able to eat and digest relatively large quantities of rich 

 and highly nutritious feed. 



As soon as anything goes wrong with a young chicken 

 in any other respect, digestion is immediately impaired 

 too. The digestive organs, so powerful when working 

 right and on suitable material, are peculiarly susceptible 

 to all the effects of stale, musty, and moldy feeds, and 

 also to the effects of eating feeds, that have come in con- 

 tact with soil contaminated by the droppings of poultry, 

 even when the contamination is not recent and no traces 

 of it may be visible to the eye. That is why mature poul- 

 try can be kept in good condition and producing well in 

 much more closely restricted quarters than would suffice 

 to grow the same number of chickens. 



While ideal conditions are desirable for young 

 chickens, it is not always possible to have these. In all 

 highly intensive poultry culture there are various con- 

 ditions that are not the most favorable for poultry, yet 

 are not so detrimental that good results become impos- 

 sible. Indeed, if poultry keeping were carried on only 

 under ideal conditions, many successful backyard poultry 

 keepers would not be engaged in it, or would have to 

 curtail greatly their operations. Good care and good feed- 

 ing go a long way to offset drawbacks of conditions. 

 When conditions are more or less unsatisfactory, good 

 work depends upon the poultry keeper thoroughly under- 

 standing the disadvantages that he must contend with, and 

 taking every necessary and wise precaution to counteract 

 them. Good work under poor conditions will often give 



THE FIRST DAY OUT 



An old fashioned coop as still used on some farms. 

 The hen is tethered to the coop. The feeding board is 

 used to close the coop at night. 



