46 



better without feed, though the condition and appetite of 

 the birds being abnormal, they will eat feed which is really 

 injurious to them. 



Chickens that are noticeably bright and lively from 

 the start, and have among them none that are continually 

 giving a plaintive cheep, can generally be allowed to feed 

 as they will at any time, and with entire safety. Those 

 that plainly appear less vigorous, and of which any con- 

 siderable number are always complaining, should not only 

 be fed with more caution at the start, but should have 

 special attention in every other way, for their lack of 



A COOP WITH SLATTED RUN AND TENT FLY FOR SHADE 



vitality may be in part due to a condition which should 

 be and may easily be corrected. When there is anything 

 wrong with a lot of chicks, the poultry keeper ought not 

 to accept one possible cause as the whole cause of the 

 trouble, but ought to consider all aspects of the case and 

 assure himself that every other condition is right, before 

 he concludes that the fact that he fed chicks before they 

 were a certain age is the sole cause for some trouble 

 which has developed among them. 



To the best of our knowledge the question of the 

 possible effects of early feeding goes back to the question 

 of keeping the chicks comfortable at this stage and is 

 closely related to it. Where chicks are hatched with hens 

 they usually come on all right, yet there are exceptions 

 to the rule, due to the fact that many hens are either 

 temperamentally or constitutionally unfit for that part of 

 the duties of motherhood. There are hens that will not 

 make good hatchers, because apparently their body 

 temperature is below normal. While we might suppose 

 that the temperature of such hens was still high enough 

 for brooding, which does not require as high a tempera- 

 ture as incubation, the fact seems to be that these low- 

 temperature hens instead of imparting vitality to the 

 chicks they brood, draw it from them. Then there are hens 

 which at hatching time and while confined to the nest 

 are nervous and restless. They trample the chicks, kill 

 some, and make the rest generally uncomfortable. Such 

 disturbing treatment will easily account for a little di- 

 gestive trouble. Poultry keepers using natural methods, 

 especially those whose opinions come before the public 

 in any form, are much more careful in selecting mothers 

 for chicks than they were years ago, and consequently 

 have less trouble at this stage. 



With artificially hatched chicks, comfort depends on 

 the proper operation of the incubator at hatching time 

 and of the brooder at the start. Incubator temperatures 

 are often allowed to run too high; there is insufficient 

 ventilation in the machine, and the air both in and 

 around it is too dry. Often the chicks are left in the 

 machine a day longer than they should be, because the 

 brooder is not ready, or brooder accommodations pro- 

 vided are insufficient and they are too much crowded in 

 the brooders while more brooders are being made ready. 

 No one intends to let such things happen, but they do 

 often happen, and the common tendency in all parts of 



work with poultry is to underrate their effects upon the 

 chicks, and to expect that what effects come from any 

 wrong condition will pass almost as soon as it is cor- 

 rected or the chicks are removed from its influence. It is 

 a safe rule to have the brooder, warmed and ready two 

 days before young chicks are to be put into it. An ex- 

 perienced operator may delay until there is just time to 

 warm it up before the chicks are ready for it, but a 

 novice should make sure that he has ample time to read- 

 just anything that may go wrong. 



With the coal-burning stove brooders now widely used, 

 and working very well sometimes in 

 poorly constructed buildings, such 

 as cheap movable houses, it is espe- 

 cially necessary in late winter and 

 early spring to have no open space 

 under the house, and to have the 

 walls at the back and on the end 

 that gets the coldest wind perfectly 

 tight for two or three feet from the 

 floor. Small cracks or chinks higher 

 up in these or in the other walls 

 may do no harm, and where 



the house is too small for the size of the stove 

 as is often the case there is an advantage in a few of 

 these small permanent ventilators; but cold wind under 

 the floor is bad even when it is well covered with sand 

 and chaff, for then the heat thrown to the floor by the 

 stove and the metal hover, striking a floor cold on the 

 other side, makes a strong circulation of air on the floor 

 where the chicks are. This book cannot go fully into 

 the details of brooding, but the points mentioned above 

 are matters which in the writer's experience have been 

 found such common causes of troubles often attributed 

 to feeding, that reference to them here is appropriate. 



Another thing to be considered before taking up the 

 details of feeding chicks under different conditions is the 

 relation of the first culling of chicks to results in feeding. 

 In hatching chicks with hens there usually are from one 

 to three chicks in those hatched from one hen that are 

 plainly poor chicks when taken from the nest. Few 

 broods do not have one, and not many have more than 

 two. Many poultry keepers kill these chicks when taking 

 the chicks from the nest. Nearly all low records of losses 

 with chicks under natural conditions come from lots 

 where this first culling left only chicks of strong vitality. 



FEEDING TRAYS FOR DRY MASH WITH WIRE 

 MESH TO PREVENT WASTE 



