FEEDING CHICKS FROM HATCHING TO WEANING 



47 



In putting out a brood or a few broods, a poultry keeper 

 who has noted how the weaklings eventually drop off or, 

 if they linger through a season, make miserable-looking, 

 unprofitable birds, thinks nothing of killing one in a 

 hatch of eight or nine, or two in a hatch of twelve to fif- 

 teen. He simply forgets them and does not reckon them 

 in his count of chicks put out. But when it comes to 

 proportionate culling in large numbers of chicks, few are 

 willing to do it. To take one weak chick from ten does 

 not seem serious, but to take thirty from three hundred 

 looks like a big sacrifice which is a wrong way of look- 

 ing at it, for the chicks that come into the world con- 

 spicuously inferior to their companions are a loss from 

 the start, and the sacrifice is in keeping them, not in 

 killing them. If kept, the great majority of them die in 

 the first three weeks. Meantime they take up room which 

 it would often be of advantage for the others to have, 

 and they are hosts for germs of chick diseases which 

 would give their more vigorous companions no trouble 

 if the weaklings did not distribute them. From the point 

 of view of good practical common sense it is better for a 

 poultry keeper to be too severe than too lax in culling 

 at this stage. 



Feeding Chicks With Hens 



Where chicks are reared with hens the easiest way 

 is to feed them the regular meals given the adult stock, 

 and give any special chick feeds that are used at other 

 times. This is almost necessary if the hen is to be proper- 

 ly nourished and kept contented, for the hen will not 

 often take kindly to all small-size chick feed which, for 

 reasons that will appear in the discussion of feeding 

 brooder chicks, must be used when, large numbers of 

 chicks are kept together. The hen mother really requires 

 as much consideration and attention as the chicks, and it 

 is a serious mistake and also a common one to treat 

 the hen with a brood as a sort of necessary evil, to be 

 tolerated for the purpose of supplying the chicks with 

 heat, but beyond that to be quite neglected. Some people 

 even go so far as to confine the hen in a small coop and 

 stint her feed. Few hens will show all the maternal in- 

 stinct the case requires under such conditions, many .be- 

 coming restless and indifferent or ugly toward their 

 chicks, and of course rearing chicks with hens under 

 such conditions is not very satisfactory. 



In general it is not desirable to have chicks that are 

 to be brooded with hens, hatched earlier than they can 

 get out on the ground. While they can be reared indoors 

 with the hens, it is far more trouble to handle any num- 

 ber of them that way than in a brooder. The advantage 

 of using the hen mother is that it permits of distributing 

 the chicks in small lots, so that they can pick a great 

 deal of their feed, and at the same time relieves the 

 keeper of a good deal of responsibility in the details of 

 care and feeding. When these advantages cannot be real- 

 ized the artificial method is better. Early broods with 

 hens are mostly broods hatched for the purpose of test- 

 ing fertility in matings, or to give a few early chickens 

 for the home table. They are an irregular and some- 

 what rare product, and for discussion of systematic meth- 

 ods of feeding it is better to take up at once the feeding 

 of young chickens when they can be put out of doors. 

 The time for this varies according to latitude and sea- 

 son. It begins in March in the South and may not come 

 until May in the northernmost states; but throughout 

 most of the country chicks can get out on the ground at 

 some time in April, and experienced growers try to plan 

 to have as many as possible of the chicks they intend to 

 raise for early layers hatched in that month. 



When the chicks can first be put out on the ground, 

 the weather is usually alternate short periods of bright and 

 warm, and dull, cold or wet days, and the nights are 

 generally cold. To keep them comfortable under such 

 conditions the broods must not be too large, and the 

 coops must be quite substantial, and of such construction 

 that they can be made snug, or given good ventilation, 

 as the case requires. Nine or ten chicks are enough for 

 one hen at this season. The fact that an ordinary hen 

 can take care of more than that while they are quite 

 small should not mislead a poultry keeper to give more, 

 for the chicks grow rapidly and, should the spring be 

 backward with cold and frosty nights, a large brood may 

 outgrow the capacity of the hen to keep them thoroughly 

 warm, and the result then is a reduction of vitality in 

 some of the brood. If there is much cool weather, dif- 

 ferent chicks being exposed at different times, so many 

 may be affected that the results are on the whole not 

 as good as if the hen had a smaller brood. After the 

 coming of settled warm weather, broods may be much 

 laiger. Good results are often obtained with eighteen or 

 twenty in a brood, though breeders who want the best 

 possible development of individual chicks usually prefer 

 not more than fifteen. 



When chicks are reared with hens it is almost in- 

 variably expected that they will get a considerable amount 

 of feed by foraging, at least what animal feed and green 

 feed they need, and more or less seeds and grain. The 

 amount they can get depends in part on the location of 

 their coops, and in part upon the numbers put on a given 

 area of land. As a general rule, to get the feeds indicated 

 in such quantities that no other provision need be made 

 for animal and vegetable feeds, land occupied by chicks 

 must not be stocked so heavily that the grass is killed 

 out or is much soiled. In the early part of the season 

 warm, sheltered locations are to be preferred; for the 

 late chicks such locations are usually too warm on hot 

 days and the air in the coops too close and stifling on 

 sultry nights'. These considerations demand different 

 locations for early and late chicks, and besides, the late 

 ones ought never to be put on land that was occupied by 

 early broods the same season. 



On most farms that keep only the ordinary farm 

 flock of fowls, there is no trouble in finding suitable loca- 

 tions, and in rotating the young chicks so that they will 

 not occupy just the same spots year after year. The coop 

 can usually be placed so that the chicks are quite con- 

 venient to feed, yet can range quite a distance, and the 

 location changed from year to year enough to avoid soil 

 contamination, without entirely changing the range. For 

 instance, let us suppose that on a certain farm there is 

 not far from the house an orchard which will afford good 

 range for a large part of the chicks grown throughout the 

 entire season. Up to weaning time the chicks will not 

 need near all this range. Their coops can at first be 

 placed comparatively close together in a section of the 

 orchard nearest the house. As the season advances and 

 the chicks grow, the coops can be shifted at intervals and 

 placed each time a little farther apart until they occupy 

 half the orchard, the birds having the opportunity to range 

 on the other half. The soil in spots where the coops stand 

 may then become quite foul, but the soil in that part of 

 the orchard generally will not, while that in the other half 

 will keep clean the droppings left by the birds being 

 taken up by the growing vegetation. By simply shifting 

 the coops to this part of the orchard in the following 

 season, and managing them in the same way, the condi- 

 tions in the two halves of the orchard are reversed. This 

 alternation can be continued indefinitely 



