CHA PTE R VI 



Feeding Chicks From Weaning to Maturity 



Relation of Conditions to Development For Different Purposes Model Rations For Growing Chickens Cultivation 



of Good Habits in Feeding Use of Green Feeds and Milk in Hot Weather Average Normal 



Weights of Various Breeds at Different Ages Amount and Cost of Feed 



Required to Produce a Pound of Poultry Meat 



WHEN chicks have been reared to weaning age 

 with hens, each hen having from ten or twelve 

 to perhaps eighteen or twenty chicks, it is 

 usual to combine broods when the hens are taken away, 

 and to put the chicks in lots of a few dozen in roosting 

 coops three or four feet wide by six to eight feet long, 

 coops that can be easily moved about by two men. When 

 the chicks are started in small brooders the same course 

 may be followed, but a brooder lot of chicks will per- 

 haps be enough for a single roosting coop, or the chicks 

 from a brooder of medium capacity, divided according to 

 sex may make two lots for two roosting coops. Nearly 

 always when hens or small brooders are used, operations 

 are on a scale or a system that uses roosting coops of 

 relatively mall size and capacity for the growing chicks. 



When chicks are brooded in lots of two or three 

 hundred and upward, they usually are divided at this age 

 into much smaller flocks, especially if there is land 

 available to give them good range, and it is desired to 

 make the best possible use of this advantage. It must be 

 kept in mind that the nature of chickens is to range only 

 within a comparatively short radius from their coops, and 

 that while hunger will naturally make them forage a lit- 

 tle farther when in such large flocks that the feed on the 

 range they would normally use is soon exhausted, they 

 will not as a rule go enough farther to make it practical 

 to get the same benefit from range for flocks of a hun- 

 dred or more with the houses at long distances that would 

 be obtained for flocks of from fifty to seventy-five or 

 eighty at much shorter distances. 



Practically the only poultry growers who give large 

 stocks of chickens range enough to get all the advantages 

 of range are the large breeders of exhibition poultry. 

 Not all of these fully realize that purpose, but all get a 

 great deal of the advantage of range, and many get all 

 of it. Those who can give less range 

 than they wish are invariably careful 

 to feed so as to make up what the 

 range lacks, and some with the best of 

 range conditions make doubly sure 

 that the growing chicks will lack noth- 

 ing, by giving them additional vege- 

 table and animal feed. Most small 

 breeders of choice exhibition stock 

 give their growing chicks good range, 

 limiting the numbers reared as neces- 

 sary in order to do so, but there are 

 still many who grow some exhibition 

 stock of good quality in limited quar- 

 ters and on land that produces no 

 vegetation to speak of for them. The 

 greatest difficulty in growing chickens 

 for exhibition purposes under such 

 conditions is to secure intensity of 

 color in sections that tend to be weak, 

 and a luster and finish in the plumage 

 that make much of the difference be- 



tween the top-notcher and the second-rate specimen 



In all daik-colored birds grown under intensive 

 conditions, it is difficult to get wing flights free from 

 white, or to prevent white from appearing in small 

 amounts where it is not wanted. Even in birds that have 

 a great deal of white in the plumage, as the "ermine" 

 type of color of the Light Brahmas and other varieties 

 with the same markings, birds that are not grown on 

 good range or liberally supplied with everything needed 

 for their highest development will be likely to show 

 much more white than is desirable in black sections and 

 the black in them generally will be dull and lusterless. 

 White varieties are better suited than any others for 

 growing under such conditions, yet the breeder who fan- 

 cies a variety especially subject to the development of 

 plumage faults when grown under conditions that make 

 such faults hard to avoid, will usually find that, by avoid- 

 ing overcrowding and giving his stock the best of atten- 

 tion, he produces birds fully equal to those grown by the 

 majority of small breeders who have fairly good range 

 and other favorable conditions for their growing chicks, 

 and relying upon these are careless about providing at 

 all times the things necessary for the best development 

 of their chicks. 



While it is always gratifying to a poultry keeper to 

 produce stock of the highest possible excellence, failure 

 fully to reach the best development is not an unbearable 

 hardship to those who enjoy producing fine birds, and 

 must indulge this taste under conditions that are more 

 or less adverse to it; nor is it in any way particularly 

 disadvantageous except to those who exhibit in the 

 strongest competition and breed to sell to the most cri- 

 tical buyers. Most of the stock to be used for ordinary 

 breeding purposes, whether for standard stock, for eggs, 

 or for the table at maturity, can be grown in good quality 



COOPS FOR GROWING CHICKS ON RECENTLY CLEARED LAND AT THE 

 GOVERNMENT POULTRY FARM, BELTSVILLE, MD. 



