368 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



because then the care of the chicks will interfere less with other work. 

 On some farms, where large numbers of chicks are grown, the men do 

 the morning feeding, watering, cleaning and heavier work, and close 

 the coops at night, the women feeding them at intervals through the 

 day. When it is too inconvenient to make several feedings daily, food 

 may be kept by the chicks, but that practice is not to be recommended 

 unless they have a much larger range than indicated by the arrange- 

 ment of coops suggested. 



Ordinarily, coops placed in that way should be moved their own 

 width or a little more daily, until the original position of the next coop 

 in line is reached, then backward or forward the length of the coop, 

 and back toward the original position. Moving this way is done when 

 the coops are opened or closed, and the time taken is scarcely noticed. 



The best results in growth and development will be obtained by 

 alternating hard and soft foods. Give a mash in the morning, shorts 

 and meal in equal parts, with a little beef scraps added; a feed of 

 grain, wheat or fine cracked corn about 9 o'clock; mash again at noon; 

 wheat or corn about 4 o'clock, and mash just before dusk. The grain 

 foods may be scattered at the time the mashes preceding them are fed, 

 if conditions are such that the chicks do not soil the grain too much 

 before they eat it. When grain is soiled by their feet, even on quite 

 clean ground or grass, it becomes in a degree poisonous and dangerous 

 to the chicks, just as filthy water is. 



To many the idea of feeding whole wheat to little chicks may be 

 novel and seem absurd, but the writer has done it for the last fifteen 

 years, and grown as good chicks and lost as few as when only very fine 

 grain was given early. Chicks start slower on a diet in part of hard 

 grain, but develop better digestive capacity, and later will stand 

 heavier feeding and develop better than those kept too long on soft 

 food. To keep chicks free from lice dust them with insect powder 

 when taken from the nests, then once a week for three or four weeks. 



By the time the chicks have outgrown their first piece of ground 

 there should be other places on the farm to which they could be trans- 

 ferred. For the weaned chicks, coops about three feet by six feet, 

 easily moved about, called "roosting coops" by poultrymen, are as 

 good as anything. These may be placed on mowing land after the 

 first crop of grass is off, or at the edge of a corn field where the corn is 

 well started, or a piece of asparagus on which cutting has ceased, or 

 anywhere that the chicks can have room without damaging anything. 

 In general, it may be said that when they can do no damage they always 

 do good. The one most important point in growing chicks is to give 

 them plenty of land room. Many poultry keepers are careful to keep 

 coops scrupulously clean, but are rather indifferent about soiled and 

 contaminated ground. This is not strange, for the great advantage of 

 a good range is not often apparent except to those who compare the 

 development of chicks on land that looks clean, though it shows the 



