to keep the fire burning, with only a shaft or two to grudgingly let in 

 a little of all the great ocean of fresh air on the outside free air, too. 

 If we had to pay for it, we would fight for it. Plants and animals need 

 sunlight and fresh air and will not reach their full stature without it. 

 Why are we so slow to learn the value of fresh air in our poultry 

 keeping? 



I admit there are many thousand chicks raised by the stove system > 

 or rather in spite of it; for from all the thousands and thousands 

 dumped around the stoves many are raised, but of this number how 

 many contract tubercular germs that make them one by one fall by 

 the wayside during their laying career? The loss among laying hens 

 on egg farms is terrific on account of bad ventilation all along the line. 



The baby chick needs a high degree of heat during the first week. 

 It should have a brooder with parts as high as 100 degrees in heat down 

 to 90, so that a comfortable temperature can be chosen. The tem- 

 perature must be high enough so that the chicks will not need to huddle 

 to keep warm. Neither must they be so crowded that they cannot find 

 comfort without too much bunching. Nature never intended that 

 chicks should be raised in large flocks. It is against all reason. Simply 

 a survival of the fittest and these fittest are often ruined for a profitable 

 career. From seventy to one hundred and fifty chicks to each flock 

 is enough. Probably one hundred is a good average. The fewer to- 

 gether the better the results. These should have enough heat so that 

 they will be perfectly comfortable without huddling, and the brooder 

 must be so constructed that they can stick their heads out to the fresh 

 air and still be warm. This brooder should be in an open front pen 

 which allows the healthful sunlight to warm it up first thing in the 

 early morning, so that the chicks can have an early sun bath without 

 having to hang around artificial heat all day. Sunlight, fresh air and 

 no dust and a comfortable hover to rest under, and the chick has ideal 

 conditions to grow into a vigorous, productive fowl. 



As I sit and write this article on brooding chicks, the early morning 

 sunlight is pouring directly into fifty open front pens eight feet square, 

 warming and cheering the six thousand comfortable chicks which are 

 taking their morning sun bath. I have just been "the rounds," and to 

 see them disporting themselves in fresh air and sunlight with no dust 

 certainly is a cheerful prospect after twelve years of searching after the 

 natural way. And not one of these six thousand chicks will have to be 

 taught "to roost." They have the going up habit from the very first 

 day. Their brooder is a fourteen-inch board eight feet long over two 

 hot water pipes upon the dropping board, which is two feet from the 

 ground floor and three feet wide. On this floor is their feed and water 

 and comfortable hover. They are already "up" where they are soon 

 expected to perch, and as a chick seldom forgets what he learns, it 

 behooves us to form the right habits from the start. 



They have a ten-inch board running from this floor to the ground 

 floor, which they slowly learn to run up and down. This gives them 

 exercise as well as entertainment, and forms the "going up" habit. 



On the brooder floor they have fine cut straw or alfalfa, and scratch 

 for chick feed in this. They also have troughs of dry mash by them all 

 the time. As soon as they will take to green feed they have all they 

 will clean up twice per day. On the ground floor they have clean, sharp 



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