No. 4.] SOUTH SHORE ROASTERS. 38i) 



has a walk on the north side 33 inches wide, and is divided into 10 pens, 

 with a window of 9 by 13 glass to each pen on the south side. There 

 is a ventilator 7 inches sciuare over every other dividing fence, making 

 5 in all, which just reaches through the ceiling, then the space above 

 the ceiling has two ventilators 16 inches square out through the roof. 

 The board partition between the walk and the pens is 30 inches high, 

 and just in front of this are the hot-water i)ipes and in front of these 

 are the return pipes. These pipes run the whole length of the house 

 through the pens, and are 6 inches above the cement floor; they are 

 supplied from a heater that is at one end, down in a pit that is 4^ feet 

 deep and about 7 feet square. An even temperature is maintained by 

 an electric regulator that will open and close the drafts automatically, 

 within 1° of a given point ; and if for any reason the temperature gets 

 too hot or too cold, it rings a bell in the attendant's room. For in- 

 stance, the fire may get low, or a door blow open, or a window drop 

 down, or the attendant may neglect to wind up the machine, etc., but 

 with this arrangement he is notified before any damage is done. 



Coarse sand or fine gravel is put all over the floor and up to within 

 2 to 3 inches of the j^ipes, and the temperature in this space under the 

 open pipes is kept at 90° F. ; but for the first ten days there is a cloth 

 frame 30 inches square laid over one end of the pipes in each pen, for 

 the little chicks to have a place where there is no draft, and the tem- 

 perature will run up to from 9.5° to 97° under this cloth, with the tem- 

 perature at 90° under the open pipes as above. This makes a place 

 that is a little too warm, and as the chicks grow older, so that they do 

 not need so hot a place, they will work out under the open pipes, where 

 it is 90° ; and when this is too warm they work out under the returns 

 and from here just out in front of all the pipes, and so on by their own 

 instinct finding the heat that just suits them, and there is no incline 

 or stairs for them to learn to climb, or stay out and get chilled, but the 

 whole width of the pen is heated, and is wide open for them to go where 

 they please. During the first four days there is a board put clear across 

 the pen about 1 foot in front of the pipes, and wide enough to reach 

 from the sand up to 3 to 4 inches higher than the pipes; this prevents 

 an undercurrent of cold air from drawing in under the pipes, right 

 onto the young chicks, which is more than they can stand. As the 

 heat is generated in the pipes, and rises at once, the cold air rushes 

 in to take its place, hence this undercurrent. After the first four days 

 this board is moved away a little every day until about the seventh 

 day, when it is taken away entirely. In one of these pens, 6 by llj^ 

 feet, are put from 100 to 125 chicks right from the incubator, and they 

 are kept there until they are feathered out enough to go out to the 

 colony houses, where there is no heat. 



The little chickens are fed sparingly, yet enough, five times per day 

 at first, with any good mixture of fine grains and seeds that has a good 

 variety, such as the Cyphers Chick Feed, scattered all about, and a 

 dry mash composed of two parts of bran and one part of Indian meal, 



