A SELF-SUPPORTING HOME 



Every incubator which holds one hundred 

 and twenty eggs will require three brooders 

 of the hundred-chick size to rear its output, 

 even if only seventy-five per cent of the eggs 

 hatch, because a brooder of that size can 

 accommodate only fifty chicks when they are 

 two weeks old, and twenty-five when they 

 are three weeks old; and the second lot will 

 hatch when the first are twenty-three days 

 old, if the machines are kept running closely. 

 Crowding is disastrous. The round hover 

 used in nearly all the brooders now does 

 away to a great extent with the crushing up 

 into corners; but if the temperature is al- 

 lowed to run down, there is a natural ten- 

 dency to crowd into a bunch, which usually 

 results in the unfortunate weaklings of the 

 lot being crushed to death. Another objec- 

 tion to large brooders is the impossibility of 

 keeping the air in them fresh during long, 

 cold nights. 



In preparing the brooders, mix an ounce 

 of crude carbolic acid in a pailful of white- 

 L 145 



