CHAPTER VIII 



FROM INCUBATOR TO BROODER 



Some style of mother is necessary to take care of 

 the early hatched chicks, so the brooder and incu- 

 bator go hand in hand. Both the pipe system, 

 using hot water for heat, and a drum heated by a 

 lamp from below, are used ; each has its advocates and 

 gives good results. Aside from the matter of cost 

 there is little to choose between them. Up to within 

 a few years, incubators and brooders were used only 

 by fanciers and commercial poultry keepers, but of 

 late they are being very generally adopted by farmers 

 who raise from one hundred to five hundred chickens 

 a year. 



Warm the brooder pipes a day or two before the 

 hatch is due. Take care not to bare the chickens in 

 transferring them from incubator to brooder. Use 

 large flat baskets for the purpose. Put a newspaper 

 in the basket first, then a thick woolen shawl or old 

 blanket under and over them. Take them rapidly 

 from the basket, put them under the pipes and shut 

 them in tightly for a time. Do not feed the chickens 

 for twenty-four hours after hatching. Good food 

 for the first week is cracker, ground in a bone 

 mill quite coarse and mixed with as much milk 

 as it will absorb, heated quite hot. It is not a 

 bad plan to heat all the food for the first two 

 weeks. After the first clay or two teach them 

 to drink milk. Grind broken crockery quite fine and 

 put a little pile beside their food for grit. Use a 

 smooth, clean board on which to spread their food and 



