7 3 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



to the necessary daily deodorisation of the apparatus ; and 

 the second, too high a temperature combined with lack 

 of ventilation. 



By the kind assistance of many friends, we were able to 

 make something like an exhaustive investigation into the 

 matter, and the results were remarkable. In searching for 

 the best returns, we gradually found we almost always came 

 at the same time upon the lowest temperatures employed 

 We found that a heat under the mother which seemed only 

 nicely warm to the hand, and was in fact only that of a hen, 

 was simply murder to the chickens. One cause of the great 

 difference in result between the heat of a hen's breast and 

 the same heat in an artificial mother, it appeared, consisted 

 in the closed sides of most mothers as at first constructed. 

 The heated and foul air escapes on all sides from under a 

 hen, whereas in all the early machines it was confined by 

 the flannel and by closed ends of board. 



Brooders of this kind are now superseded. Where the 

 "coverlet" plan, as it may be called, is still followed, the 

 covering material is left open on all sides, and is still better 

 if somewhat higher towards the edges, as is the body of a 

 hen, so that the foul air can escape readily. A very useful 

 small apparatus may be made by arranging a sufficiently 

 large hot-water tank over a brooder of flannel strips as 

 described, and suspending the whole at the proper distance 

 from the floor by three or four cords. The whole moves a 

 little from the motion of the chicks, which renews the at- 

 mosphere and causes ventilation. This plan answers well 

 for a small brooder, if half an inch of clean dry earth be 

 renewed under it daily, and the whole be placed in a shed 

 or shelter-coop. Peat-moss litter, however, is the favourite 

 material for the floor of a chicken-rearer. 



But " coverlet " brooders are now generally discarded 

 altogether. The best plan is found to be, heating a chamber 



