GROWING POULTRY 



271 



FIG. 305. Six-weeks ducklings at 



Weber Brothers' duck farm. Fruit 



trees just set out in yards 



number of young birds in a single natural brood rarely exceeds ten, 

 the number in a group of such broods is rarely greater than twenty- 

 five or thirty. The mothers, with their young, forage either in- 

 dependently or in groups of two or three broods. The different 



broods usually separate at night, 

 if accommodations permit. If 

 several mothers with large broods 

 sit close together, it will usually 

 be found that some of the young 

 soon show the effects of crowd- 

 ing, especially when they are in 

 a small coop or in a corner, and 

 when the circulation of the air 

 is slow, for the movement of 

 the air is slightly, if at all, influ- 

 enced by the number of birds at 

 the spot, while the condition of the air depends on the number of 

 birds breathing it. This is equally true as to the air in a brooder. If 

 the mothers are kept separate, or have an opportunity to follow the 

 natural inclination to keep the broods separate at night, there is no 

 trouble from crowding at that time. 

 After the young birds are 

 weaned, they will, if left to them- 

 selves, keep well distributed. It is a 

 common practice at that time, how- 

 ever, to combine broods into larger 

 groups before putting them into 

 new quarters ; from putting too 

 many birds into small, ill-ventilated 

 coops, and from the tendency of 

 the birds to huddle together when 

 they are moved to new quarters and 



the natural groups are broken up, this stage of the life of young 

 chickens is especially full of troubles due to overcrowding, aggra- 

 vated, in many cases, because it comes just at the season when 

 weather conditions make crowding most disastrous. 



In the artificial rearing of poultry larger numbers of young 

 birds are placed together from the first. The primary object is to 



FIG. 306. Chickens in double piano- 

 box house in orchard. (Photograph 

 from J. W. Clark) 



