GROWING POULTRY 



277 



constantly decreasing, when measured in numbers of birds con- 

 tained. The capacity of a brooder is often given (correctly for a 

 time) at the number of newly hatched birds that may be kept in 

 it ; but the need of reduction of numbers as the birds grow is not 

 always sufficiently emphasized. This form of misrepresentation 

 is sometimes excused on the ground that at the average rate of 

 loss the losses of chicks or ducklings will offset the increase in 

 size of those which remain, but there can be no valid excuse for 

 instructions that are most misleading when the birds are doing 

 best. Experienced growers generally put into individual (heated) 

 brooders rated as having a capac- 

 ity of from seventy-five to one 

 hundred only about half those 

 numbers, and into the compart- 

 ments of brooder houses they put 

 the young birds in lots of about one 

 hundred, though for some time 

 each compartment might safely 

 carry two hundred or more. As 

 has been said, under natural con- 

 ditions all young birds are pro- 

 duced and reared in small groups. FIG. 313. Fireless, or "cold," brooders 



Massing them in large numbers at Provincial Poultry-Breeding Station, 



Edmonton, Alberta. (Photograph from 

 the station) 



creates conditions both unfavor- 

 able and dangerous to them. In 

 exceptional cases a large group may thrive, but as a rule the birds 

 do best when kept in lots not many times larger than the natural 

 groups. In general practice, brooders and brooder houses are 

 adapted to this principle. 



Methods of artificial brooding. There are three general meth- 

 ods of providing heat without natural mothers : (i) by fireless, or 

 "cold," brooders; (2) by individual brooders, each heated by a 

 lamp or a stove ; (3) by a hot- water system arranged to make one 

 heater and system of pipes furnish heat to a series of brooding 

 compartments. 



Cold brooders are small boxes, usually with a capacity of from 

 twenty-five to fifty young chickens, in which the birds keep warm 

 through contact and the conservation of the heat from their bodies. 



