CARE OF BROODER CHICKS 79 



Their morning meal at about six in the morning, consists of 

 rolled or flake breakfast oats, next green feed, then chick feed, then 

 rolled oats, green feed and the last feed after they are a few 

 days old is hard boiled eggs (two for every fifty chicks), chopped 

 fine, shell and all, mixed with dry bread crumbs or cracker crumbs, 

 and an onion chopped very fine. I mix all together, adding a little 

 pepper and salt. If I have no bread crumbs, I add Johnny cake 

 or rolled oats to the onion and egg. I always send them to bed 

 with their little crops full. 



As They Grow Older 



I keep a thermometer under the hover in the brooder and lower 

 the temperature one degree a day until it is down to sixty-five de- 

 grees. After the chicks are six weeks old, unless the weather is 

 unusually cold, they require no heat. For green feed they seem 

 to prefer lettuce to anything else. Finely cut clover or alfalfa is 

 excellent. The lettuce I cut up very fine at first, but in a few days 

 they learn to tear it up, and lettuce suspended on a string or even 

 thrown on the ground, gives them exercise and amusement as well 

 as food. 



In the playroom, where the chicks are fed, the floor is covered 

 with chaff. If I cannot get from the mill real chaff I cut up hay in 

 the clover cutter, either wheat hay or alfalfa hay, to give them 

 something to scratch in, and I throw a handful of chick feed into it 

 for them to have something to reward their efforts. 



The alfalfa hay or chaff keeps them busy and exercising and this 

 broadens their backs and increases the size and vigor of the egg 

 making organs which are already commencing to grow and which 

 we must develop from the very first if we want to increase the egg 

 output. The chaff, or preferably the alfalfa hay chopped short, also 

 conceals their little feet from their active and sometimes mischiev- 

 ous brothers and stops them from pecking the feet and drawing 

 blood, which tastes so good that they will actually turn cannibal 

 and tear out and eat the bowels, sometimes causing great loss. 

 This is always prevented by keeping the chicks busy scratching 

 in deep chaff. 



They have fresh water each time they are fed. The first meal 

 is at about six in the morning, and if I fear that I may be later 

 than that, I put fresh feed and water in their playroom over night, 

 so that the hungry babies may not be kept waiting. They come 

 out at daybreak, eat a little, and sometimes drink, and then go back 

 and take another nap. 



The brooders must be cleaned twice a week the first week, three 

 time a week afterwards, and every day when the chicks grow 

 larger. The chicks should be dusted with insect powder about once 

 a week. To do this I have a tin box (a baking powder can with a 

 perforated cover), put insect powder into it and after dark raise 

 the hover and sprinkle the powder liberally over the chicks. This 

 will usually keep them free from lice,.. 



