41(1 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



were put in the brooder house were the same. They were all fed alike. 

 When I saw them, between two and three months after the hatch, 

 hardly a chick had been lost from one lot, while of the other hardly 

 a chick remained. That the difference was due to something which 

 happened during incubation was plain, but what that was it was 

 impossible to say. 



It has also often happened that when a lot of chicks from the same 

 incubator are placed in different brooders those in one brooder will 

 thrive, while those in another will not, — all conditions but brooding 

 conditions being the same. The facts plainly indicate something 

 wrong in one brooder. What is wrong it may not be easy to discover. 



The bearing of such facts on the question of feeding is this : without 

 being so bad as to cause heavy losses of chicks, brooder or incubator 

 conditions may be such that the chicks are not in perfect condition. 

 Thus, as a result of wrong temperature in either machine there may be 

 a slight catarrhal condition of the digestive organs. To chicks in this 

 condition foods which cause no discomfort at all to j^erfectly healthy 

 chicks may be at first slightly, and at last highly, irritating, causing 

 serious, if not fatal, digestive disorders. There may be the same 

 difference between chicks hatched and reared by natural methods; 

 but opportunities for errors in hatching and brooding are much less 

 frequent, for hens cannot vary in temperature as incubators and 

 brooders may, and do, — especially in the hands of inexperienced 

 operators. 



Now, when we find that an article of food or a system of fee-ding 

 which, under natural conditions, gives generally satisfactory results, 

 sometimes — either under natural or artificial conditions — does not 

 give satisfactory results, we should know that the fault is not in the 

 food, but in something else; and that, while we may avoid ill conse- 

 quences by a diet which will counteract the trouble, we do not remedy 

 it. If we think the fault was in the feeding, we may be entirely wrong; 

 and, if so, as long as we continue on the supposition that the feeding 

 was wrong, we are not likely to get at the real trouble. 



When a poultry keeper finds that he cannot use a ration which in 

 the experience of others has been shown to be a good ration, he may be 

 sure that there is something else wrong in his flock or his methods. 

 Fowls that are healthy and rugged can use any ration that furnishes 

 approximately what they require, and may do well on such a ration 

 for a long time, though it may be in some respects objectionable, and 

 neither the best nor the most economical ration. But as soon as a 

 poultryman finds that it is only by keeping strictly to a certain ration 

 or system that he can command success, and that variations from it 

 are almost immediately followed by bad results either in health, growth 

 or egg production, he ought not to conclude that his system was so 

 absolutely perfect or his ration so exactly balanced that any variation 

 from it was at once seen to be wrong. He ought rather to conclude 



