CHAPTER V. 



BROODING. 



All systems of brooding chickens are more or less faulty, and 

 some objection can be found with each. After you have made a care- 

 ful investigation, then decide upon the system best suited to your 

 own needs, conditions and surroundings. After you have installed 

 the system, then strive to improve and perfect it. In brooding with 

 hens you have the lice and mites to contend with, and the hen too 

 often drags the chicks into the dew or cold, or when a storm comes 

 up gets into a place where the chicks will drown. The fireless brood- 

 ers are lots of trouble in educating the chickens to go in and out, 

 and the chicks are too apt to have leg weakness or rheumatism in 

 cool weather. The outdoor and indoor brooder lamps are apt to 

 smoke, or go out and chill the chicks or get too hot and cook the 

 chickens and burn the brooder. The steam heated and hot water 

 piped brooder houses are usually hotter near the boiler than at the 

 extreme end ; it makes the brooder house hard to ventilate, and 

 too many runts and weaklings are found in many of the large brooder 

 houses. The burner in the gasoline-heated brooder house is liable to 

 leak or the wind blows the flame out. In relighting, be careful to 

 see that no oil has leaked out, or give it time to evaporate, or it may 

 blow you up. Thus we see that you can find some fault with all sys- 

 tems, but notwithstanding this fact, thousands of chickens are success- 

 fully raised each year by each of these systems. Then the thing for 

 you to do is to select the system which is best adapted to your needs 

 ii nd endeavor to perfect it. Use your brains and common sense. 



HENS OR ARTIFICIAL BROODERS, 



Some farmers and poultry men hatch principally with incubators 

 and then have a few hens to hatch about the same time and run the 

 young chicks with the hens. In case you do this guard against lice, 

 and should you be troubled with them, use the remedies suggested 

 in another place in this book. 



THE BEST COOP FOR HT.NS AXD CHICKS. 



One of the cheapest and best brood coops that can be built can 

 be made from good boxes. Saw the box near the center at an angle 



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