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chick does not know enough to eat properly until it is taught to do 

 so, and where you rear chickens in large iiocks the person looking 

 after them cannot feed individual chickens. ANY must adopt a method 

 that will enable the brightest chickens to teach the other chickens 

 how to eat. You cannot expect baby chicks to scratch in deep litter 

 and get out grain until they learn how to scratch and know what to 

 look for. In about three or four days time they will learn. The first 

 feeding should be given when the chick is hungry, and that will be 

 about thirty-six to forty-eight hours after they are hatched and dcy. 

 There is an inclination to feeding chickens as soon as they are hatched, 

 but this is a mistake. They have not developed and hardened suffi- 

 ciently. Nature indicates the time when they want to eat. They have 

 stored up in the yolk sack which is drawn into their bodies just be- 

 fore they are hatched, nourishment for the next day. It apparently 

 acts upon the digestive system of young chicks as the colostrum of 

 milk does on the newly-born calf. Do not try to make a chick eat 

 until it is hungry. You can tell instantly when it is hungry. AVhen 

 they come running to meet you and when they are picking at each 

 other, then is the time to feed. Thirty-six hours is about the time they 

 grow hungry after hatching. AVe have kept them for four days 

 without giving them anything to eat and we lost many of the chickens 

 that we starved. From four days to four weeks of age feed the same 

 grain mixture in the litter, namely, wheat, corn and oats, leaving out 

 the bran. Put water before the chicks just as soon as we feed them. 

 AVater ought to be accessible always, and we should never let the 



A good hatch. 



water dishes get dry because there is where trouble begins. Give the 

 chickens all the skim milk they will drink, at the same time having 

 plenty of fresh water before them also, and there will be no danger 

 their drinking too much milk if they are fed properly. 



After the chickens are four days old we begin to make them 

 work, and feed them the grain mixture in a litter of cut straw. AVhen- 



