36 METHODS OF POULTRY MANAGEME^NT. 



weight canvas (duck) that could be obtained locally. Burlap 

 may be used, or even unbleached cotton cloth in localities where 

 the outside temperature is not too low. 



TREATMENT OF YOUNG CHICKS. 



In the work of the Maine Station all of the birds are 

 hatched in incubators, and in pedigree wire baskets* since all 

 are pedigreed. They are not disturbed on the 21st day of incu- 

 bation, but on the morning of the 22nd day the chicks are re- 

 moved from the baskets and leg-banded. Each chick is then 

 returned to the basket from which it came and put back in the 

 incubator. There they are left until they are from 48 to 72 

 hours old. The reason for keeping the chicks isolated in this 

 way for so long a time is to prevent their eating each others 

 droppings. It has been shown by Rettger and Stoneburnt 

 that one of the most important chick scourges, bacillary white 

 diarrhea, is (a) transmitted through the egg, and (b) can only 

 infect non-infected birds during the first 48 hours of their life. 



After this time the chicks are carried in warm covered bas- 

 kets to the brooders, and 50 or 60 are put under each hover, 

 where the temperature is between 95° and 100° F. The tem- 

 perature is not allowed to fall below 95° F. during the first 

 week, or 90° F. during the second week; then it is gradually 

 reduced according to the temperature- outside, care being taken 

 not to drive the chicks out by too much heat, or cause them to 

 crowd together under the hover because they are cold. They 

 should flatten out separately when young, and a little later lie 

 with their heads just at the edge of the fringe of the hover. 

 They should never be allowed to huddle outside of the brooder. 

 They huddle because they are cold, and they should be put 

 under the hover to get warm, until they learn to go there of 

 their own accord. Neither should they be allowed to stay under 

 the hover too much, but in the daytime should be forced out 

 into the cooler air where they gain strength. They ought not to 

 be allowed to get more than a foot from the hover during the 

 first two days ; then a little farther away each day, and down 

 on the house floor about the fourth or fifth day, if the 



* See Bulletin 159, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 t Storrs Agr. Expt. Stat. Bulletin 60. 



