MAINE AGRICULTUKAI, EXPERIMENT STATION. 



27 



anything like the proper temperature underneath the hovers. 

 When the door of such a house with two of these brooders 

 operating in it is opened in the morning the air is plainly very 

 bad. Not only does it contain all the lamp fumes, but it also 

 has a peculiarly dry, burned-out smell. (3) When these 

 brooders are operated in small colony houses, and the same 

 h'ouses are u&ed for growing the chickens on the range through- 

 out the summer, a considerable labor expense and a good deal 

 of wear and tear on the brooders themselves is involved in 



Fig. 3. Section through middle of brooder. Note cloth cover and 

 side, large space between floor of brooder and floor of house, in which 

 the lamp is placed while the brooder is in operation, and which serves as 

 a storage place for the whole upper part of the brooder when the latter 

 is not in use. 



moving them about. After the chicks have reached a size 

 when it is no longer necessary for them to have a hover the 

 brooders must be moved out and stored somewhere until the 

 houses are cleaned out in the fall. Then the brooders have to 

 be moved back in again in preparation for the next year's hatch- 

 ing season. All this involves a good deal of labor. Every 

 poultryman knows, or ought to know, that one of the primary 



