POULTRY RAISING 49 



and judgment counts Give your chicks lieat just as 

 long as they want it if you wish to attain the most rapid 

 growth, and this is what counts if you wish rugged birds 

 of extra good size, for such birds, as a rule, are never 

 sick. 



After your chicks are four weeks old give a light 

 feeding every night of cracked corn until they are ma- 

 tured. If they are Leghorns this can be kept up as 

 long as you own them with grand results. 



I am now going to give you the secret of success in 

 raising your chicks and putting them over the danger 

 period, especially Leghorns, which is from twenty to 

 forty days old. This is raising them nature's way. 



In front of my colony house brooders, say six feet, I 

 plow a good, big strip the entire length of all my brood- 

 ers. I do this the day chicks begin to hatch, and I sow 

 this lightly with oats. By the time the chicks come out 

 of their brooders the oats are nicely sprouted. I let the 

 chicks out of the colony brooders the third day about 

 10 a. m., if weather is nice. The next day I let them out 

 I run the harrow over the ground and sow more oats. 

 Every day after this I harrow this ground. And I sow 

 more oats every other day. The result — the chicks keep 

 at work from morning until night and never get time 

 to become sick. 



You ought to see them grow on this system. I con- 

 sider this the only perfect way to raise chicks, and 

 the only successful way. Pullets raised this way should 

 lay at four to five months of age. 



As soon as they weigh two pounds each, or near 

 this weight, the cockerels should be marketed — except 

 what you us'e for breeders — and these should be sepa- 

 rated from the pullets in order to mature them fine. 



If the eggs which your chickens are hatched from are 

 produced under my system you should have no trouble 

 in raising fully ninety-five out of every hundred you 

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