THE DOLLAR HEN FARM 
Equipment for Chick Rearing. 
Just as the long houses for hens have been weighed and 
found wanting, so larger brooder houses, with one exception, 
have never'been established on what may be called a success- 
ful basis. By establishment on a successful basis, I mean 
established so that they could be used by larger numbers of 
people in rearing market chickens. There are plenty of large 
brooder houses in use, just as there are plenty of yarded 
poultry plants, but many intelligent, industrious people have 
tried both systems only to find that the cost of production 
exceeds the selling price. This makes us prone to believe 
that some of those who claim to be succeeding may differ 
from the crowd in that they had more capital to begin with 
and hence last longer. 
The one exception I make to this is that of the South Shore 
Roaster District of Massachusetts. Here steam-pipe brooder 
houses are used quite extensively. The logical reason that 
pipe brooder houses have found use in the winter chicken 
business and not in rearing pullets is that of season and 
profits. When chicks are to be hatched in the dead of winter 
the steam-heated brooder house is a necessity. In this limited 
use it is all right, where the profits per chick are great enough 
to stand the expense and losses. 
For the rearing of the great bulk of spring chicks the meth- 
ods that have proven profitable are as follows: 
First: Rearing with hens as practiced at Little Compton. 
For suggestions on this see the chapter entitled ‘Poultry on. 
the General Farm.” 
Second: Rearing with lamp brooder. Many large book- 
built poultry plants have been equipped with steam, or, more 
properly, hot water heated brooder houses, only to have a 
practical manager see that they did not work, tear out the 
piping and fill the house with rows of common lamp brooders. 
The advantage claimed for the lamp brooder is that they can 
be regulated’ separately for each flock. As a matter of fact, 
the same regulation for each flock of chicks could be secured 
with a proper type of hot water heaters and one of the most 
practical poultry farms in the country is now installing such 
@ system. 
A brooder system where hot air under the pressure of a 
blower or centrifugal fan would seem ideal. So far the efforts 
made along these lines have been clumsy and unnecessarily 
expensive. If the continuous house is ever made practical, I 
believe it will be along this line, but at present I advise 
sticking to the methods that are known to be successful. 
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