POULTRY RAISING 39 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Chicks raised nature's way. 



First of all, you must get the best brooder made 

 if you expect to be successful. Under no circum- 

 stances use a long piped house, for they are complete 

 failures in nearly every case. I have tried nearly all 

 the brooders on the market and have found none to 

 equal the "Peep 'O Day," now made by the Cornell 

 Incubator Co., Ithaca, N. Y. And for this system on 

 a large scale, taking everything into consideration, 

 there is no brooder so well adapted for the business as 

 the Cornell colony house brooder, known as the "Peep 

 'O Day" outdoor brooder and colony house combined, 

 built on runners. This can be bought for $i6, and is 

 the best and cheapest thing I know of, all things con- 

 sidered. They can be used out of doors in perfect 

 safety from the 20th of March on, and if you want 

 good, rapid growing chicks, I would not advise hatch- 

 ing any before March '20th, as they will come on and 

 mature nearly as quick as chickens hatched a month 

 earlier as a rule. 



The next problem is to raise fully ninety per cent 

 to maturity of the chicks you hatch. To do this on a 

 large scale, to raise from three to six thousand, you 

 must keep someone among your chicks all the time if 

 you do not want them all carried away by hawks and 

 crows and various other animals, as there is nothing 

 we raise that have so many enemies. 



I will here name you some of their worst enemies 

 when they are small : Hawks, crows, rats, weasels, 

 cats, skunks, woodchucks in rare cases, raccoons, 

 foxes. 



Select for raising your chicks a nice, large orchard 

 if you have one, if not, you must put up some artificial 

 shade. Put your colony house brooders in rows 

 across the lot, about ten feet apart, and try to hatch 

 in one week enough chicks for a row of brooders. 

 About sixty feet in front of this row put up a one and 



