POULTRY RAISING 45 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Raising broilers — bowel trouble, its cause and cure. 



This chapter is written expressly for broiler men 

 and those who keep their hens mainly on mashes. 



As I have been through the same experience in 

 my day, and have seen whole broods die off like 

 poisoned flies with bowel trouble, and have tried 

 everything I had ever heard of, but with no results 

 until last season, when I took all feed away for three 

 days and gave only charcoal to eat, and boiled milk 

 to drink, with a good quantity of black pepper put in, 

 and this stopped the diarrhoea completely. But many 

 would die anyway, so I experimented even further, for 

 you can depend upon it, if some in each batch have it 

 on the start of the season it will get worse every hatch. 

 So, for first three days I gave only charcoal to eat, and 

 boiled milk to drink, with plenty of black pepper in it. 

 The result was I had scarceh^ a case of it after this. 

 But these chickens I found were very difficult to raise 

 anyway, so I had to look still further for my trouble, 

 and I found all the trouble lied in the feeding of the 

 breeders. You will find in nearly every case the foun- 

 dation of all your trouble lies in your breeding stock. 



If you want healthy rugged birds, free from 

 disease, never feed them a mash. 



The cheapest way of all to feed and have healthy 

 rugged birds, free from disease at all times, is to feed 

 as I have told you, except in place of your light mash 

 at 9 a. m., give your hens a good feeding of processed 

 oats, nature's own feed. If you will produce your 

 eggs in this way, from yearling hens mated, with fully 

 developed cockerels, not less than ten months old, you 

 can raise practically every chick you hatch, even in a 

 long piped brooder house providing you can run your 

 temperature anywhere from 80 to 95 degrees. This, 

 you know, is a big variation ; but strong, healthy chicks 

 can stand a lot and not get sick. Once they get sick, 



