68 



SUCCESS WITH POtTLTBY 



feet is sufficient for one or two weeks, after which the chicks 

 should be placed in a larger inclosure or allowed to run at 

 large. I believe in plenty of range, as chicks confined to 

 small inclosures very seldom develop well, but often do de-' 

 velop o£E colored feathers in plumage, which nature provides 

 against if they .have large range. The run may be made of 

 boards twelve inches high, a portion of which may be cov- 

 ered -with cheese cloth. This will afford protection from 

 wind and storms, also from the sun. 



Chicks when first out of the shell can have no better 

 food than bread for two or three days, then a mixture of 

 cornmeal and bran (ialf and half in bulk), to which add a 

 small quantity of bone meal, about one part to eight of the 

 mixture of meal and bran. Wet ' this with water and it 

 makes an excellent food for morning and noon. At night 

 good, clean wheat and ciacked corn, with oat flakes or hulled 

 oats is unsurpassed. Milk is very beneficial if placed where 

 fowls or chicks can drink it, but should not be mixed with 

 the food. 



A good brooder, an abundance of the right kind of food, 

 coupled with a fair amount of common sense, will bring 

 good results. W. F. BEAGB, New York. 



Lessous from Nature — ^Interesting Experiments — Limit the 

 rood Supply. 



While we have most of our chicks raised with hens on 

 farms, we still raise some in brooders. We allow the chicks 

 to remain in the incubator from ten to twelve hours aftei 

 they are all hatched; then we put them into a wramed 

 brooder with the floor covered two inches thick with wheat 

 bran. After they have been in the brooder two days we 

 scatter a little millet seed in the bran, but not much for a 

 week. This season we have used "Fidelity Chick Feed" al- 

 ternately with millet and have had success. When a few 

 weeks old we feed cracked corn and whole wheat, in fact 

 anything the chicks will eat, as great a variety as possible, 

 and not too much at a time, keeping them in a good appetite 

 all the time, and they will take plenty of exercise. It is well 

 to have plenty of chaff or cut straw, hayseed or anything of 

 that kind to scatter their green food in to make them work, 

 not forgetting grit and. green food. 



Use only a brooder so constructed that the chicks can 

 get any degree of heat they want, and one that allows the 

 chicks to get away as far from the heat as they want to, and 

 they will care o| themselves. 



One thing in raising brooder chicks seems to us to be of 

 more importance than anything else, and that is the feed- 

 ing of the chick the first week of its existence. When a 

 chick is hatched nature has supplied it with enough food 

 so it can easily do without eating or drinking for a week or 

 over. We will give one instance that will prove this with- 

 out a doubt. 



A few years ago we had a hen that would fly through a 

 ventilator and get above a board ceiling in one of our 

 chicken houses; there she layed a lot of eggs and hatched a 

 dozen of chicks. Judging from the 16oks of the chicks when 

 we first found them they were about ten days old, and dur- 

 ing that time they had neither food or water. A stronger 

 lot of chicks I never saw and they were as wild as deer. 



In 1890 we took two hens with fifteen chicks each and 

 put them into a cornfield a quarter of a mile from our build- 

 ings and left them to hunt their living as best as they could. 

 The chicks had no water or fod, except what the hen found 

 for them. After they were ten days old we went to see them 

 and note results. We found the hens had not been ten yards 

 from the place we put them, and such a sleek, healthy and 



vigorous lot of chicks we never saw. Being satisfied with 

 results so far, we left them another week, but when we went 

 to see them we only found a few feathers from the iena, as 

 u, pack of dogs had put a stop to our experiments, but we 

 learned this one fact, that very little, of any food should be 

 given to newly hatched chicks for the first three or four days 

 at least, and we believe there are more chicks killed by over- 

 feeding in the first ten days of their lives than at any other 

 time. This hardly ever affects the chicks until about the 

 seventh day, when they get diarrhoea and stand around with 

 full crops and soon die from indigestion, caused by stroiig 

 food and feeding. We all know wiat a hen that steals her 

 nest does after her chicks are hatched. She does nothing 

 the first few days but brood her chicks, then after they are 

 three or four days old she will commence to scratch for them, 

 but very little do they get for the first ten days. They se- 

 cure a few small seeds at a time,' and as they grow, and 

 their digesting organs get strength they find more food, and 

 most of the chicks live and grow to maturity; they develop 

 very fast, too. Itet us watch the old ien and learn lessons 

 that will help us much in raising chicks with brooders. 



'We think exercise is of great importance and if one is so 

 situated as to allow the chicks a good run it will be found 

 very beneficial. If the room is limited use plenty of litter 

 with dry feed scattered through it. Avoid sloppy food. Re- 

 member dry food is nature's food, and always remember, too, 

 that little food is far better than too much. 



AUG. b. ARNOLD, Pennsylvania. 



On Brooders and Brooding. 



Four years of experience with artificial incubating and 

 brooding has settled definitely in my mind the fact, that .with 

 it we can raise "better poultry and more of it." I mean 

 by this, that we can not only raise a larger quantity, but a 

 better quality. This is from the standpoint of a fancier as' 

 well, as a marketman. 



In my hands brooder raised chicks are superior in 

 growth and development, shape and plumage to those raised 

 by hens. There are many reasons why this should be so, 

 and these will be apparent to the unprejudiced poultrymen. 

 My exhibition specimens have invariably been brooder 

 raised. 



If I could have bat one I would prefer a brooder to an 

 incubator. - I do not think an incubator superior to a hen 

 for hatching, but I do think a brooder superior to her for 

 raising chicks. To be successful the floor of a brooder should 

 be built as near the ground as posible, should be capable of 

 generating sufficient heat, and should have a regulator that 

 will maintain the correct temperature. I believe a regulator 

 on a brooder in which you expect to place newly hatched 

 chicks is as important as that on an incubator. The heat 

 should come from above, with just sufficient bottom heat 

 to keep the floor dry. The temperature under the hover 

 should be ninety degrees Fahrenheit for the first two Weeks, 

 with a gradual lowering from that on. Overheating is just ' 

 as injurious and will cause bowel trouble just as quickly as 

 will a chilly atmosphere. 



Let me caution readers against buying cheap brooders, 

 for they prove very expensive in the end. Out of the many 

 brooders made •and advertised, there should be no trouble 

 to select a good one. Buy the best or none at all. 



I have absolutely no use for an outdoor brsoder, unless 

 it is to be used indoors, and then I preter an indor brooder. 

 Imagine shutting up fifty to two hundred chicks in a brooder 

 three by four feet for two whole days when the weather is 

 stormy, and expecting them to do well. 



