20 COMMERCIAL EGG FARMING 



would have to be adopted. People wtiO are 

 only raising 200 or 300 chicks can man- 

 age with oil lamps. But when one goes 

 into poultry farming commercially, chicks 

 must be raised by the thousand at the least 

 cost of time and labor. The brooder house 

 which I use is 110 feet long by 12 feet wide. 

 There is a four-foot alleyway running along 

 the back. The front is divided into twenty 

 compartments, five feet wide, each with a 

 capacity of 125 chicks. Ten compartments 

 are on either side of the stove, which is in 

 the center of the building and occupies a 

 space ten by twelve feet. The stove is an 

 ordinary water-jacket arrangement with 

 fairly large coal capacity. Two two-inch 

 pipes run from the stove to each end of the 

 building and return. Ordinary anthracite 

 coal is used as fuel. If the fire is properly 

 made, it will last for twelve hours without 

 attention, and will keep the water in the 

 pipes hot enough for quite young chicks. The 

 pipes start from the stove at about five inches 

 above the floor level and gradually rise at 

 the rate of five inches in each fifty feet, which 

 gives a good circulation. The floor of each 



