ARTIFICIAL INCUBATING AND BROODING 



temperature when it is exposed to the full glare of the sun for 

 the greater part of the day. 



When placing the brooder in position do not make any ex 

 cavation to receive it, but place it on the top of the ground, 

 making it as level as possible. Use a spirit level on the floor 

 of the hover apartment from side to side and front to back 

 to make sure that the brooder is leveled up properly. Unless 

 the brooder is level the heat will not be distributed evenly. If 

 with the brooder in this position it does not fit down tightly 

 to the ground on all sides, bank up around it with a little earth 

 so that the wind cannot blow under it. If the door by which 

 the chicks leave the brooder is not on a level with the ground, 

 make a Httle inclined run-way of earth and sod leading up to 

 it from the ground. Two or three pieces of sod turned upside 

 down make the best sort of inclined run-way and with ordinary 

 attention will last as long as needed. Do not use a board for 

 this purpose. Where a board run-way is used the chicks are 

 liable to get beneath it or lose their way when very young and 

 fail to get into the brooder and beneath the hover before they 

 are chilled. With an earthen sod run-way the chicks wiU learn 

 to find their way in and out in a very short time and the operator 

 will be saved a great deal of unnecessary trouble. 



THE BROODER LAMP 



There are many styles of brooder lamps, a number of which 

 seem to be more in favor in some sections of the country than 

 in others. It should be borne in mind that the brooder stove 

 or lamp, like all other kerosene heating apparatus, is very liable 

 to give trouble unless properly cared for. A brooder stove or 

 lamp has to run for many weeks without an opportunity to 

 thoroughly cool off and rest and therefore should be treated 

 with much greater care than an ordinary house lamp which is 

 only run for a smaU portion of the 24 hours. The brooder lamp 

 must be kept clean, particularly the burner portion. The wick 

 tube should be kept free from accumulations of crusts, the 

 burner should be kept as bright and clean as possible and the 

 perforated disc about the wick tube must be kept clean and 

 bright and free from dirt; its perforations must be kept open. 

 The wick should be trimmed daily and should be slightly round- 

 ed at the comers to prevent burning with a fish-tail flame. A 

 flame of fish-tail shape is hable to result in one or both sides of 

 the flame burning too high, reaching against the chimney part 

 of the stove or other metal parts and causing smoking, which 

 is almost certain to bring disastrous results. 



Of the two types of brooder stoves in most common use 

 the style with chimney made of Russia iron held together with 

 iron castings and fitted with water pan above the oil bowl and 

 the chimneyless lamp equipped with a zenith or railroad burner, 

 are probably the most common. The stoves with the water 

 pan, when run in the old-fashioned way with the pan filled with 

 water, are sloppy and disagreeable to care for and the pan must 

 be kept always full of water, or else the insulation of the oil 

 bowl is not complete. The writer prefers to fill up the water 

 pan with asbestos cement, such as is used by plumbers for in- 

 sulating portions of hot-water heating apparatus. This asbestos 

 can be obtained in a dry form and is easily made ready for use 

 by pimply mixing it with sufficient water to reduce it to a putty- 

 like consistency. The water pan may be filled fuU of this and 

 it will soon harden, making a good insulating body that will 

 insure protection of the oil bowl from the heat of the lamp flame 

 When this asbestos insulation becomes old, soiled, or should oil 

 be spilled upon it, it can be readily removed and replaced with 

 new at the expense of a few cents. 



Use only the best grade of kerosene oil in the brooder 

 lamp and be sure to keep the lamp full, fill it twice a day if 

 necessary. When running the brooder in cold weather it is a 

 wise plan to fill the lamp twice a day, morning and night. In 

 •warm weather when operating with a low lamp flame it will 



seldom be necessary to flll the lamp oftener than once in 24 

 hours. Never turn a brooder lamp so high that it cannot be 

 turned higher without smoking and never turn it so low that 

 you cannot turn the flame a Httle lower without the lamp going 

 out. If these directions are observed and ordinary common 

 sense care given to the lamp there will be very seldom any trouble 

 from the kerosene heater used for individual brooders. 



Nearly all brooder lamps are pushed in place on a wooden 

 slide. Be sm-e to see that the lamp is in its proper position. 

 In brooders having a metal floor, with a place for the lamp 

 to sit immediately beneath the central portion of this metal 

 floor, care should be taken to see that it is correctly placed, 

 since if the lamp sits to one side the brooder will not heat as 

 evenly. Where there is any tendency for the lamp to heat up 

 it will be found more satisfactory to have the bottom of the 

 lamp rest on the earth beneath the brooder rather than on the 

 wooden shde, since the oil will be kept cooler in such a position. 

 For convenience the writer prefers to cut a circular hole through 

 the lamp shde big enough to admit the bottom of the lamp; 

 across the bottom of this opening I fasten two iron or tin straps 

 to keep the lamp from settling beneath the lower level of the 

 slide. This leaves practically the whole bottom of the lamp 

 exposed to the earth beneath the brooder, keeping the oil much 

 cooler. 



GETTING READY FOR THE CHICKS 



When the httle chicks are expected to hatch ha,ve the 

 brooder heated up and ready to receive them. Over the floor 

 of the brooder, in both the hover chamber and exercise apart- 

 ment, sprinkle a httle fine sand, over this about one-half inch 

 deep, place cut clover, chaff or other fine htter material. In 

 this may be sprinkled a httle chick grit and a good dry grain 

 chick food. Run the brooder for a day or two before the chicks 

 are placed in it to be sure that it is running properly and to get 

 it thoroughly heated up. The temperature beneath the hover 

 before the chicks are placed in the brooder should register 95 

 degrees in brooders having a wooden hover. In brooders having 

 a metal hover, which supphes a portion of the top heat of the 

 hover space, the temperature should be at about 90 degrees at 

 the start. The httle chicks should not be placed in the brooder 

 until they are from 24 to 36 hours old. It wU be the wisest 

 plan to put them in the brooder in the afternoon so that they 

 can have a httle time for the first meal and then go early to bed 

 for the night. When the chicks are treated in this manner they 

 learn more quickly to use the hover and to find their way back 

 and forth. If they are placed in the brooder in the morning 

 and spend the whole of their first day there, they are hable to 

 huddle more or less in the corners and may become chilled. 



PROPER BROODING TEMPERATURE 



As will be noted in what has gone before, brooders having 

 a wooden hover should be run at a little higher temperature 

 than those which have a metal hover supplying a considerable 

 radiating surface for distributing heat beneath it. In brooders 

 having a wooden hover run the hover space temperature at 95 

 degrees for the first week, gradually dropping to 90 degrees 

 the fourteenth day. Continue reducing the temperature to 80 

 degrees by the twenty-first day, dropping to 75 degrees by the 

 end of the fourth week. For the balance of the time which the 

 chicks remain in the brooder maintain a hover space temperature 

 of about 75 degrees. 



In brooders having a metal drum hover start with the 

 hover space heated to 90 degrees with the thermometer in its 

 proper position (all brooder manufacturers indicate the posi- 

 tion where the thermometer should be placed). Maintain the 

 temperature as near 90 degrees as possible the first week, grad- 

 ually dropping to 85 degrees by the fourteenth day and to 80 de- 

 grees by the twenty-first day. Reduce the temperature to 75 de- 



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