22 Hubbard's poultry secrets. 



In the first place, every poultryman does, or should read, 

 one or more poultry papers. By reading them we find that 

 fifty per cent, of all chickens hatched die of white diarrhea 

 before they reach the age of six weeks. With such a loss, it 

 certainly looks bad for the prepared chick feeds that are now 

 on the market. 



I have tried nearly every brand of chick feed that was ever 

 put on the market, but I have given up feeding it, because it 

 was too hard for the baby chicks to digest, and for the first 

 six weeks they did not grow as they should. If we expect to 

 win the blues in one of the big shows where there is hot com- 

 petition, we must start our chicks from the shell. I claim the 

 first six weeks of feeding has more to do with making a show 

 specimen than at any other time of feeding. Chicks can stand 

 heavy feeding after six weeks of age and still make good spec- 

 imens, provided they have been properly fed up to the age of 

 six weeks, and provided that digestion has not been overtaxed. 

 If we overtax the digestive organs in these six weeks of feed- 

 ing, we never can mature that bird into as good a specimen as 

 nature intended him to be, no matter how we feed or what 

 good care we give him. 



I do not want you to think that I am trying to run down 

 other people's methods of feeding, for I am not. I will tell 

 you how I proved that nature never intended that a baby chick 

 should be fed on hard, dried grains. 



About fifteen years ago, I noticed a robin that built its nest 

 in an apple tree, this nest was built very close to the ground. 

 About a week after she had hatched her young, she was caught 

 by a oat. The male bird made such a fuss that it drew my 

 attention to the nest. I looked into the nest and there were two 

 baby robins about a week old. Along towards dusk I went 

 to see if the male bird was going to care for the young robins. 

 I found he was around and wilder than ever, and would not 



