Hubbard's poultry secrets. 27 



two feeds light, and the last time giving them all they wanted. 

 It stands to reason that the last feed should be the heaviest to 

 carry them over the night. 



I found this method of feeding would keep them hungry 

 every minute, and as it did not overtax the digestion, made 

 them grow like weeds. In fact, I have never seen a check in 

 growth where this method is followed ; but I have seen many 

 a flock of baby chicks ruined by the feeding of hard dried 

 grains five or six times a day. 



Now, before making this test, I had been raising chickens 

 for eight years and thought I knew a great deal about feeding 

 baby chicks, as I had always read the different methods of 

 feeding, written by men who were doing most of the winning 

 in the show room with their breeds. 



I adopted one man's system which seemed to be the best, as 

 he always won wherever he showed. I raised some wonderful 

 birds by following his system, but had a heavy loss from white 

 diarrhea during the first six weeks. 



Now, after I had followed the hen for six weeks, and 

 watched and studied her method of caring for and feeding her 

 young, I found that I had been using a method that was just 

 opposite from nature's system. During those six weeks, I 

 learned more about feeding baby chicks, than I did in all the 

 other eight years of my experience. 



In feeding, there was one thing about her method that I 

 could not understand, and that was, for the first two weeks, 

 she never once took her brood of chicks to the brook to drink, 

 though the brook was within one hundred feet of where she 

 had hatched her brood. It was very difficult for me to under- 

 stand how little chicks could get along without water for two 

 weeks in hot July weather. It took me some time to find out 

 why they did not crave for water like all other broods of 

 chickens. 



