28 



CHICK BOOK 



in the sunshine. If left to their choice, they will seek the 

 warmth before they become chilled to the danger point, 

 provided they know where to find it. Here is where the 

 artificial brooder is better than many old hens, that often 

 keep going, no matter how cold it is, while the chicks cry 

 and beg for the warmth that is denied them. Their plain- 

 tive peep is sure sign of discomfort, and whenever it is heard 

 it is high time they were looked after. Where chicks are 

 to be raised by the thousands for market, artificial incubat- 

 ing and brooding must be adopted, as it would require too 

 much help at too great an outlay to make it profitable with 

 hens under the natural method. Three sitting hens would 

 cause me more trouble and annoyance than qne incubator, 

 and with their broods would require as much attention as a 

 brooder house holding several thousand. 

 The Brooder House 

 The brooder house must be warm and dry. There are 

 many good plans published. One that will be found very 

 satisfactory is sixteen feet wide, four feet high in front, and 

 six in the rear with the hip of the roof plumb with the face 

 of the hover so as to allow head room in the passage. Divide 

 your space into three feet at the rear for a walk; two feet for 

 width of hover and eleven feet for pen. This building can 

 be extended any length desired. Don't attempt to heat the 

 hovers with lamps in any latitude north of Birmingham, Ala., 

 or you will fail. You might be able to get the temperature 

 under the hover high enough, but the pens would be chilly 

 and there is where they must spend the greater part of the 

 day if they are to thrive. Use a water jacket stove and 

 double loop of inch and a half pipe in the hover and a single 

 loop under the windows, of which there should be one in each 

 pen, raised twelve inches from the floor. Make the pens 

 four feet wide, this with eleven ifeet in length outside the 

 hover is sufficient to start one hundred chicks in, but they 

 must be thinned out as they grow older. A movable' lid 

 over the pipes is all the hover consists of. They will be con- 

 tented and scratch and exercise all day long and run under 

 the pipes when they wish extra warmth. No curtains are 

 required when the building is heated as we describe. They 

 are undesirable at best. When the hover is curtained off 

 it often is allowed to become filthy, and im- 

 pure air and ammonia fumes are held there 

 foi" the chicks to breathe. If the hover regis- 

 ters too high a temperature and the pens too 

 low, lift or lap the covers so the heat from the 

 pipes can rise more readily. 



Crowding works much mischief. Out- 

 door and indoor brooders heated by lamps 

 are frequently rated at too high a capacity. 

 If one-half the chicks were assigned to them 

 there would be less loss and better 

 chicks. The action of the chicks 

 is a perfect indication of their 

 feelings. Whenever they stand 

 around humped up and chirping, 

 they are in danger and are losing 

 ground instead of 

 gaining. In ordi- 

 nary winter weath- 

 er they should be 

 given access to the 

 outside runs for a 

 few hours when the 

 sun is bright. They 

 are better for it and 



EARLY COMPANIONS 



Keep your supply of coarse sand and fine grit and clean 

 drinking water constantly before them. After they are ten 

 days old they are quite hardy and practically safe; and if 

 properly fed and of breeds suitable for broilers they can be 

 made to weigh one pound in forty days, one and a half 

 pounds in fifty-five days and roasters five pounds each at 

 four months. When reared with small yards for exercising 

 they move about much less than when on free range, and 

 while they have sufficient exercise to maintain good health, 

 they have not sufficient to waste energy or flesh or toughen 

 their muscles. They gain in weight more rapidly and make 

 heavier, plumper broilers in a given time. 



Feeding Brooder Chicks 



I use three distinct mixtures of food between hatching 

 and marketing time. The first ten days I take special care 

 of their digestive organs and prepare them for the active 

 work demanded from the eleventh day until two weeks before 

 marketing. I feed a narrow ration, the basis being oats in 

 some form. I then hasten the finishing with the best pos- 

 sible material, adding more corn, and aim to add flesh faster 

 than frame or feathers and to distribute what fat is deposit- 

 ed in globules throughout the meat, making it tender and 

 juicy instead of accumulating layers of internal fat or patches 

 under the skin, all of which is wasted and lost in cooking 

 and serving the fowl. A properly fattened fowl should not 

 show any visible fat when dressed, but not one in a thousand 

 poultry raisers knows how to put meat on a growing chick 

 and the only way they can turn out what might pass for a 

 plump broiler or roaster is to work on such breeds as develop 

 the quickest and then cover them with as much fat as pos- 

 sible in addition to the meat. This is all wrong. Soft 

 tender, juicy meat and a round, plump breast are what is 

 wanted and the fatty delusion must stand aside. No one 

 grain has so great a tendency to deposit internal fat as corn, 

 and this is the very la.st source we should go to for flesh 

 forming food. I believe that in the near future our best 

 markets will demand machine crammed or crate fattened 

 poultry. They have for many years demanded crammed 

 duckUngs. The only reason they have not 

 been known by this name is because no ma- 

 chine is necessary to cram a duckling— he will 

 stuff himself if given the food. 



The rations fed for any specific purpose 

 may vary greatly as to material, and in differ- 

 ent localities will naturally be compounded of 

 the most available material if suitable, but for 

 a growing chick they should always consist of 

 oats (minus the hulls) in some form as the 

 base, and this forms one-half the 

 ration. Other grains can be 

 varied, whether cracked or ground 

 but five per cent of the bulk must 

 consist of meat or ground bone in 

 some form after they are ten days 

 old as well as an 

 abundant daily sup- 

 ply of succulent 

 green food or steam- 

 ed clover. If you 

 omit the meat or 

 green food trouble 

 begins and shows in 

 weak legs, naked 

 bodies, stunted and 



will run in and get Children always enjoy feeding and caring for fowls and never tire of watchins tlie little ohiok, 



warm when they llir,w!r.S^rt'oJeT:i^]^n''^^i^^^^ "f"^"" ^l'"^*^ ^-^d 



feel inclined. ogj,,- jl'l'l^fr ''^'^.fJ.fl^^°Z^ "" t™"? "" stock of Oriental Bantams, brought recently by an ' ^'^'^''^ '^^'■■ 



omcerm the U. b. Army from Nagasaki, Japan.— F. L. Sewell. j'uyan casses when dressed. 



