BROODING, COOPING AND FEEDING CHICKS 



A WRITER WHO IS REGARDED AS AUTHORITY DISCUSSES BROODERS AND BROODING, 

 FOODS AND FEEDING, AND DESCRIBES THE PROPER CARE FOR CHICKS OF DIFFERENT AGES 



A. F. HUNTER 



HATCHING the chicks is but half the battle, if, indeed, 

 it is half the battle, as many a poultryman who 

 has rejoiced in good hatches by either hens or in- 

 cubator has afterwards learned to his sorrow. With in- 

 cubator chicks raised in brooders elbow room seems to be 

 a most important factor, and want of elbow room is one 

 cause of great mortality in brooder chicks. It is quite nat- 

 ural to suppose that a brooder which is three feet square 

 (giving nine square feet of floor space), is abundant room 

 for seventy-five or one hundred chicks, and, indeed, it is for 

 chicks as they come out of the incubator, and if we do not 

 want our chicks to grow it is all right .to crowd into a brood- 

 er twice as many as should be in it. A point that we should 

 keep in mind, however, is that these chicks will be fully 

 twice as large at three weeks old and probably four times 

 as large at five weeks old, or by the time . we move them 

 from the brooder, and that factor we should have in mind 

 in gauging the capacity of a brooder. I have come to believe 

 that for good results fifty chickens are as many as should be 

 put in any brooder; that to increase the number beyond 

 that point is to induce crowding, which kills some and stunts 

 others, and is extremely unfortunate if quick and profitable 

 growth is our aim. If, as not infrequently happens, we find 

 we have one hundred and fifty chickens in the incubator 

 when we only expected about one hundred, and have but 

 two brooders heated up to receive them, no harm will result 

 in putting seventy-five chicks in each of the two brooders 

 for a couple of days, but another brooder must be made 

 ready at once and the one hundred and fifty chicks put into 

 the three, which gives reasonably abundant room for all of 

 them and they have a good chance to grow. 



We raise chickens on our farm for two purposes, first 

 for market, second for breeding stock. The chickens for 

 market are hatched usually from about Christmas time to 

 the middle of March. Those intended for breeding stock 

 are hatched from about the middle of March to the middle 



PART OF A LONG BROODER HOUSE 

 The Foreground Shows Brooders Out of Doors, Each Brooder Enclosed in 



Made of Ifc-inch Netting. 



of May. To have chickens out by Christmas time we have 

 an incubator started early in December, and at that time 

 it is our custom to start one incubator a week, or, possibly, 

 four incubators in three weeks, gradually increasing to two 

 incubators a week through January and February, and so 

 on. For these winter chicks we have a brooder house 130 

 feet long by ten feet wide, partitioned into sixteen pens 

 eight feet by ten feet, each pen having a door and window 

 in front which faces the south. This brooder-house is 

 double walled, with a four-inch air space between the inner 

 and outer walls (it would be better still if the wall and roof 

 spaces were packed with straw or swale hay), and the only 

 artificial heat used in this house is in the brooders them- 

 selves, excepting that in some severely cold weather we put 

 a small oil stove in each pen to take the chill out of the 

 air, in order that the chicks may be out in the pen. We 

 use brooders which are three feet square, heated by an oil 

 lamp with a one and one-half inch wick, the air which passes 

 into the brooder being heated by passing over a sheet iron 

 ceiling to the lamp chamber, and by this method of applying 

 the heat indirectly a slight current of warmed fresh air is 

 passing into the brooder all the time. Herein, we think, 

 is one of the great faults with many brooders, as, for example 

 the hot-water pipe brooders in use in many brooder houses. 

 Those hot-water pipes simply heat the air already within 

 the hovers, which air is practically confined to the hovers 

 by the felt curtain in front, which is supposed to enclose the 

 warmth within the hovers. It does that very well, but it 

 likewise encloses the air, which the chicks have to breathe 

 over and over again, and in that defect I think we find a 

 clue to not a little of the mortality and consequent shrink- 

 ing of profits on brooder house chicks. A current of warmed 

 fresh air supplied to the hovers would overcome this serious 

 difficulty, and would, in my judgment, materially reduce 

 the mortality of brooder chicks. 



The brooders are set in the ground to a depth of six or 

 seven inches, which serves a twofold 

 purpose. The lamp chamber is en- 

 closed so as to cut off currents of air, 

 and the chicks run out and in upon a 

 level. For our winter chickens the 

 brooders are set in the middle of the 

 pens in the brooder houses, or, say, 

 about four feet back from the window, 

 and two pieces of board are fitte'd into 

 slots at each front corner, extending to 

 the side of the pen, so that the chicks 

 are kept in that warm, sunny half of 

 the pen until they are a week to ten 

 days old. The first day after being re- 

 moved from the incubator they are 

 usually kept confined to the brooder, 

 the food being put on small platters 

 placed in the corners of the brooders 

 for them. After they are old enough 

 to be let out they are fed and watered 

 outside, just in front of the brooders. 

 These winter chickens will need the 

 warmth of the brooders until they are 

 seven or eight weeks old, but the 



Pen 20 Feet Square, 



