THE CHICK BOOK-INTRODUCTORY. 



Success In Hatching and Rearing the Chicks Is a Chief Essential to Profitable Poultry Keeping— How to Obtain 

 the Knowledge Required for Success and How to Apply that Knowledge. 



^>-] p-v^ HE poultryman'a proifit depends in a great meas- 

 ure upon his success in rearing the chicks. Suc- 

 cess is attained only by intelligent use of cor- 

 rect methods. If the incubation, growth and 

 development of the chick are not attended by 

 such conditions as produce and maintain the good health 

 necessary for building a vigorous body and strong consti- 

 tution, the grown bird does not have the power to produce, 

 or earn, more than a nominal profit for its owner, however 

 well it is housed and cared for. Nor does the negative ef- 

 fect stop at the profit of the first year; the progeny of such 

 birds is not only weak and unremunerative, but if raised 

 under like conditions will be less valuable than the parents 

 and such rapid deterioration will render the flock abso- 

 lutely unprofitable in two generations. On the other hand, 

 chicks well hatched, from good eggs, if given inteWigent 

 care and surrounded with the essentials required for proper 

 growth and roibust development, will mature into fowls 

 which are capable of returning to their owner the last cent 

 in payment for the food and accommodations provided. Such 

 methods increiase the productive efficiency of succeeding 

 generations and the road to a competence is auspiciously 

 opened. 



If the chicks in hand are to be marketed as squab 

 broilers, broilers or roasters, the problem of improving 

 them for stock purposes is eliminated; but the necessity 

 for painstaking effort is not lessened, if Indeed it is not in- 

 creased. 



The chick destined for the market must m'ake a very 

 rapid growth; not so much of bone and muscle, as of flesh 

 and fat, and to do this in the least time assures the great- 

 est profit. Conditions, too, at the time when such chicks 

 must be grown to command the top price must be largely 

 artificial. Natural conditions must be approximated as 

 closely as may be, or the young birds cannot stand the 

 heavy feeding necessary to produce the results that count. 

 To one whose heart is in the work, it is as interesting as 

 it is important and offers opportunity for the full exercise 

 of both his mental and physical faculties. 



That a large per cent of all strong chicks hatched can 

 be raised to the age for maketing, or to maturity, is not 

 disputed. The present-day appliances greatly facilitate the 

 work, and prepared foods, selling at reasonaJble prices, 

 simplify the problems of feeding. Establishments properly 

 . equipped and handled are raising chicks in numbers that 

 were scarcely dreamed of two decades ago, and by placing 

 them on the market in good condition at a time when the 

 majority of producers have nothing to offer, they obtain ex- 

 treme prices. Later in the season when the market is 

 filled with chickens from farmers and less energetic and 

 less up-to-date poultrymen, the lafge raisers, with their 

 better equipment and thorough knowledge of the business, 

 are able to place their goods on sale in more attractive 

 condition and at a lower cost of production than their com- 

 petitors, securing a better price and larger profit. 



This is not intended to indicate that large plants are 

 the only ones that can and do accomplish satisfactory re- 



sults. Small plants are doing good and remunerative work 

 on a smjaller scale; some are growing chicks for market, and 

 others for stock purchases; some are doing the work by 

 artificial methods, while not a few hold to the motherly 

 hen of thirteen eggs capacity. 



After giving due credit to the appliances and improved 

 foods, for the part they play in producing good chickens, 

 the major share is left to be distributed between hard, con- 

 scientious work and well grounded knowledge of the busi- 

 ness. Of all these factors knowledge is the greatest and 

 the one most difficult to secure. When it is found it com- 

 mands its own nrice. 



How Knowledge Is Obtained. 



There are two ways of acquiring this knowledge: by 

 years of costly experience and by careful study of the best 

 poultry literature, supplemented and verified by practical 

 experience. The former, although good, and enduring as 

 the hills, places a man too near the far end of life's jour- 

 ney when it graduates him and burns up money which 

 ought to be saved >and invested in the business. The latter 

 is the shorter roa,d knd enables one, by taking advantage 

 of the experience of others and avoiding their mistakes, 

 to cut cross lots to success with money in his pocket. 



, The printed wisdom of poultry culture is as far ahead 

 of that of ten years ago as can be imagined. In gathering 

 the material for this book the same sources of Information 

 have been drawn upon that furnished the matter for the 

 other popular books published by this company; that is, 

 the poultrymen and women who have made a substantial 

 success in the business and who are specially fitted to write 

 upon the subjects assigned them. 



Such information, though difficult and expensive to 

 obtain, is valuable almost beyond estimating. It consists 

 not in dry rules and dogmatically expressed theories, but 

 in the live experience of men in the field, with the whys 

 and wherefores for every step and dependable guidance at 

 every turn. It is information that can be trusted to the 

 letter. By following it the mistakes of the novice can be 

 avoided and the methods of the more experienced may be 

 improved. 



This is not a one-man book, but a broad-gauge one, 

 holding out to the reader several courses which have proved 

 successful so that he may choose from them whatever seems 

 best adapted to his requirements. 



Condition of the Breeding Stock. 



Securing good condition in breeding birds is not dltfi- 

 cult. Any poultryman worthy the name selects each sea- 

 son birds having the development and style that denote 

 vigor and constitution while selecting the shape re- 

 quired for the variety at hand. It is a fact that birds of 

 standard size and shape are not produced year after year by 

 any but healthy, vigorous stock. Constitutional vigor Is 

 the source of strong procreative power and Is built up only 

 by careful breeding for a term of years. 



With this characteristic well established, it remains 

 only to maintain good health and normal condition of flesh 



