CARE or BROODER CHICKS, 



The Brooder Chick train Egg to Maturity— Ventilation, Moisture, Temperature and Floor Space Discussed by Breeders 



Who Know the Requirements of Brooder Chicks — Brooding Houses and Coops — Foods 



and Feeding—General Advice on Management. 



[This symposium is devoted to brooder cliicks exclusively. To hatch chicks in an incubator Is comparatively easy, and may be 

 ■done by a novice, but to raise the chicks after they are removed to tiie brooder requires a knowledge which does not stop at a 

 thorough understanding of brooder operation. The movements and appearance of the chicks inform an experienced observer what is 

 necessary for their well-being. To obtain the greatest growth in the shortest time, chicks must be healthy, comfortable and always 

 on the ]ump for food. Improper conditions result in death. It is from men who are competent to raise brooder chicks with the 

 lowest possible mortality that we have obtained the following useful information for our readers. — Editor.] 



ADVANTAGES OF BBOODEB, RAISED CHICKS— 

 RATIONS AND CABE. 



^NE of the most necessary appliances connected with 

 the poultry industry Is an A No. 1 brooder, even 

 though a hatcher is not in use. It is an easy mat- 

 ter to find a number of sitting hens, and by placing in the 

 brooder the chicks hatched by them, you avoid feeding the 

 .chick's food to the hens, and they will soon begin laying. 

 The chicks can be cared for and reared safely, no matter 

 what weather prevails outside the brooder. They are free 

 Irom vermin and if the brooder is kept clean they will not 

 be troubled with lice. There is no need of losing a chick it 

 j)rop6rly cared for. They will be much more tame and 

 more easily handled than those reared by hens. 



For from fifty to seventy-five chicks a run of twenty feet 

 is sufficient for one to two weeks, after which the chicks 

 .should be placed in a larger inclosure or allowed to run at 

 large. I believe in plenty of range, as chicks confined to 

 small inclosures very seldom develop well, but often do de- 

 velop oft colored feathers in plumage, which nature provides 

 .against if they have large range. The run may be made of 

 boards twelve inches high, a portion of which may be cov- 

 ered with cheese-cloth. This will afford protection from 

 winds and storms, also from sun. 



Chicks when first out of the shell can have no better 

 food than bread for two or three days, then a mixture of 

 cornmeal and bran (half and half in bulk), to which add a 

 small quantity of bone meal, about one part to eight of the 

 mixture of meal and bran. Wet this with water and it 

 makes an excellent food for morning and noon. At night 

 good, clean wheat and cracked corn, with oat flakes or hulled 



oats is unsurpassed. Milk is very beneficial if placed where 

 fowls or chicks can drink It, but should not be mixed with 

 the food. 



A good brooder, an abundance of the right kind of food, 

 coupled with a fair amount of common sense, will bring 

 good results. W. F. BRACE. 



A Croup ot Fast Crowing Chicks. 



LESSONS FROM NATURE— INTERESTING EXPERI- 

 ENCES—LIMIT THE FOOD STTPPLY. 



While we have most of our chicks raised with hens on 

 farms we still raise some in brooders. We allow the chicks 

 to remain in the incubator from ten to twelve hours after 

 they are all hatched; then we put them into a warmed 

 brooder with the floor covered two inches thick with wheat 

 bran. After they have been in the brooder two days we 

 scatter a little millet seed in the bran, but not much for a 

 week. This season we have used a prepared chick food al- 

 ternately with millet and have had success. When a few 

 weeks old we feed cracked corn and whole wheat, in fact 

 anything the chicks will eat, as great a variety as possible, 

 and not too much at a time, keeping them in good appetite 

 all the time, so they will take plenty of exercise. It is well 

 to have plenty of chaff or cut straw, hayseed or anything of 

 that kind to scatter their grain food in to make them work, 

 not forgetting grit and green food. 



Use only a brooder so constructed that the chicks can 

 get any degree of heat they want, and one that allows the 

 chicks to get away as far from the heat as they want to, and 

 they will take care of themselves. 



One thing in raising brooder chicks seems to us to be of 

 more importance than anything else, and that is the feed- 

 ing of the chick the first week of its existence, when a 

 chick is hatched nature has supplied it with enough food 

 so it can easily do without eating or drinking for a week or 

 over. We will give one instance that will prove this with- 

 out a doubt. 



A few years ago we had a hen that would fly through a 

 ventilator and get above a board ceiling in one of our 

 chicken houses; there she laid a lot of eggs and hatched a 

 dozen chicks. Judging from the looks of the chicks when 

 we first found them they were about ten days old, and dur- 

 ing that time they had neither food nor water. A stronger 

 lot of chicks I never saw and they were as wild as deer. 



In 1890 we took two hens with fifteen chicks each and 

 put them into a cornfield a quarter of a mile from our build- 

 ings and left them to hunt their living as best they could. 

 The chicks had no water or food, except what the hen found 

 for them. After they were ten days old we went to see them 

 and note results. We found the hens had not been ten yards 

 from the place we put them, and such a sleek, healthy and 



