THE CHICK BOOK 



27 



up when the attendant takes up and cleans the troughs or 

 boards, as he ought to do after each meal. 



It is understood, of course, that the grain is fed in litter 

 on the floor of the pen and of sufficient quantity to Induce 

 vigorous scratching, but no more. 



After the Eighth Week. 



From the eighth week forward different treatment must 

 be accorded those intended for stock purposes or large roast- 

 ers and those intended for broilers; only the broiJers-to-be 

 should remain longer in the brooder house. The others 

 should be placed out in the field in roosting coops if the 

 weather is warm or housed in warm (not necessarily heated) 

 quarters if the weather is still severe. Occasionally broiler 

 chicks may advantageously be placed outside, especially if 

 errors or carelessness In feeding have noticeably reduced 

 their vitality or if, in the latter part of the season, it is im- 

 possible to maintain a temperate heat in the brooder house. 

 Usually it is best to keep them in the house where they will 

 take but a moderate exercise and will lay on flesh and fat 

 without the toughening of the muscles which takes place 

 when they have free range in the fields. 



From the eighth week to killing time plenty of green 

 food should be supplied every morning; the grain should be 

 fed as before and the mash materially strengthened. Three 

 parts corn meal, one part wheat bran and one part first 

 quality beef scraps makes a simple and effective fattening 

 food, which if fed to chicks in good health, supplemented by 

 green stuff, fresh water, grit, and charcoal, as directed, will 

 make a full fleshed, fat broiler of unbeaten quality. One of 

 the most important points to remember is that no mash nor 

 troughs must be allowed in the pens except during the few 

 minutes when the chicks are eating. No other than freshly 



mixed mash should be fed, and any that remains when the 

 troughs are removed should be taken away and may be fed 

 to old birds. 



A potent cause of trouble is overheating in the hovere. 

 When the older chicks, from eight weeks forward, are al- 

 lowed hovers they will frequently crowd into them at even- 

 ing, cause a high temperature and lose in the night all the 

 flesh they have gained in the day time. If they have access 

 to hovers sufficient ventilation must be provided to keep 

 down the heat. Always look through the brooders before re- 

 tiring and arrange for the comfort of the occupants during 

 the night. Much can be done to that end after the chicks 

 have settled down. 



For chicks intended for roasters no change in composi- 

 tion of the ration need be made except that a larger propor- 

 tion of hard grain and less of mash should be fed and the 

 number of meals reduced to three per day. Mash may be 

 fed at morning and noon or only in the morning as best 

 suits the judgment and convenience of the feeder, the re- 

 maining feeds being of grain, principally corn, wheat and 

 oats. 



When it becomes necessary to fatten roasting chickens, 

 they may be confined in yards of moderate area and fed the 

 same as advised for fattening broilers. Occasionally It may 

 be advisable to place some of the quarrelsome males in 

 a room which may be darkened except when they are eating. 



The hatching and raising of chickens, while requiring 

 constant and painstaking attention, is by no means a diffi- 

 cult proposition or one beyond the ability of the man or 

 woman of average intelligence, and the application of com- 

 mon sense will produce satisfactory and profltable results. 



H. A. NOURSE. 



REARING BROODER CHICKS IN FLORIDA. 



Good Foods, Good Brooders and Love for the Work Produce the Same Results In the South as In the North, 



By H. Friedlander. 



D SHALL not attempt to give the readers of this 

 book points on a subject on which so much has 

 been written, and by so able and experienced 

 writers, but I simply wish to give an account of 

 my success in raising chickens by artificial means. 

 I used to raise chickens in Ohio for pleasure. Fif- 

 teen years ago I lost my health and was given up by physi- 

 cians as a hopeless case of consumption. But I came to 

 Florida, and among the pines I regained my health, and to- 

 day I feel much better than I did fifteen or twenty years 

 ago. Two years ago after losing my orange trees by freezes 

 I took a notion to raise a few chickens. I started with a 

 pen of ten hens and one cock from Ohio. That spring I 

 raided two hundred chickens and sold twenty sittings of 

 eggs, but I found it was such a trouble to raise them by 

 hens that I bought a small incubator the following fall. I 

 did not, however, depend on the incubator to hatch all my 

 early chickens, but had some of my neighbors hatch some, 

 and as soou as they were hatched and delivered to me, I 

 put them in the brooders. 



Of course the climate here and in Illinois is quite dif- 

 ferent, and what I did here will not do there. I kept the 

 brooder outdoors, and at a temperature of 80 degrees. When 



the sun was warm enough I let the chickens out in the sand, 

 making a square yard about a foot high around the brooder. 

 I think between incubator and brooder the latter is as im- 

 portant as the incubator. But whatever you do in the poul- 

 try business, incubator or brooder, you must have your 

 whole mind on it, and love it. M^ny times I got up in the 

 night to see if everything were all right, and often it was 

 not. 



I feed the first day toasted and ground up bread; a few 

 days later fine cracked corn, then some wheat. Sometimes 

 I make bread out of cracked corn and sour milk. Occasion- 

 ally I give them dog meat, that is, not the meat of a dog, 

 but meat that only dogs will eat, of which we have plenty 

 in Florida. This meat I grind up with a meat grinder. I 

 feed as often as possible — six times a day at first. Every 

 time I look at the chicks I give them something. I had 

 chickens nine weeks old weighing one and one-half pounds 

 and when I left Florida for the north (May 1) I had three 

 hundred chicks and had not lost a single one. By May 1st 

 I had sold 2,100 eggs for hatching and 1,000 more during the 

 summer, and all out of forty-five pullets. This year I have 

 seventy hens and pullets, and expect to raise at least 500 

 chicks on a lot 100x400 feet. H. FRIEDLANDER. 



