SUCCESS WITH BROODER CHICKS. 



Poultrymen Agree that the Strength of the Germ In the Egg Is of First Importance— With Well Hatched Chicks, the 

 Problem Is More than Half Solved— Raw Eggs Advised for Small Brooder Chicks. 



By J. W, Hodsoa. 



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'HEN one begins to think of raising young 

 chickens, the first and most important thing 

 that needs attention is the fertility of the 

 eggs. If you have good, strong, fertile eggs 

 the battle is half won. To be sore,- judgment must be 

 used in the operating of the incubators and brooders. The 

 nearer we run the machines to nature the better the results; 

 but if the eggs are poorly fertilized, the germ being weak, 

 the best incubator that is made, operated by the foremost 

 expert in the land, cannot get out a good hatch, and there 

 are nine chances out of ten that the chicks that do get out 

 of the shell will die before they are two weeks old, and 

 those that do not die will never grow as they should. But 

 if the eggs have the life and kick in them you need not 

 worry. If you give the little peepers half a chance they 

 will soon show you that they came into the world to stay. 



It is in the winter when the courage of the poultryman 

 is tested m-ost severely. Sometimes we have filled our Incu- 

 bators with eggs in January and February and at the end 

 of twenty-one days wished we had sold the eggs at the store. 

 Sometimes at the end of the fifth day, when w© made our 

 first test, our hopes were high and we were telling our broth- 

 er poultrymen what good hatches we were, going to have, 

 for we had taken only eight or ten Infertile eggs out of a 

 hundred; but by the time the fourteenth day came our as- 

 surance began to wane, and at the end of the twenty-first 

 day we have found that nearly all the little chicks had died 

 in the shell, getting perhaps twelve or fifteen out of eighty- 

 five or ninety fertile eggs. 



We could not blame the Incubator, for it had been tested 

 before. The trouble was with the eggs, and the lack of a 

 strong life germ in them was due to some fault either in 

 the hen or male bird, and their inability to produce well 

 fertilized eggs was probably due to some fault of our own — 

 either they were not properly housed or fed, or may be both. 

 The houses may have been too cold or the chickens too fat. 

 In either case you will not get many strongly fertile eggs. 

 We keep our incubators in a cellar where the tempera- 



ture is about the same all the time. Outside changes make 

 little difference In the temperature around the incubators, 

 therefore when we once get our machines regulated we have 

 little trouble -with them, and when we go to bed we sleep 

 and get up in the morning to find the thermometers within 

 one degree of where we left them the evening before. 



Care of the Little CMcks. 



As soon as the little chicks are thoroughly dried we take 

 them out of the incubators and do not allow them to remain 

 in the temperature of 103 or 104. As long as they are damp 

 we believe they are better off in the incubator, but no longer. 

 We have a brooder ready to receive them that is heated to 

 about 100 around the hover, 85 or 90 about one foot from 

 the hover. We let them remain in the brooders thirty-six 

 to forty-eight hours before we give them anything to eat or 

 drink. They will show signs when hungry. We keep the 

 bottom of the brooder covered with clover chaff or cut clo- 

 ver, and when the little ones get hungry you will see them 

 picking and hunting for something to eat. 



Our first feed consists of a mixture of cracked corn and 

 wheat that has been put in the oven and parched, or roasted 

 as they do coffee, only it is not quite so brown. To this we 

 add a little rolled oats, grit and oyster shells. This mixture 

 is sprinkled in the litter and they must work for what they 

 get. 



When about one week old we feed once a day a soft 

 mash, consisting of one part wheat bran, one part middlings, 

 one part corn and oats ground together (with the oat hulls 

 sifted out), and about five per cent of beef meal. Mix this 

 well together and take enough raw eggs to make it stiff and 

 crumbly. We use incubator eggs that have been tested out 

 on the fifth day. We think this is one of the finest foods 

 we can get and the way our chicks grow satisfies us that 

 they have about what they need. After the chicks are one 

 week old we feed only three times a day; when less than a 

 week old, four times. We want to see the chicks hungry. 



J. W. HODSON. 



Colony Houses and Some of the Piano Box Brooders on Beaver Hill Farm, Described by Charles P. Gloaaer. 



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