CARE OF BROODER CHICKS. 



If Labor Is an Item of Expense, then a Successful Way of Raising Chicks With One-third the Usual Labor 



Deserves a Fair Trial. * 



By IV. H. Bushell. 



6 ]7 rr OW shall we best care for the brooder chicks ?" 

 /Ml ^® leave the chickens in the incubator twelve 

 hours after all the chickens are hatched, which 

 gives thfim strength; then we remove them 

 to the brooder that is heated up to ninety degrees under 

 the hover and seventy degrees outside the hover. We leave 

 the chicks alone in the brooder twenty-four hours before 

 feeding or watering them. The floor of the brooder is cov- 

 ered with sand and cut clover, the clover being used to pre- 

 vent the chicks from slipping. 



When the youngest chick is thirty-six hours old, we 

 feed and water them for the first time, some of the little 

 ones being forty-eight to sixty hours old. We give them 

 prepared chick feed and clean water in a fountain that is 

 made so that the chick can drink, but cannot get into the 

 water or soil it. 



The chick food consists of all kinds of seeds that grow 

 In the fields, with some grit and beef scraps. We feed three 

 times a day and only what the chicks will eat up clean. 

 We feed it in the cut clover so as to force the chicks to ex- 

 ercise. We do not have any bowel trouble nor sickly chicks; 

 nor do we have to run out and feed them every two hours; 

 nor do we keep the cook busy baking johnny cake and all 

 kinds of foolish things and washing dishes; nor do we give 

 milk to drink — it is too mussy. We simply feed the chick 

 feed and give clean water three times a day. The work is 



cut down and we raise the chickens. It is seldom that we 

 find a dead chick in the brooder. 



We are often asked by visiting poultry people if the 

 chick feed is not expensive. I always reply that it is the 

 cheapest food you can get, because it saves two-thirds of 

 the labor and you can raise the chicks successfully on it. 

 Besides, it is of great help in keeping the brooders clean. I 

 know we had less trouble to raise nine hundred chicks last 

 year than some people did who raised only one hundred. 



We use the hot-water, over-head pipe, continuous brood- 

 er system and we keep from thirty to forty chicks in one 

 pen, changing them every week to a fresh compartment. 

 The pens are all built alike, except that some of the pipes 

 are higher to allow for the growth of the chicks and so 

 that the hover will be cooler. By having each pen alike the 

 chicks do not mind the change. They know where to find 

 their hover and they do not "pile up." 



My house is twelve feet wide, seventy feet long, and is 

 piped the entire length. The pens are three feet wide by 

 nine feet long, which leaves an alley-way three feet wide in 

 which to work. We have been very successful in raising 

 chicks in this house and are well pleased with it. 



I use a little air-slaked lime on the floor and dust the 

 hover of my brooder once a week. We clean the brooder 

 under the hover every morning and change the straw in 

 the pen every fifth day. I have never had a louse in my 

 brooder house. W. H. BUSHELL. 



A Substantial Brooding House That Is Well Shaded In Summei^A Building tor Storage, etc, (Attached) Is Shown at the Right. 



