THE CHICK. BOOK 



43 



The Brooder House 



Must be warm and dry. There are many good plans 

 published. One that will be found very satisfactory is six- 

 teen feet wide, four feet high in front, and six in the rear 

 with the hip of the roof plumb With the face of the hover 

 so as to allow head room in the passage. Divide your space 

 into three feet at the rear for a walk; two feet for width 

 •of hover and eleven feet for pen. This building can be ex- 

 tended any length desired. Don't attempt to heat the hovers 

 with lamps in any latitude north of Birmingham, Ala., or 

 you will fail. You might be able to get the temperature under 

 the hover high enough, but the pens would be chilly and 

 there is where they must spend the greater part of the day 

 if they are to thrive. Use a water jacket stove and double 

 loop of inch and a half pipe in the hover and a single loop 

 tinder the windows, of which there should be one in each 

 pen, raised twelve inches from the floor. Make the pens 

 four feet wide, this with eleven feet in length outside the 

 hover is sufficient to start one hundred 

 chicks in, but they must be thinned out as 

 they gro'W older. A movable lid over the 

 pipes is all the hover consists of. They will 

 be contented and scratch and exercise all 

 day long and run under the pipes When they 

 wish extra warnith. No curtains are re- 

 quired when the building is heated as we 

 ■describe. They are undesirable at besit. 

 "When the hover is curtained off it often Is 

 allowed to become filthy, and impure air and! 

 ammonia fum«s are held there for the chicks 

 to breathe. If the hover registers too high 

 a temperature and the pens too low, lift or 

 lap the covers so the heat from the pipes 

 can rise more readily. 



Crowding works much mischief. Out- 

 door and indoor brooders heated by lamips 

 are frequently rated at too hlgih a capajcity. 

 If one-hall the chicks were assigned to them 

 there would be less loss and better chicks. 

 The action of the dhicks is a perfect indi- 

 cation of their feelings. Whenever they 

 stand around humped up and chirping, they 

 are in danger and are losing ground instead 

 of gaining. In ordinary winter weather they should be 

 given access to the outside runs for a feW hours when the 

 sun Is bright. They are better for it and w'ill run in and 

 get warm when they feel inclined. 



Keep your supply of coarse sand and fln« grit and clean 

 drinking water constantly before them. After they are ten 

 days old they are quite hardy and practically safe; and if 

 properly fed and of breeds suitable for broilers they can be 

 made to weigh one pound in forty days, one and a half 

 pounds in fifty-five days and roasters five pounds each at 

 iour months. When reared with small yards for exercising 

 they move about much less than when on free range, and 

 while they have sufficient exercise to maintain good health, 

 they have not sufficient to waste energy or flesh or toughen 

 their muscles. They gain in weight more rapidly and make 

 heavier, plumper broilers in a given time. 



Feeding Brooder Chicks. 



I use three distinct mixtures ot fdod between hatching 

 and marketing time. The first ten days I take special care 



of their digestive organs and prepare them for the active 

 work demanded from the eleventh day until two weeks before 

 marketing. I feed a narrow ration, the basis being oats in 

 some form. I then hasten the finishing with the best pos- 

 sible material, adding more Corn, and aim to add flesh faster 

 than frame or feathers and to distribute what fat is deposit- 

 ed in globules throughout the meat, making It tender and 

 juicy instead of accumulating layers of internal fat or 

 patches under the sltin, all of which is wasted and lost in 

 cooking and serving the fowl. A properly fattened fowl 

 should not show any visible fat when dressed, but not one 

 in a thousand poultry raisers knows how to put meat on 

 a growing chick, and the only way they can turn out what 

 might pass for a plump broiler or roaster is to work on such 

 breeds as develop the quickest and then cover them with as 

 much fat as possible in addition to the meat. This is all 

 wrong. Soft, tender, juicy meat and a round, plump breast 

 is what, is wanted and the fatty delusion must stand aside. 



These Chicks are Housed In Permanent Buildings and have Large, Well-shaded Runs. 



No one grain has so great a tendency to deposit internal 

 fat as corn, and this is the very last source we should go to 

 for flesh forming food. I believe that in the near future 

 our best markets will demand machine crammed or crate 

 fattened poultry. They have for many years demanded 

 crammed ducklings. The only reason they have not been 

 known by this name is because no machine is necessary to 

 cram a duckling— he will stuff himself if given the food. 



The rations fed for any specific purpose may vary great- 

 ly as to material, and in different localities will naturally 

 be compounded of the most available material If suitable, 

 but for a growing chick they should always consist of oats 

 (minus the hulls) in some form as the base, and this forms 

 one-half the ration. Other grains can be varied, whether 

 cracked or ground, but five per cent of the bulk must con- 

 sist of meat or ground bone in some form after they are ten 

 days old as well as an abundant daily supply of succulent 

 green food or steamed clover. If you omit the meat or green 

 food trouble begins and shows in weak legs, naked) bodies, 

 stunted and uneven growth and blue, skinny carcasses when 

 dressed. h. E. MOSS. 



