BROODING, COOPING AND FEEDING CHICKS. 



A Writer who Is Regarded as Authority Discusses Brooders and Brooding, Foods and Feeding, and Describes the 



Proper Care tor Chicks of Different Ages, 



By A. F. Hunter. 



HATCHING the chicks is but half the battle, if, Indeed, 

 it is half the battle, as many a poultryman who 

 has rejoiced in good hatches by either hens or in- 

 cubator has afterwards learned to his sorrow. With 

 incubator chicks raised in brooders elbow room seems to 

 be a most important factor, and want of elbow room is one 

 cause of great mortality in brooder chicks. It is quite nat- 

 ural to suppose that a brooder which is three feet square 

 (giving nine square feet of floor space), is abundant room 

 for seventy-five or one hundred chicks, and, indeed, it is for 

 chicks as they come out of the incubator, and if we do not 

 want our chicks to grow it is all right to crowd into a brood- 

 er twi«e as many as should be in it. A point that we should 

 keep in mind, however, is that these chicks will be fully 

 twice as large at three weeks old and probably four times 

 as large at five weeks old, or by the time we move 

 them from the brooder, and that factor we should have in 

 mind in gauging the capacity of a brooder. I have come to 

 believe that for good results fifty chickens are as many as 

 should be put in any brooder; that to increase the number 

 beyond that point is to induce crowding, which kills s.oHie 

 and stunts others, and is extremely unfortunate if quick 

 and profitable growth is our aim. If, as not infrequently 

 happens, we find we have one hundred and fifty chickens in 

 the incubator wten we only expected about one hundred, 

 and have but two brooders heated up to receive them, no 

 harm will result in putting seventy-five chicks in each of 

 the two brooders for a couple of days, but another brooder 

 must be made ready at once and the one hundred and fifty 

 chicks put into the three, which gives reasonably abundant 

 room for all of them and they have a good chance to grow. 



PART OF LONG BROODER HOUSE. 



The Foreground Shows Brooders Out ot Doors, Each Brooder Enclosed In a Pen 20 Feet 

 Square, Made ot 18-Inch Netting. 



We raise chickens on our farm for two purposes, first 

 for market, second for breeding stock. The chickens for 

 market are hatched usually from about Christmas time to 

 the middle of March. Those intended for breeding stock 

 are hatched from about the middle of March to the middle 

 of May. To have chickens out by Christmas time we have 

 an incubator started early in December, and at that time 

 it is our custom to start one incubator a week, or, possibly, 

 four incubators in three weeks, gradually Increasing to two 

 incubators a week through January and February, and so 

 on. For these winter chicks we have a brooder house 130 

 feet long by ten feet wide, partitioned Into sixteen pens 

 eight feet by ten feet, each pen having a door and window 

 in front which faces the south. This brooder-house is 

 double walled, with a four-inch air space between the inner 

 and outer walls (it would be better still if the wall and roof 

 spaces were packed with straw or swale hay), and the only 

 artificial heat used in this house is in the brooders them- 

 selves, excepting that in some severely cold weather we put 

 a small oil stove in each pen to take the chill out of the 

 air, in order that the chicks may be out in the pen. We 

 use broodei's which are three feet square, heated by an oil 

 lamp with a one and one-half inch wick, the air which 

 passes into the brooder being heated by passing over a sheet' 

 iron ceiling to the lamp chamber, and by this method of 

 applying the heat indirectly a slight current of warmed 

 fresh air is passing into the brooder all the time. Herein, 

 we think, is one of the great faults with many brooders, as, 

 for example, the hot-water pipe brooders in use in many 

 brooder houses. Those hot-water pipes simply heat the air 

 already within the hovers, which air is practically confined 

 to the hovers by the felt curtain in 

 front, which is supi)Osed to enclose the 

 warmth within the hovers. It does 

 that very well, but it likewise encloses 

 the air, which the chicks have to 

 breathe over and over again, and in 

 that defect I think we find a clue to 

 not a little of the mortality and conse- 

 quent shrinking of profits on brooder 

 house chicks. A current of warmed 

 fresh a'ir supplied to the hovers would 

 overcome this serious difEiculty, and 

 would, in my judgment, materially re- 

 duce the mortality of brooder chicks. 



'The brooders are set in the ground 

 to a depth of six or seven Inches, 

 which s'ervesi a twofoWl purpose. The 

 lamp chamber is en'cloSed so as to cut 

 off currents of air, and the chicks run 

 out and in upon a leveil. For our win- 

 ter chickens the brooders are set in 

 the middle of the pens ini Itthe bmod'er 

 houses, or, say, about four feet 

 back from the wimdtow, and two 



