SUCCESS AT THE START. 



Thirty-Three Hundred Chickens Alive and In Marketable Condition on the Plant of a Beginner— His Methods Dis- 

 cussed— His Plant Illustrated and Described, and It Only Remains to Estimate His Profits. 



By P. R. Park. 



THE town of Hingham, Mass., enjoys the distinction of 

 being the home of ex-Secretary Long of the U. S. 

 Navy, and one of the largest flocks of thrifty spring 

 chiclcens in New England. The latter are to be 

 found at the home of Mr. H. G. Jordan, upon whose large 

 farm they are having an unusually favorable opportunity to 

 develop. They are improving all their chances. This seems 

 somewhat at variance with the supposedly established rule 

 that experience is necessary in order to produce large num- 

 bers of chicks and have them thrive from the start. Here 

 we hai'e a comparajtively inexperi- 

 enced owner, and the young man in 

 charge of the plant will, we think, take 

 no offense if we say he lias had almost 

 no previous experience With incubators 

 and brooders; yet at the time of our 

 visit, the last of May, out of about 

 3,500 chicks hatched, they had almost 

 3,300 alive anid promising to stay With 

 them until the hatchet intervened. Of 

 this mortality of 200, ninety died that 

 were hatched fro^m a lot of three hun- 

 dred eggs purchased. Here we have 

 over three thousand chicks raised, we 

 may say, by beginners, and a healthier 

 anid more robust lot it has not been 

 our pleasure to see. 



We have long been convinced that 

 luck does not enter into the keeping 

 of poultry. There are certain condi- 

 tions which must be met, and if these 

 are as they should be, there can be but 

 one result, namely, a good lot of 

 chicks hatched from the eggs incubat- 

 ed, and a large number grown of those 

 ha:tched. We think two of the princi- 

 pal elements which have participated 



in the success of the Jordan plant this season have been 

 cleanliness, both as regarids old tstock and young, and a 

 novel method of brooding, w'hich we have not seen before. 



In the brooder house for the youngest chicks, as well as 

 the older ones, there is not a vestige of a hover of any kind, 

 simply eight lines of pipe, four running inward and four 

 return, kept at a uniform temperature by an electric regu- 

 lator. These pipes vary in height from two to three inches 

 in the primary class up to eight to ten inches for the larger 

 chicks. It is rather a novel sight to see one hundred and 

 fifty to one hundred and seventy-five chicks in a brood 

 warming their backs upon these pipes apparently the hap- 

 piest youngsters in existence without any vestige of the imi- 

 tations of Dame Nature that have prevailed in other brood- 

 ing systems. 



The natural method, namely, eight to twelve chicks 

 cared for by one mother hen, is so distant and different 

 from the artificial method that imitations seem fruitless. 



Ventilating Openings In Celling and Window In 

 Incubator Room on Jordan Poultry Plant. 



The writer has long believed that the principal source of 

 mortality among brooder chicks is caused by improper air 

 and incorrect temperature surrounding the chicks the first 

 three weeks of their lives. With the novel method adopted 

 on this plant there can be no doubt that so long as the air 

 in the building is pure that of the hover must be equally so. 

 When Mr. Jordan first contemplated going into the 

 chicken business, he spent quite a little time visiting the 

 successful plants and also the other kind in his vicinity, 

 and with rare foresight for a novice, traced most of the mor- 

 tality among the various flocksi to the 

 absence of pure air surrounding the 

 chicks and stock in the several stages 

 of their devedopment. When he con- 

 struoted his plant, he kept these two 

 facts in mind, and as will be seen in 

 the view of his incubator room, he 

 gives an inlet for air through the top 

 and an outlet of two holes on the level 

 of the floor, one on each side of the 

 building opposite each other. Certain- 

 ly under these conlditions it would be 

 impossible for foul air to stay for any 

 length of time in ithis room. 



FVJllowing out this idea, he has his 

 brooder house built w'ith a large num- 

 ber of windiowB in tihe south side, 

 insuring plenty of light and air on 

 favoraible days, and he uses ventilators 

 in the middle of the house in bad 

 weatlher. Pipes, as will be seen in the 

 Illustration, are eight in number, fbur 

 outward anid four return flows, abso- 

 lutely devoid of any hover, and the 

 temperature is kept at a uniform heat 

 by an, electric regulaltor, near the 

 beater. This insures a steady tern- 

 probability of crowding, for with 

 the chicks have no occasion 



perature with no 

 the correct temperalture, 

 to crowd; and if the air in the building is right, that under 

 the pipes cannot fail to be equally pure. These pipes are 

 from eight to ten inches from the dirt floor of the house, the 

 distance being varied by the placing of more or less sand 

 in the runs as the chicks vary in age, thus starting in their 

 first or baby pen with only about three inches between the 

 sand and pipes, and in the end pen, from whicli they gradu- 

 ate to house number four, the distance is ten inches, thus 

 hardening them off for the cooler temperature of their next 

 home. 



In this house the pipes are placed upon the wall and the 

 temperature of the building kept at from sixty to seventy 

 degrees, otherwise under the same conditions. 



From this latter house they are moved to colony houses, 

 which we show in the view of the farm. The rule has been 

 this season to place one hundred and fifty chicks in each of 



