WITH 4200 HENS 69 



ence in packing we still deem it unsafe to try making the 

 double grading in one operation. Should the cases be- 

 come mixed the cost would be too great — especially if 

 the eggs are sold. 



Time of Hatching 



Our first brood of chicks is brought off the second or 

 third week in January and we have either two or three 

 lots in that month, one week apart. These are followed 

 by three lots in the month of March, also one week apart. 

 This arrangement allows for keeping the first hatches in 

 the brooder house a maximum of 8 weeks should a streak 

 of bad weather be encountered. This leeway of time has 

 saved us a great many chicks that would otherwise have 

 been forced out of the brooder houses to make way for 

 another lot regardless of extremely adverse weather. It 

 was to avoid being so forced that we used three brooder 

 houses earlier in our poultry career when we brooded 

 only three lots in one season. Most poultrymen would 

 agree with us, we think, that the greatest single factor 

 in chick mortality is lack of proper housing facilities. 

 It has come to be a common thing to hear, "I lost 

 a lot of young pullets in my early hatches ; I had to put 

 them in colony houses to make way for another hatch 

 coming off." 



Foreword on Brooding 



The description of our brooding methods will be em- 

 beUished to an extent which to those of experience may 

 seem even absurd. It is the writer's purpose to give 

 herewith a definite line of procedure for a novice to fol- 

 low ; as he expressed it in an outline, "I would ,have the 

 chicks arrive and make him feel at home with them, not 



