136 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



about two feet over the top of the roof. This ventilator had 

 a slide to regulate the escape of the air. The idea is to bring 

 the fresh air into the room from each corner and drive the 

 used air out through the ventilator. This looked like the 

 best system of ventilation I had ever seen, and one brooder 

 company sent out this plan with their stoves. 



This house worked very well except under certain condi- 

 tions. For example, 1,200 young chicks were placed in this 

 room and in a couple of weeks they began to die off very 

 rapidly with roup. In a couple of days their heads swelled 

 up, both eyes closed, a watery fluid ran out of their eyes, and 

 in a few days they died. Since these chicks got the roup and 

 got it badly there must be a bad draught somewhere; I could 

 not be fooled any longer about the causes of roup. 



But where could the draught be? I investigated for several 

 days and I could find no draught of any kind. I then got 

 my feathers and threads and hung them up all around in 

 the house for several days. They proved to me that there 

 was no draught. 



No draught and my chicks dying with roup; how could 

 this be? Before I put these chicks in I had taken out of this 

 room 1,000 other chicks, three weeks old, without a single 

 case of roup among them. Here was a condition that was 

 hard to explain, but working on the theory that roup comes 

 from draught I watched the feathered threads and one day 

 in a wind I saw them pointing toward the hole through 

 which the chicks ran in and out of the house. This hole was 

 about 4x6 inches in size, and going over to this outlet I 

 found a very bad draught. The wind striking this hole at 

 a particular angle created a suction, and instead of the air 

 inside the building going out through the ventilator it would 

 come down through the ventilator and through the air shafts 



