HATCHING AND REARING 



69 



Chicks should not be fed at all until fully seventy-two 

 liours after hatching. They should have water and grit 

 as soon as hatcheld. If the chicks are with the hens you may 

 let the hens do as they will about first feeding. As a 

 rule, you will find, if you investigate carefully enough^ that 

 most hens do not feed chicks until they are three days old. 

 They may run around with them, teach them to pick grit, 

 teach them to drink, but as a rule, they don't teach them 

 to eat until at least three days old. 



Feeding; the Early Broods. 



A chick is not ready to eat food by the mouth until at 

 least three days after hatching. It has enough egg yoke 

 in its intestines to last four or five days. Other food ad- 

 ministered before this yoke is digested is just a risk of 

 stagnation in crop or elsewhere, and blood poisoning fol- 

 lows. That ten chicks survive all this while forty die 

 is no reason why one should be subjected to it. 



After about ten days of infant treatment, chicks ought to : 



