CARE OF BROODER CHICKS V 



This defect in my brooders cost me the lives of many chicks before 

 I discovered the cause. A current of warmed fresh air supplied 

 under the hovers overcame this difficulty, when I submitted the 

 hot-air plan. 



Comfort Essential 



The brooder should be heated for at least twelve hours before 

 the chicks are put into it. I always keep a thermometer in the 

 brooder and have it at 95 degrees when they are first removed from 

 the incubator. They should be carried to the brooder in a basket 

 lined and covered with flannel, great care being taken that they be 

 •not chilled on the way. I am sure that many chicks lose their lives 

 by being chilled on this their first journey. The abrupt change 

 from the warm incubator to the outside air, which is thirty or forty 

 degrees colder, is sufficient to chill the chick. 



Night Scene in 14x20 Brooder House, Containing 1300 Chicks, Davison 



Ranch, Riverside. 



A chill will harden the yolk of the egg, which is drawn up into 

 the chick the last day of its stay in the egg shell. You know that 

 the yolk of the egg forms the nourishment for the chick inside the 

 shell. The last day of its life in the shell all that remains of the 

 yolk, about one-fourth of it, is drawn up into the chicken through 

 the navel. If the chick is vigorous the yolk should be assimilated 

 or digested in about three days. But if the chick is chilled or over- 

 heated, it so weakens the bowels that they cannot digest the yolk 

 or absorb it, and the yolk hardens or toughens, becomes almost 

 like rubber; then it can never be assimilated, blood poisoning en- 

 sues and the chick's life ends. 



Chicks should not be fed for from thirty-six to forty-eight hours 

 after they come out of the shell, because, first, they do not require 

 any food, as the yolk inside them takes nearly three days to become 

 absorbed or digested ; and, secondly, if they are fed too soon (that 



