30 $4223.00 PROFIT IN ONE YEAR 



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 the natural result is just what it would be if a small child stuffed and 

 gormandized with more food than he could take care of in his digestive 

 tract — they droop and die. 



What to Feed 



It is perfectly natural to feel that the baby chicks ought to be fed. 

 But don't be in a hurry about it. It is better to let them go without food 

 a few hours too long than to feed them too soon. After the chicks had 

 picked at the sand for a few hours, I placed clover chaff or chopped 

 clover hay under the hover for bedding. I use this because if they eat 

 any of it, it will not injure them. If you use sawdust or something similar, 

 the chicks are apt to eat more or less of it before they distinguish be- 

 tween that and what they should eat, and they are liable to become 

 "stuffed" with the wrong sort of material. 



The gizzard of the chicken is its feed mill and ordinary coarse sub- 

 stances are required to grind the food, hence it encourages early vitality 

 to furnish them with clean, coarse sand at once. 



If the weather permits, I allow the chicks on the ground for an hour 

 or two for the first time about the fifth day, or when they are six days 

 old. If the weather is mild, they can remain out longer. In cold weather 

 care should be taken to see that they can find their way back into the 

 brooder, and not allow them to stand on the cold ground and get chilled 

 through, which is likely to prove fatal or stunt their growth later. After 

 they learn the way into the warm hover of the brooder they will run in 

 whenever they get cold. If the weather is cold they should be tempered 

 to the cold ground by degrees by allowing them to stay out longer each 

 succeeding day for three or four days. 



Brooders and Colony Houses 



It is a good plan to keep the chicks in the brooder in the morning 

 until the grass becomes dry. They should be given green food of some 

 kind from the start. In case that green clover cannot be secured for 

 them from the lawn, some sprouted oats will make a good substitute. 

 On a subsequent page you will find directions for sprouting the oats. As 

 the chickens grow older the flame can be turned down and the heat reduced 

 by degrees. The second week 90 degrees is about right for them, the 

 third week 85 to 90 degrees, and the fourth week 80 to 85 degrees. If 

 the weather is warm they will commence to desert the hover when they 

 are five or six weeks old and remain in the exercising room of the 



