66 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



hours of this, open the door a crack, but keep your heat 

 well up ; after a few hours, make the crack wider, still 

 keeping the heat at not less than 95 down where the 

 chicks are. Most machines will show about five degrees 

 difference between the bottom and the trays, when the 

 door is closed. At all events, keep heat enough so that 

 the chicks will spread about happily, and always follow 

 this rule as long as you handle them. When they be- 

 gin to pant for air, that robust common sense of yours 

 will tell you that they need less heat and more air. Do 

 not neglect its counsel, no matter what the thermometer, 

 the Experiment Stations, and all the poultry papers and 

 books combined tell you ! The chick is the only one 

 that knows, and he is telling you the facts you can bank on. 



When the chicks are hardened a bit, as above, and 

 can all stand, remove them, under cover, to the brooder, 

 which you have started 24 hours before, and which reg- 

 isters 95 before the chicks are placed in it. If some 

 are still weak, remove the strong, but leave the weak in 

 the incubator till they are ready. One grower of chicks 

 estimates that sorting the chicks so that none of any 

 special lot are stronger than the rest will make a differ- 

 ence of from 10 to 20 per cent in numbers raised. This 

 is a low estimate. Let the variation be great and the 

 room limited, or any other condition not wholly favor- 

 able, and 50 per cent may not cover this loss. " Noth- 

 ing is more bewildering and exhausting to the little 

 chick than struggling constantly for life in the midst of 

 an immense crowd of his own kind," says the writer 

 noted. He puts it strongly ; as the conditions demand. 



Will you give this bit of downy life a fair chance for 

 his life by furnishing him with air, warmth, room, so 



