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COMMERCIAL POULTRY RAISING 



visable to attempt a brood greater than, say, 300 chicks. Then, 

 as skill is developed, the flocks can be enlarged. Not that 

 brooder stoves will fail to perform the functions required of 

 them, but the operator must become familiar with ways of feed- 

 ing large flocks of chicks running together, so that they can be 

 induced to exercise sufficiently, and not get into bad habits, such 

 as toe-pecking and feather-pulling. 



Gradations of Heat. — In many of the earlier brooding ap- 

 pliances there were, generally speaking, two distinct tempera- 

 tures and no gradations of heat; the interior temperature of the 

 hover, so frequently stuffy and hot, and the outside air, which 



{Courtesy Prairie State Incubator Co.) 

 Fig. 198. — Outdoor colony brooder — a complete outfit. 



was very apt to be too cold. Either of these the chick had to 

 accept, and both were weakening — to be chilled or partly suf- 

 focated. 



The brooder stove is a high-power furnace capable of radiating 

 a great deal of heat, which, by means of a wide-spread sheet-iron 

 deflector, is distributed downward over the backs of the chicks, 

 where it is most needed. See Fig. 199. When taken from the 

 incubator direct to the brooder, the chicks instinctively learn to 

 form a circle around the stove. In the majority of times they 

 will gauge their distance from the base of the stove entirely by 

 the intensity of the heat most comfortable to them. See Fig. 



