242 



POULTRY PRODUCTION 



For commercial poultry plants, brooding systems compar- 

 able with the mammoth incubator in size are in successful 

 operation, but are of little interest to the ordinary producer. 



Occupying a position half-way between the Cornell brooder 

 and the latter is the large colony brooder, heated by stoves. 

 They may or may not have a hover. In case they do not, 

 they are placed in the centre of a good-sized room and kept 

 quite hot. The chicks are given the liberty of choosing their 

 own temperature by moving nearer or farther from the stove. 



Fig. 123 



Large colony brooder, oU heated. (Courtesy of H. F. Arenberg, 

 Petaluma, CaJ.) 



They usually sleep without crowding, sprawled on the floor 

 in a circle about the stove. These stoves have been used 

 successfully in brooding groups containing as high as 1700 

 chicks. They go beyond the needs of the average producer, 

 however, who will find his wants supplied by the commercial 

 hovers of ordinary size, or the Cornell hover. 



Temperature.— There is no general agreement among 

 poultrymen as to what constitutes exactly the proper hover 

 temperature for chicks just out of the incubator or at suc- 

 ceeding ages. There is no cumulative experimental evidence 



