44 Money in Broilers and Squabs. 



ire six feet high in front and four feet high at the back. The frame 

 is of 2x3 inch stuff; the floor is double boarded. The building 

 is boarded, papered and shingled all over. A door, two feet wide is 

 in the center of the front, and a six light, sliding window is on each 

 side of it. A small slide is put in the door, near the top, by which 

 ventilation may be obtained early in the season, before the windows 

 can be kept open. Since shingles on the walls near the bottom 

 are liable to be torn off in moving the houses, double boarding on 

 the walls would be preferred. Two brooders are placed in each 

 of these houses and fifty to sixty chicks are put with each brooder. 

 A low partition separates the flocks while they are young, but later 

 it has to be made higher. The houses are large enough so that a 

 person can go in and do the work comfortably and each one ac- 

 commodates one hundred chicks until the cockerels are large 

 enough to be removed. 



"In the Fall these houses are grouped together, twenty or 

 thirty feet from each other, so as to make the care of the young 

 chicks convenient in early Spring, while the brooders are not in use. 

 "About the 20th of June, the grass is cut on some field near the 

 main poultry or farm buildings, and the brooder houses are drawn 

 out, with their contents of chickens, and located fifty to seventy- 

 five feet from each other, in line, so that they may be reached with 

 little travel. The chickens are shut into small yards, adjoining the 

 houses, for about a week, after which they are allowed to run to- 

 gether. They mostly keep to their houses, although they wander 

 away quite long distances during the day, returning at feed time, 

 and at night. 



"When the chicks are thirty to forty hours old they are carried 

 in warm covered baskets to the brooders, and fifty or sixty are put 

 under each hover, where there temperature is between ninety-five 

 and one hundred degrees. The temperature is not allowed to fall 

 below ninety-five degrees the first week, or ninety during the second 

 week ; then it is gradually reduced according to the temperature 

 outside, care being taken not to drive the chicks out by too much 

 heat, or to cause them to crowd together under the hover because 

 they are cold. They should flatten out separately when young, 

 and a little later lie with their heads just at the edge of the hover. 

 Under no condition are they allowed to huddle outside of the 

 brooder. They huddle because they are cold, and they should be 

 put under the hover to get warm, until they learn to do so of their 

 own accord. Neither are they allowed to stay under the hover too 

 much, but are forced out into the cooler air where they gain 

 strength in the day time. They are not allowed to get more than 

 a foot from the hover during the first few days ; then a little farther 

 away each day, and down onto the house floor about the fourth day, 

 if the weather is not too cold, but they must come out from under 

 the hover frequently. 



"The floor of the brooder is cleaned every day and kept well 

 sprinkled with sharp, fine crushed rock, known in the market as 

 'chicken grit.' The floor of the house is covered with clover leaves, 



