22 Money in Broilers and Squabs. 



from 8,000 to 10,000 chickens are hatched out during the year. The 

 breeds used for broilers are Wyandottes and Plymouth Rocks. Said 

 Superintendent Woodland : "Even for light weight broilers such as 

 we produce, the small breeds like the Leghorns are not satisfactory. 

 They need to be two weeks older than the Plymouths to give the 

 same weight. 

 ^ "The chickens are not fed for the first day after hatching. Their 



first food consists of broken crackers softened in water, cooked 

 mush and bird seeds. They are fed very often at first, four or five 

 times or oftener, each day. As soon as they get well started their 

 main soft ration is a mixture of corn meal and middlings, half and 

 half, which is made early in the morning and allowed to stand until 

 about nine o'clock and fed warm. The first feed, fed very early in 

 the morning, is hard grain. Cracked corn, cracked wheat or cracked 

 oats are fed at noon and at night. They get one quart of meat scraps 

 in the mash for each 2,000 chickens. For green food they have cab- 

 bages to peck at, and clover hay steamed. Mica grit, charcoal and 

 water are kept constantly by them. 



"They are kept warm by hot water pipes about six inches from 

 the floor of the pen. Sand is filled in under the pipes to varying 

 heights, according to the size of the chickens. The end of the pipes 

 nearest the broiler are warmest and the youngest chickens are kept 

 there. The great point in raising healthy winter chicks is to keep 

 them from scratching. 



"The grain and bird seed is always fed in sand or litter in order 

 to make the chickens work for it. All our chicks are raised by in- 

 cubators and brooders, and by comparison with hens which are 

 used some years we find that we can hatch and raise 25 per cent, 

 more chicks by using incubators and brooders. 



"In finishing off the chickens for market, something depends 

 upon our orders. When a lot of chickens are needed in a hurry two 

 or three weeks hence, they are put in a fattening pen and fed all 

 they will stand. Giving as great a variety of food as possible in 

 feeding them. Just before they get all they want we takes the dishes 

 away, leaving them a little hungry. Then the next feeding time 

 they will be looking for more. They could not stand this high 

 feeding process very long at a time, but when they are to go to 

 market in two or three weeks, they can be quickest finished oflf in 

 this mahner. Chickens which are to be kept a longer time must be 

 fed less, kept hungry all the time, so that they are ready to fly out 

 of the pen when the man comes around with the feed. They must 

 be kept scratching. The best we can do, we lose an average of 

 three or four a day in winter." 



When the chickens are wanted for market they are carried in 

 baskets to the killing house, where they are dispatched by stabbing 

 the back of their mouth with a lancet. The head is not removed. 

 They are not fed for twenty-four hours before killing and the en- 

 trails are not removed. They are dry picked and packed in pairs in 

 pasteboard boxes made to fit. There is an ice box for cooling the 

 dressed poultry in summer. 



