Vol. LXV. No. 2925. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 17, 1906. WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
GASOLINE HEAT FOR BROODER HOUSE. 
H Troublesome Question Made Clear. 
ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM.—Judging from 
the pile of letters received by me, asking for more de¬ 
tailed information about tbe colony-house brooders, 
heated with gasoline, others are having the same trouble 
we had here with our kerosene lamps and stoves tiding 
to run out-door brooders in all kinds of weather. But it 
being impossible for me to give each writer a personal 
explanation of the system, I have agreed to do the best 
1 can through the columns of The R. N.-Y. In the 
first place, please remember we are not selling gaso¬ 
line burners nor house plans, nor anything except the 
regular products of a big poultry farm, and this gaso¬ 
line heating system was worked out by Prof. Rice and 
the writer to solve our own problems of brooding chicks 
on a large scale, without having the permanent brooder 
house, which of course could not be moved to fresh 
soil when the land got foul. This seemed to us an 
insuperable objection to that system. The small outdoor 
brooder with 50 or 75 chicks is all right with a kerosene 
lamp, but if you wanted to raise 2,000 or more chicks 
you must have at least 20 or more of these brooders, 
with their lamps to be filled every day and kept trimmed 
and burning, which is a chore of no small magnitude. 
Besides, with 20 or more of these brooders to house, 
for eight months of tbe year, a house is required that 
could otherwise be used for a nice flock of hens. 
STYLE OF HOUSE.—Fig. 40 is one of our colony 
OUTSIDE VIEW OF BROODER HOUSE. Fig. 46. 
brooders, which we first heated with a brooder stove 
and later on heated with gasoline. We had heard of 
others who used gasoline to heat ordinary brooders, and 
we experimented. A brief description of this house 
may not be out of tbe way. It should be 6 x 8 feet on 
the ground, six feet high in front and three feet in rear, 
and costs us about $12 to build. We have a larger size 
we use for the later hatches, but you cannot beat them 
in April weather in our section of the State. The 
window is large, as you can see in the picture; it is 
three feet wide and five feet high, two-thirds of it glass 
and top third muslin, which solves the ventilation prob¬ 
lem for us. The door can be where you like, either in 
front or on the end. We place it on the end, and have 
the houses built in pairs, and we move them together 
in the Fall, connect them with a shed as in the picture, 
big. 47, which shows a row of colony-house brooders 
with 175 pullets wintering in them. Fig. 48 shows the 
interior of a house with the hover taken ofif, heater 
drum detached ready to cover the hole up and put in 
perches for the growing chicks. When this heater 
drum is in place we have asbestos paper packed around 
it. to keep it from touching the wood anywhere. The 
lamp box is here shown; at least you see a portion of 
it, showing its position and the opening beneath the 
heater drum. The picture also shows the wire screen 
which is put around the drum to protect the chicks 
from too great heat. The center of this opening is about 
IS inches from the rear of the house. The hover rests 
on the cleat shown in picture, and is hinged to rear 
siding, so that it raises like a lid and hooks up when 
cleaning house, and when it is down it rests on a leg 
or post in front to keep it up from the heater drum, 
AS USED FOR LAYING HENS. Fig. 47 
thus giving an opportunity for the fresh heated air to 
circulate freely over tbe chicks. The heater drum is the 
invention of C. S. Mcnges, and is not on the market, 
so I can’t describe it too closely, or there may be trou¬ 
ble, but there are other good ones that are for sale, 
and you should get one that will bring in plenty of 
fresh air and heat it before distributing it over the 
chicks. The hover should be V / 2 feet long and 2^2 feet 
wide, and have plenty of hover curtains. We like three 
hicknesses for early hatches. 
HEATING ARRANGEMENTS.—Fig. 4!) is the rear 
of a house witli the lamp box removed to show the 
burner, turned round so as to show the pipe tank and 
burner. The lamp box is made of a piece of galvanized 
sheet iron 28 inches square as in diagram, folded on 
dotted lines and cut at solid marks, and riveted at back, 
making a complete fireproof box of one piece of metal, 
except tbe door, which we fix to slide up and down. I he 
bottom is the earth, which is dug out a little where the 
lamp box is. This should always be done when you 
move to new ground, as tbe dried grass is apt to take 
fire and burn up house, chicks and all. When in place 
INTERIOR OF BROODER HOUSE. Fig. 48. 
the burner is right under the hole shown in tbe lamp 
box. Always remember to use asbestos paper between 
lamp box and floor of house; in fact, you. cannot allow 
the heater or lamp box to come in contact with wood 
at all safely, as the heat is great. The burner we use 
is called a cut-off stove burner, and the best one (best 
because it is the simplest), we know of is the one we 
get from the Omaha Stove Repair Works, Omaha. 
Neb. They charge too much for it, and the freight is 
High for us in the East, but it does the work, and is 
very simple, with only one valve to operate. The cut-off 
attachment is a slide lever which cuts off the full burner 
and sends a jet of flame on the under side of the burner, 
keeping it hot and ready for use. In our service we 
never use the full burner, but the cut-off—sometimes 
called an igniter—is all we need. This gives us plenty 
of heat for April and May weather, and is usually run 
very low. In some cold nights last Spring I threw some 
old blankets over the hovers instead of turning on more 
heat, and the chicks did not huddle once the entire 
season. The way we run our burners it takes two 
gallons of gasoline a week on an average, although we 
have run a house five days with one gallon in May. 
These houses accommodate 150 chicks, and we usually 
go around every three days and pump the tanks full of 
gasoline, and we go around frequently and listen as 
we pass each house. If everything is right you can 
hear the burner humming, and the satisfied twitter of 
a comfortable chick sometimes will cause a smile as 
you make you rounds at night before going to your own 
fireside for the evening. 
HANDLING GASOLINE.—A one-gallon galvanized 
THE FIXTURES TURNED OUTSIDE. Fig. 41). 
oil can makes a fine tank for the gasoline, and should 
be soldered on to a four-foot piece of one-quarter-inch 
galvanized gas pipe for pressure or stand pipe; another 
piece of pipe 20 inches long connects this to the burner, 
and if this is tight at the joints and has no “pockets” 
to contain air your burner should run like clockwork. 
We use a little basin under each burner to catch the 
gasoline in case the burner should go out from any 
cause, as it will enable one to remove the gasoline and 
light up sooner than possible if the gasoline had leaked 
out on the ground or floor, in which case you must 
wait for it to evaporate before it is safe to light the 
burner again. Last Spring we had one burner that 
went out several times, while none of the rest went out 
at all the whole season. In framing the floor beams 
of these houses we use 2x4, and only frame in half 
way, so the floor boards come even with the surface 
of the rear sill, which leaves a chance for the lamp 
box, which has an extra inch of flooring under the 
hover to bring it flush with the bottom of the two-inch 
sill. The small spout on the oil can should be pinched 
together and turned down on the end, and the screw top 
left loose, so as not to shut off the air entirely, or you 
will lose your pressure. The pipes are put together 
with soap instead of white lead for gasoline. Now for 
cautions for those who do not know about gasoline. It 
is, or rather the gas is, explosive, and you must use it 
accordingly. It is not safe to use more than one burner 
in one house, but you can get more heat from one burn- 
