6<;« 
April 27, 
THE HEN MAN TALKS. 
Breeding Large Flocks. 
I am about to brood a thousand Leghorn 
chicks by the fireless way in 3x6-foot 
brooders. I had been told that 50 was 
the largest number of chicks for such a 
brooder. I was very much interested, 
therefore, in Mr. Dean’s statement (page 
411) that he put 150 chicks in brooders of 
that size. This is a matter of considerable 
moment to me, as it means making only 
seven brooders in place of my proposed 20. 
But I wish you could get Mr. Dean to tell 
a little more specifically about the making 
of the hover part. IIow high are these 
“frames,” and arc the sides as well as the 
top covered with the cloth, and is the cloth 
tight on top or does it sag so as to rest 
on the chicks’ backs? What is the best 
kind of cloth to use? I am also desirous 
of knowing about how many weeks the 
chicks are kept in these confined quarters 
before going upon range. M. b. 
Sharon, Conn. 
While 50 chicks is about the number 
usually placed in fireless brooders, and 
these small flocks are probably safer and 
more easily cared for than larger ones, one 
who is making a business of raising chick¬ 
ens can hardly afford to divide his flocks, 
and his time, into such small units. 1 
should not hesitate to put 1,000 young 
chicks into 10 brooders 3x6 feet in size, 
and if necessary should crowd them still 
more, bearing in mind, however, that as 
they grew, provision would have to be made 
for expansion. If the cockerels are sep¬ 
arated and placed by themselves as soon as 
they can be distinguished from the pullets, 
these brooders should care for the latter 
until near maturity. My own practice is 
to remove the cockerels about as soon as 
they can be identified and place them by 
themselves on a distant part of the farm, 
here they are hopper-fed on free range 
through the day, and allowed to pack pretty 
closely into a brooder house at night, until 
old enough to be shut up and finished as 
broilers. The frames used as hovers last 
year were about three feet square, made 
of inch square strips covered with bran 
sacking, this being stretched tight and 
tacked to the wood. These frames had no 
sides, but were mounted upon legs which 
raised them about four inches from the 
floor. After the chicks were driven be¬ 
neath them at night, sides were made by 
placing bran sacks over the edges of the 
hover. Through the day these frames or 
hovers were removed entirely from the 
brooders. It should be remembered, how¬ 
ever, that this was in late April, May and 
June. For earlier use hovers of the usual 
type into which chicks could go through 
the day would have to be used. Any kind 
of cloth can be used as a cover. Here we 
found clean bran sacks as good as anything, 
and seldom had to use more than, one thick¬ 
ness of these. If more cover was needed 
other loose sacks wore placed upon the first. 
This loosely woven stuff admits air to the 
chicks, and one is apt to be surprised at 
the amount of beat these little furnaces in 
feathers give off. The chicks should be 
allowed access to the ground in small en¬ 
closures, as soon as placed in the brooders 
at from two to three weeks of age, and the 
brooders should be moved sufBciently often 
to keep them upon fresh clean grass. 
M. B. D. 
Chick Feed. 
Could you recommend a good chick feed, 
and of what is it composed? G. B. J. 
Newfield, N. J. 
It is true that some feeds upon the mar¬ 
ket are not suitable for young chicks, 
being made from inferior materials and 
containing considerable waste. To many of 
them grit and charcoal are added, forcing 
the purchaser to pay grain prices for these 
cheaper materials which may be purchased 
separately. Commercial chick feeds are apt 
to be open to the same criticism applicable 
to the proprietary dairy feeds, they usually 
contain some mill by-product not salable 
by itself, and they cost more than the same 
amount of nutritive material purchased in 
the form of grain, or standard grain by¬ 
products, and mixed by the feeder himself. 
The stress laid by manufacturers of com¬ 
mercial chick feeds upon the “scientific 
balancing” of their products to meet the 
supposed needs of chicks at different 
stages of their growth, and containing a 
separate ingredient for the development of 
each part of a chick’s anatomy, may safely 
be classed with other forms of advertising 
guff. Corn, wheat and oats, together with 
such adjuncts as animal and green foods, 
grit and charcoal, which may be fed sepa¬ 
rately, contain all the essentials to proper 
development and productivity of fowls at 
all ages. No better chick feed can be pur¬ 
chased or made than that recommended by 
the Cornell Experiment Station. This con¬ 
sists of pinhead oatmeal, finely cracked 
corn and cracked wheat, in the proportions 
of one part of oatmeal, two of corn and 
three of wheat. This constitutes the whole 
grain ration, to which the mash and other 
feeds are added, and is fed until the chicks 
are old enough to eat larger grains. 
M. B. D. 
Single or Rose Comb White Leghorns. 
Is there any difference as to the laying 
qualities or size of birds between the S. C. 
White Leghorn and the R. C. White Leg¬ 
horn? If there is no difference, why do 
nearly all the large poultry plants keep 
the S. C. variety? Foster, in his book, 
"The Million Egg Farm,” states that the 
other breeds of Leghorns are all smaller 
in size, that the White Leghorn has proved 
in many contests that it is naturally su¬ 
perior to all other* breeds in profitably pro¬ 
ducing eggs, that 80 per cent of the large 
commercial poultry farms in the United 
States are stocked with the S. C. White 
Leghorns. In the Rose Comb there would 
not be so much danger of freezing their 
combs in a Winter like the past one. 
s. P. M. 
There is little difference between the 
Single and Rose Comb White Leghorns save 
in the size and shape of the comb, though 
as a rule the Single Comb varieties of all 
breeds lay a slightly larger egg than do 
the Rose Combs: The S. C. White Leghorn 
being one of the oldest of the \»arietles bred 
for egg production, its characteristics are 
well fixed, and it is not difficult to secure 
a good strain of this variety that may be 
TJAT3 RURAL NEW-YORKER 
depended upon to perpetuate its good quali¬ 
ties ; this, together with the fact that they 
lay large white eggs, and that the cock¬ 
erels quickly reach a profitable size as 
broilers, undoubtedly accounts for much of 
their popularity on commercial egg farms. 
With housing conditions as they must be 
to make egg production profitable, there is 
little danger from frosted combs among the 
Single Comb varieties, and whatever slight 
advantage the Rose Comb fowls may have 
in this respect is not considered material. 
M. B. D. i 
Stale Bread for Hens. 
How should I use stale (not moldy) 
bread for feeding hens? I use dry mash 
and scratch feed, and keep R. I. Reds and 
Orpingtons. I tried to feed the bread by 
soaking it, adding the kitchen scraps fit 
for hens, some dried milk and fish scraps, 
a little charcoal and finally adding enough 
dry mash to take up surplus moisture. 
They liked it, but it had tendency to loosen 
them, and some of the droppings were light 
colored and yellowish. R. E. H. 
Needham, Mass. 
If you have a food chopper of the mod¬ 
ern type you will find it an excellent ma¬ 
chine for reducing stale bread and crusts 
to a crumbly condition, in which they 
may be fed either alone or mixed with 
other feeds. Kitchen scraps, particularly 
from hotels and restaurants, are apt to 
contain a considerable proportion of meat, 
and to become sour and musty; they should 
therefore be fed with caution. m. b. d. 
Tile Henhouse. 
I am building a chicken coop this Spring 
of clay building tile. I expect to build It 
14 by 50 feet, open front, five by seven feet 
high, facing the south. Which side for the 
high side, the north or south? How can I 
safely anchor the roof to the tile so the 
wind won’t blow it off? I expect to use 
galvanized roofing. b. w. T. 
Copley, O. 
The high side of your building should 
face the south, and you will economize in 
material, while getting the same amount 
of floor space, by constructing a shorter 
building of greater depth. A building 
20x35 feet will give you the same floor, 
capacity as the one you propose, and will 
require much less material for the front 
and rear walls, with the addition only of 
that required to build a narrow strip in 
each end wall. In such a building the 
front windows should be carried nearly to 
the plate to permit the sun to reach to 
the rear of the building. To anchor the | 
roof the plates should be fastened to the 
tiles by means of bolts having their heads 
embedded in the mortar of the last course 
and projecting far enough to pass through 
the plates and take a nut. M. B. D. 
Egg-Bound Pullets. 
We have a flock of White Leghorn pul¬ 
lets ; several of them have become egg- 
boiind. What is the cause, and what rem¬ 
edy is advisable? I have administered 
salts which has helped them, but after a 
week or so they have the same trouble. 
When they Anally drop the eggs, some have 
soft shells and some do not have any shell. 
They have been fed on oats and wheat, 
with corn at night during the coldest 
weather, are given beets and cabbage, have 
had meat once a week, and have dry mash 
and grit, ashes and oystershells and plenty 
of water. They have been confined to the 
house since November, with straw and 
clover chaff on the floor to scratch in. 
Prattsburg, N. Y. G. w. 
It is not unusual for pullets laying their 
first eggs to be occasionally egg-bound, but 
if the trouble persists and is general in 
the flock, it indicates some fault in their 
care which has lowered the vitality of the 
fowls. Conditions most likely to produce 
this trouble are overfeeding of meat or 
other highly stimulating food, combined 
with too close confinement, and lack of 
that vigorous exercise which tends to pro¬ 
mote good digestion and general physical 
welfare. If you will give your fowls out 
of door range and provide them with a 
deep litter in which they must scratch 
vigorously for their grain when necessarily 
confined to their house, and at the same 
time see that you do not overfeed or stimu¬ 
late them in your desire to produce a large 
egg yield. I think that you will find that 
the trouble will disappear. m. b. d. 
Hens with Brain Trouble. 
I have 100 White Leghorn hens of last 
Spring’s hatch. Can anyone tell me the 
cause and cure for a hen when its head 
bends to one side and whirls around and 
around? After it has done this for a few 
minutes it gets up and walks off, but soon 
has just such another “spasm.” h. s. 
Moravia, N. Y. 
The symptoms shown by your fowls are 
those of some disturbance in the brain or 
other part of the central nervous system, 
and the trouble is incurable. If many 
fowls in a flock were so affected I should 
consider it probably due to lack of vigor 
in the breeding stock caused by too close 
inbreeding, improper feeding, or unhygienic 
surroundings, and I should seek to remove 
whatever source of difficulty an investiga¬ 
tion into these points might reveal. 
M. B. D. 
Soft Yolks and Shells. 
Can you tell me why fresh-laid eggs have 
soft yolks, also why eggs have soft shells, 
when oyster shells are by them all the 
time? The hens have been confined all 
Winter. E. a. l. 
Concord, N. II. 
Soft yolks in fresh-laid eggs, together 
with soft shells where plenty of lime is 
given the hens, are an indication of a de¬ 
bilitated condition of the fowls, usually 
due to improper care or feeding. Too close 
confinement, lack of exercise, too much 
corn or buckwheat in their rations to the 
exclusion of oats, wheat and vegetable 
food, and damp, dirty and unsanitary sur¬ 
roundings, are all contributing causes to 
such a condition. It is impossible to say 
just what the cause is in your case with¬ 
out knowing more about your conditions, 
but the statement that your hens have been 
confined all Winter may furnish the clue 
to the source of your trouble, and with 
these hints in mind I think that you will 
undoubtedly be able to locate and correct 
the difficulty. M. b, d. 
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