I 
Vol. LXXII. No. 4196. 
THE SECRET OF CHICK RAISI 
Where Most Poultrymen Fa; 
PAST FAILURES.—In studying the 
years’ history in poultry raising one 
appalled by the number of absolute 
are signs apparent during the more recent years 
people are becoming a little more ratio! 
thoughts and actions regarding the poultry business 
and failures in such extensive ways have been less. 
It is interesting to note the usual cause or causes 
which have occasioned these thousands of abandoned 
NEW YORK, MARCH 29, 1913 
frs of experience and ripens into a successful 
an. Or else, as is more often the case, it is 
who goes into the business carefully at first, 
his experience in small doses, who is later able 
evelop a more extensive and profitable business. 
WHY DO CHICKS DIE?—“What is the matter 
ith my chicks?” is the most common chicken ques¬ 
tion during the Spring and Summer months. It would 
be useless to try to enumerate the causes which are 
apt to be responsible for so much sickness each Spring. 
With the economizing of labor and initial expense, 
and with the modern tendency for increased efficiency 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
ducers are poor breeders. It is well known that 
usually old hens make better breeders than pullets. 
Old hens usually are poor Winter layers, while the 
egg farmer relies on his pullets to furnish the bulk 
of his high-priced product. Occasionally excellent 
success is secured from a flock of pullets used as 
breeders. This most often occurs when such pullets 
are for some reason slow in maturing and do not 
exhaust their vitality in laying before the hatching 
season. For another very striking contrast, compare 
the results secured during the past two or three years 
from old experienced and successful poultry breeders 
GIVING YOUNG CHICKS A GOOD START IN LIFE. Fig. 145 
poultry houses, and in so doing one is immediately 
struck with the remarkably uniform length of life of 
these mushroom poultry plants. From one and one- 
half to two and one-half years seems to be the rule. 
If a plant can get through its second year and well 
started on its third it has a good chance of surviving. 
Usually such a plant has not been built all at once, 
but has had a gradual development. The many poul¬ 
try farms which have been built and started one 
Spring have a very interesting habit of wilting away 
a few months after the next Spring, or if the second 
Summer is passed then the crash comes during the 
third Summer. When we look for the cause it is 
not difficult to see that it lies in the failure of the 
chick crop. Nothing will discourage a chicken en¬ 
thusiast so much as the sight of dying chicks. It is 
the man who has the backbone in him to stick to it 
and the initiative about him that leads him to study 
out the why and remedy it, who lives over the first 
and maximum production, which has played such a 
prominent part in the process of standardizing the 
poultry business in late years, we have reached a place 
where we find the nature of the fowls rebel. We 
keep them in large flocks, we house them carefully 
all Winter long, and keep the conditions surrounding 
them under our control to a large extent. We feed 
them and tend to their requirements, all to the end 
that we shall be able to secure high production of 
eggs when the hens naturally should be resting. We 
make egg machines all the year round of our birds 
and should we be surprised that disease gains easy 
foothold? Should we wonder in the Spring, “What 
is the matter with our chicks?” Do you doubt that 
this is a very important factor in the raising of young 
chickens or in the general health and productiveness 
of the general flock. It has become a matter of his¬ 
tory already, and trap-nesting has only been carried 
on extensively for a few years, that the heavy pro- 
and fanciers with those of a large percentage of our 
poultry farms which have made a specialty in baby 
chicks. The birds exhibited by the old-line breeders 
have been wonders for their size, development, vigor 
and plumage; for instance, the size of White Rocks 
and the vigor of the R. I. Red, the narrow barring 
of the Barred Rocks and the symmetry and uniform¬ 
ity of the White Leghorns. Then look at the stock 
and the records on the “day-old chick” specialty farms, 
“Smaller profits this year than last” is a common re¬ 
port. Slow growing and poor producing stock is 
quite general. What is the answer? The system o£» 
breeding—that is the answer. One is mating up his 
hens with an eye to improvement and with an under¬ 
standing of the vital fundamental rules of nature. 
The other has been pushed with orders. He has used 
everything on the place as breeding stock, and taken 
each year more orders than he could probably fill. 
All his customers demanded their chicks in March, 
