At about 10 o’clock, on the morning after the chicks have been placed 
under the hover, their drinking fountains should be filled with clean water 
from which the chill has been taken off. The temperature of the water 
should be between 60 and 70 degrees, and the fountains should be so placed 
that the chicks can get at them easily. Be sure to have the fountains level, 
so as to prevent water from running over into the litter. Should any of 
your litter become wet, replace it promptly with dry litter. 
From this time on, fresh water should be kept within easy reach of 
your chickens during every hour of their lives. 
Begin feeding rolled oats—plain Quaker Oats such as you can buy at 
almost any grocery store—about 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the day 
following the transfer of your chicks to the hover. 
Do not cook the oats. Feed them just as they come to you from the 
store. 
Take a small pinch, about what you can hold between three fingers 
and the thumb, crumble it a little, and scatter it on the feeding board. 
When the chicks have disposed of this, put more on. You will find that 
for the first 3 days a pinch will be required every 2 or 3 hours. 
Be careful to see that your chicks have cleaned up their food before 
giving more to them. Throw a little of it into the litter after the third 
day and make them scratch up an appetite—just as you and I should do 
between meals. 
On the morning of the third day after beginning to feed rolled oats, 
you should have on hand a preparation called “Baby-Chick Feed,” which 
you will be able to buy from any reliable poultry supply house. 
During the next 7 days this chick feed should be given to the chicks 
just as the rolled oats were—that is, small pinches of it should be scattered 
on the feeding board and in the litter. After the 10th day all grain food 
should be thrown into the litter. The necessity of scratching for it will 
sharpen the- appetite of the chicks. 
I would recommend that, provided your birds have picked up all the 
grit, you put a little more on the board about the 4th or 5th day—not 
much—just a small pinch or so. Chickens chew their food with a gizzard 
instead of with teeth. Grit in the gizzard is helpful to good digestion in 
the hen. 
Beginning with the 10th day you should be ready with a pound or two 
of fine, sifted charcoal, and about the same amount of very fine oyster 
shell. You should now make a mixture of one part charcoal and one part 
oyster shell, of which mixture you should put a sprinkling on the feeding 
board every 2 or 3 days. 
By this time it will be unnecessary to provide grit so often, because the 
chicks will be spending considerable time on the ground, where they will 
scratch up nearly enough grit and sand. 
When the chicks are 7 days old they will have arrived at the time when 
some of your table scraps can and should be fed to them. Take the tail¬ 
ings of your steaks, roasts, chops, and other meats, grind them in a meat 
chopper, and—for the first 2 days—feed the meat to your chicks in the 
proportion of 3 tablespoonfulls a day for 100 chicks. 
Water 
Don’t 
Overfeed 
Table Scraps 
13 
