The first year’s hatches will carry you from February of one year to 
the middle of August of the next—or until such earlier time as your second- 
season birds, by coming into the laying age, shall make it profitable for 
you to dispose of the older layers. 
Naturally it occurs to you now that since you made preparation to 
accommodate only a certain number of birds, you will have no room to 
take care of additional chicks during each spring and summer. 
The answer to this objection is that you prepared to accommodate 
a certain number of birds during all seasons. Now, the space required to 
hover 100 baby chicks is only about 4 feet, which can always be made 
available at one end of the poultry house in the way shown in 
Fig. 2. Before the chicks shall have attained their growth, spring will 
be at hand. 
Throughout the spring and summer your birds will spend but little 
time in the poultry house during the day; most of the time they will be 
out in the air and sunshine getting their exercise. And inasmuch as they 
will use the house chiefly to roost in, there will be ample room to keep the 
entire flock in comfort till the older birds are disposed of in the fall. 
If your plan were to increase the size of your flock every year, you 
would of course require additional room to meet the increase. So long 
as you have only a vacant lot or back yard to operate in, however, it will 
be better to hold to the Rancocas Back-Yard Unit of 24 full-grown hens 
during the fall and winter months. 
Chief among the advantages of doing one’s own hatching are the 
satisfaction of watching the process of incubation—observing the chick 
from the moment it begins to develop in the shell; freedom from depend¬ 
ence upon others for high-grade baby chicks; and the profit to be derived 
from the sale of baby chicks to neighbors at 15 cents each. 
Many to whom the plan of hatching their own chicks will not appeal 
will nevertheless want to raise their own birds, first because of the diversion 
it will afford from business cares, and secondly because it will appear 
to them a better plan than that of buying pullets in the fall of each 
year and selling them just before their first molt in August of the follow¬ 
ing year. 
Should you prefer to begin with day-old chicks, you will follow the 
same plan as if you were to start with hatching eggs—except that you 
will buy chicks in February and April instead of eggs in January and 
March. 
One hundred day-old chicks bought in two lots of 50 each will cost 
$20—$10 more than 100 hatching eggs, but you will have no incubator 
to buy. 
Having started with 100 chicks instead of with but 65, you should 
have at the end of 6 months 80 vigorous birds, of which 48 should be pul¬ 
lets and 32 cockerels. Selling the cockerels at 50 cents each and the extra 
pullets at $1.50 each, you will reap as your first income $52. 
From this time on your profits will be the same as if you had started 
with hatching eggs. All things considered, it is probable that your profits, 
year in and year out, will be about the same whether you begin with 
Plenty of 
Room 
Plan 2— 
Starting With 
Day-Old 
Chicks 
9 
